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The Berlin Stories
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This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2010)
The Berlin Stories
TheBerlinStories.jpg
First edition
Author
Christopher Isherwood
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Publisher
New Directions
Publication date
1945[1]
Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN
0-8112-1804-X
OCLC
2709284
The Berlin Stories is a book consisting of two short novels by Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains. It was published in 1945.
The Berlin Stories was chosen as a Time 100 Best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
Plot[edit]
The two novellas are set in Berlin in 1931, just as Adolf Hitler was moving into power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this transition period of cafes and quaint avenues, grotesque nightlife and dreamers, and powerful mobs and millionaires.
The Berlin Stories was the starting point for the John Van Druten play I Am a Camera, which in turn went on to inspire the film I Am a Camera as well as the stage musical and film versions of Cabaret.
The character Sally Bowles is probably the best-known character from The Berlin Stories because of her later starring role in the Cabaret musical and film, although in The Berlin Stories, she is only the main character of one short story in Goodbye to Berlin.
See also[edit]
List of fiction set in Berlin
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/i/christopher-isherwood/berlin-stories.htm
External links[edit]
Time 100 Best English-language novels of the 20h century
New Directions Publishing Corp., the publishing company of Berlin Stories
The Berlin Stories
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I Am a Camera
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This article is about the play. For the associated film, see I Am a Camera (film). For the song by The Buggles, see I Am a Camera (song).
I Am a Camera
Julie Harris.jpg
Julie Harris as Sally Bowles
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, May 1952
Written by
John Van Druten
Adapted from the Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Characters
Christopher Isherwood
Fraulein Schneider
Fritz Wendel
Sally Bowles
Natalia Landauer
Clive Mortimer
Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge
Date premiered
November 28, 1951
Place premiered
Empire Theater, New York City
Subject
An English writer living in Berlin before the rise of the Hitler regime
Genre
Drama
Setting
A room in Fraulein Schneider's flat in Berlin 1930
I Am a Camera is a 1951 Broadway play by John Van Druten[1] [2] adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin, which is part of The Berlin Stories. The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."[3] The original production was staged by John Van Druten, with scenic and lighting design by Boris Aronson and costumes by Ellen Goldsborough.[1] It opened at the Empire Theatre in New York City on November 28, 1951 and ran for 214 performances before closing on July 12, 1952.[4]
The production was a critically acclaimed success for both Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of five Tony Awards of her career for Best Leading Actress in a play, and for Marian Winters, who won both the Theatre World Award and Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play. The play also won for John Van Druten the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best American Play (1952).[4] However it also earned the famous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica".[5][6]
Contents [hide]
1 Original Broadway Cast (1951)
2 Adaptations
3 References
4 External links
Original Broadway Cast (1951)[edit]
Christopher Isherwood - William Prince
Fraulein Schneider - Olga Fabian
Fritz Wendel - Martin Brooks
Sally Bowles - Julie Harris
Natalia Landauer - Marian Winters
Clive Mortimer - Edward Andrews
Mrs. Watson-Courtneidge - Catherine Willard
Adaptations[edit]
Film - I Am a Camera (1955) - screenplay by John Collier, music by Malcolm Arnold, starring Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters.
Broadway Musical - Cabaret (1966) - directed by Hal Prince, book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, starring Jill Haworth, Bert Convy, Lotte Lenya, Jack Gilford, and Joel Grey.
Film Musical - Cabaret (1972) - directed by Bob Fosse, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, starring Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey and Michael York.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Van Druten, John (1951). I Am a Camera. Random House, Inc.
2.Jump up ^ Van Druten, John (1998). I Am a Camera. Dramatists Play Service, Inc. ISBN 0822205459.
3.Jump up ^ Isherwood, Christopher (1963). The Berlin Stories: the Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. New Directions. ISBN 0811200701.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Playbill Vault. "I Am a Camera on Broadway". Retrieved 2013-10-27.
5.Jump up ^ Botto, Louis."Quotable Critics" playbill.com, May 28, 2008
6.Jump up ^ Friedman, M. (1989). "Commercial expressions in American humor: an analysis of selected popular-cultural works of the postwar era". Humor - International Journal of Humor Research 2 (3): 265–284. doi:10.1515/humr.1989.2.3.265. ISSN 1613-3722.
External links[edit]
I Am a Camera at the Internet Broadway Database
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Goodbye to Berlin
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)
Goodbye to Berlin
Isherwdgoigfj.jpg
First edition cover
Author
Christopher Isherwood
Language
English
Genre
Novel
Publisher
Hogarth Press
Publication date
1939
Pages
317
OCLC
5437385
Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 novel by Christopher Isherwood set in Weimar Germany. It is often published together with Mr Norris Changes Trains in a collection called The Berlin Stories.
Contents [hide]
1 Details
2 Adaptations
3 Notes
4 References
Details[edit]
The novel, a semiautobiographical account of Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the people he met. It is episodic, dealing with a large cast over a period of several years from late 1930 to early 1933. It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas. These are: "A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)," "Sally Bowles," "On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)," "The Nowaks," "The Landauers," and "A Berlin Diary (Winter 1932-3)."
Moving to Germany to work on his novel, Isherwood soon becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens: the caring landlady, Frl. Schroeder; the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers; Natalia Landauer, the rich, Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business; Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis.
The book, first published in 1939, highlights the groups of people who would be most at risk from Nazi intimidation. It was described by contemporary writer George Orwell as "Brilliant sketches of a society in decay." In his autobiography Without Stopping, the author and composer Paul Bowles suggests that Isherwood, whom he met in Berlin, may have borrowed his surname for the character Sally Bowles. Isherwood confirms this in his 1976 memoir Christopher and His Kind, writing, "[I] liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner."[1]
Adaptations[edit]
The novel was adapted into a Broadway play called I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (1951). It was a personal success for Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of her five Tony Awards for Best Leading Actress in a play, although it earned the infamous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica." The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page ("I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."). The play was then adapted into a less successful film, also called I Am a Camera (1955), with Laurence Harvey, Shelley Winters and Julie Harris, with screenplay by John Collier and music by Malcolm Arnold.
The book was then adapted into the Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) for which Liza Minnelli won an Academy Award for playing Sally.
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Christopher and His Kind, p. 60.
References[edit]
Isherwood, Christopher (1976). Christopher and His Kind. Avon Books, a division of The Hearst Corporation. ISBN 0-380-01795-4 (Discus edition).
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Mr Norris Changes Trains
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Mr Norris Changes Trains
MrNorrisChangesTrains.jpg
First edition
Author
Christopher Isherwood
Language
English
Publisher
Hogarth Press
Publication date
1935
Pages
280
OCLC
1160132
Mr Norris Changes Trains (published in the United States as The Last of Mr. Norris) is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with Goodbye to Berlin, another Isherwood novel, in a single volume, The Berlin Stories. Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s,[1] and the character of Mr Norris is based on Gerald Hamilton.[2]
Isherwood began work on a much larger work he called The Lost before paring down its story and characters to focus on Norris. The book was critically and popularly acclaimed but years after its publication Isherwood denounced it as shallow and dishonest.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Genesis
3 Isherwood's later disillusionment
4 Notes
5 References
Plot[edit]
The novel follows the movements of William Bradshaw, its narrator, who meets a nervous-looking man named Arthur Norris on a train going from the Netherlands to Germany. As they approach the frontier William strikes up a conversation with Mr Norris, who wears an ill-fitting wig and carries a suspect passport.
William and Mr Norris succeed in crossing the frontier. Afterward, Mr Norris invites William to dinner and the two become friends. In Berlin they see each other frequently (including eating ham and eggs at the first class restaurant of Berlin Friedrichstraße railway station). Several oddities of Mr Norris's personal life are revealed, one of which is that he is a masochist. Another is that he is a Communist, which is dangerous in Hitler-era Germany. Other aspects of Mr Norris's personal life remain mysterious. He seems to run a business with an assistant Schmidt, who tyrannises him. Norris gets into more and more straitened circumstances and has to leave Berlin.
Norris subsequently returns with his fortunes restored and apparently conducting communication with an unknown Frenchwoman called Margot. Schmidt reappears and tries to blackmail Norris. Norris uses Bradshaw as a decoy to get an aristocratic friend of his, Baron Pregnitz, to take a holiday in Switzerland and meet "Margot" under the guise of a Dutchman. Bradshaw is urgently recalled by Ludwig Bayer (based on Willi Münzenberg)[3] one of the leaders of the Communist groups, who explains that Norris was spying for the French and both his group and the police know about it. Bradshaw observes they are being followed by the police and persuades Norris to leave Germany. After the Reichstag fire, the Nazis eliminate Bayer and most of Norris's comrades. Bradshaw returns to England where he receives intermittent notes and postcards from Norris, who has fled Berlin, pursued by Schmidt. The novel's last words are drawn from a postcard that Mr Norris sends to William from Rio de Janeiro: "What have I done to deserve all this?"
Genesis[edit]
Isherwood originally intended to call this novel The Lost, a title he conceived in German, Die Verlorenen. The title The Lost would have encompassed three different meanings: "those who have lost their way", by which he meant Germans who were being misled by Adolf Hitler; "the doomed", those like the character Bernard Landauer whom Hitler had already marked for destruction; and "those whom respectable Society regards as moral outcasts", like the characters Sally Bowles, Otto Nowak and Mr Norris himself.[4] Isherwood began writing the book in 1934, while he and his companion Heinz Neddermayer were living in the Canary Islands. The Lost was initially planned as a much more comprehensive work, but Isherwood jettisoned much of the material and many of the characters, including Sally Bowles, the Nowaks and the Landauers, to focus on Mr Norris. This process he likened to the surgery performed to separate Siamese twins, "freeing Norris from the stranglehold of his brothers and sisters".[5] The excised material formed the basis for the rest of his Berlin Stories. He completed work on the novel on 12 August of that year.[6]
Initially Isherwood planned to write the novel in the third person, but when he decided to narrow the novel's focus to Norris he changed to first person. He believed that this would allow the reader to "experience" Mr Norris as Isherwood had experienced Gerald Hamilton.[7]
The name of the narrator, William Bradshaw, is drawn from Isherwood's full name, Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood. In subsequent novels Isherwood changed the narrator's name to "Christopher Isherwood", having come to regard "William Bradshaw" as a "foolish evasion". Isherwood did not explicitly claim that he was William Bradshaw although the novel describes Isherwood's own experiences. He sought to make the narrator as unobtrusive as possible so as to keep readers focused on Norris. Although Isherwood was living more or less openly as a homosexual, he balked at making Bradshaw homosexual as well. In part this was to help the average reader identify with the narrator by minimising the differences between the narrator and the reader. Not to do so meant that "The Narrator would have become so odd, so interesting, that his presence would have thrown the novel out of perspective. ... The Narrator would have kept upstaging Norris's performance as the star." Isherwood's decision had a more pragmatic reason as well; he had no desire to cause a scandal and feared that should he cause one his uncle, who was financially supporting him, would cut him off. Yet Isherwood had no interest in making Bradshaw heterosexual either, so the Narrator has no scenes of a sexual nature.[8]
The novel was still titled The Lost when Isherwood mailed the manuscript to Hogarth Press for publication, but the title was eventually changed to Mr Norris Changes Trains. Isherwood meant to evoke with that title not only Norris's continual moves from country to country to avoid his enemies and creditors, but also his constantly shifting political alliances and interests.[6] Isherwood's friend Stephen Spender preferred the original title, saying of the new one that "It gives one the sense of earrings."[9] An employee at William Morrow and Company, Isherwood's American publisher, told Isherwood that no one in the United States would understand the term "changes trains" and so Isherwood supplied the alternate title The Last of Mr Norris.[10] "He thereby created the false impression that these are two different novels, one the sequel to the other. Which ... led to much wearisome correspondence with readers, setting the record straight."[11]
Isherwood's later disillusionment[edit]
Although Mr Norris Changes Trains was a critical and popular success, Isherwood later condemned it, believing that he had lied about himself through the characterisation of the narrator and that he did not truly understand the suffering of the people he had depicted. In his introduction to an edition of Gerald Hamilton's memoir Mr Norris and I (1956) Isherwood wrote:
What repels me now about Mr Norris is its heartlessness. It is a heartless fairy-story about a real city in which human beings were suffering the miseries of political violence and near-starvation. The "wickedness" of Berlin's night-life was of the most pitiful kind; the kisses and embraces, as always, had price-tags attached to them, but here the prices were drastically reduced in the cut-throat competition of an over-crowded market. ... As for the "monsters", they were quite ordinary human beings prosiacally engaged in getting their living through illegal methods. The only genuine monster was the young foreigner who passed gaily through these scenes of desolation, misinterpreting them to suit his childish fantasy.[12]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1945), "Preface"
2.Jump up ^ Singh, p. 71
3.Jump up ^ Miles (2010), p. 81
4.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 175
5.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 178
6.^ Jump up to: a b Isherwood (1976), p. 188
7.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 184
8.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1976), pp. 184—86
9.Jump up ^ quoted in Isherwood (1976), p. 189
10.Jump up ^ Fryer, p. 144
11.Jump up ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 189
12.Jump up ^ quoted in Fryer, pp. 146—47
References[edit]
Fryer, Jonathan (1977). Isherwood: A Biography. Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12608-5.
Isherwood, Christopher (1945). "Preface", The Berlin Stories. New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Isherwood, Christopher (1976). Christopher and His Kind. Avon Books, a division of The Hearst Corporation. ISBN 0-380-01795-4 (Discus edition).
Miles, Jonathan (2010). The Nine Lives of Otto Katz. The Remarkable Story of a Communist Super-Spy. London, Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-82018-8.
Singh, R.B. (1994). The English Novels During the Nineteen-thirties. Atlantic. ISBN 81-7156-384-8.
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I Am a Camera (film)
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I Am a Camera
IAACDVD.jpg
Region 2 DVD cover
Directed by
Henry Cornelius
Produced by
John Woolf
Jack Clayton (associate producer)
Screenplay by
John Collier
Based on
The Berlin Stories
by Christopher Isherwood (book)
I Am a Camera
by John Van Druten (play)
Starring
Julie Harris
Laurence Harvey
Shelley Winters
Ron Randell
Lea Seidl
Anton Diffring
Music by
Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography
Guy Green
Edited by
Clive Donner
Production
company
Remus Films
Distributed by
Independent Film Distributors (UK)
Distributors Corporation of America (US)
Release dates
21 July 1955 (UK and LA)[1]
Running time
98 minutes
Country
UK
Language
English
Box office
£144,666 (UK)[2]
I Am a Camera is a British comedy-drama film released in 1955. Based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood and the play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, the film is a fictionalized account of Isherwood's time living in Berlin between the World Wars. Directed by Henry Cornelius from a script by John Collier, I Am a Camera stars Laurence Harvey as Isherwood and Julie Harris recreating her Broadway success as Sally Bowles.
I Am a Camera was critically unsuccessful upon its release in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and the film was subjected to restrictive ratings. Long overshadowed by Cabaret, the 1966 stage and 1972 film adaptation of the same source material, contemporary critics have noted the historic interest of this earlier presentation.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Ratings and certification
5 Critical response
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links
Plot[edit]
In contemporary London, Christopher Isherwood attends a literary party for the launch of a memoir, the author of which he is surprised to learn is Sally Bowles. This knowledge sparks a reverie and the film flashes back to Berlin, New Year's Eve 1931. Broke and frustrated with his writing, Christopher plans to spend the night in but his would be gigolo friend Fritz insists they go to a night club to see Fritz's new inamorata, Sally Bowles, perform. Fritz hopes to live off Sally's earnings as a film star but his ardor quickly cools at the sight of her fiancé Pierre, with whom she plans to leave for Paris that night. Instead, Pierre absconds with her money. Chris, taking pity on her, invites her to stay at his boarding house. They arrange for Chris to move to a smaller room and for Sally to take his old room. Over the course of a long and unproductive winter in which Chris cannot write and Sally finds no work, Chris attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with Sally. She rejects him, saying it would spoil their friendship.
Their spirits renewed by the Spring, Christopher and Sally splurge on a Champagne Cocktail at a café and Sally quickly orders far more cocktails and caviar than they can afford. They are extricated from the situation by wealthy American socialite Clive Mortimer, who pays their check and takes them on a tour of Berlin night spots. Thus begins a whirlwind relationship between the three culminating in a planned trip to Honolulu. The trip never happens, as Clive wires that his plans have changed. Chris and Sally have a terrible fight, resulting in a rift in their friendship and Sally's planned departure.
Feeling as though he has reconnected with real life, the formerly apolitical Christopher starts a street altercation with a group of Nazis. Returning home he discovers that Sally has not left because she is pregnant. Christopher proposes marriage but Sally refuses him.
Writing up an account of his Nazi altercation, Chris sells his "Portrait of Berlin" to an American magazine to raise money for Sally to have an abortion. The magazine editor hires Chris to write a series of Portraits of European cities, expecting him to leave the following day. When he returns home Sally has changed her mind; she plans to keep the baby and marry Chris. The next morning, Sally tells Chris that she has mis-figured the dates and was never actually pregnant. She is also leaving Berlin for Paris, in pursuit of a film executive with whom Clive has connected her.
Back in present-day London, Christopher and Sally reunite. Upon learning that Sally is again penniless and homeless, Chris invites her to stay in his spare room.
In a subplot, Fritz tries to secure the affections of Natalia Landauer, a wealthy Jewish department store heiress and Christopher's student of English. When Natalia fails to respond to his charms, Sally suggest that he "pounce", make a sexual advance. He reports that this tactic is unsuccessful and Natalia refuses to see him. Fritz confesses to Christopher that he is Jewish and has been concealing it for years, but vows to stop lying about his heritage. Their story concludes with their announcement to Chris and Sally that they plan to marry and emigrate to Switzerland.
Cast[edit]
Julie Harris as Sally Bowles
Laurence Harvey as Christopher Isherwood
Shelley Winters as Natalia Landauer
Ron Randell as Clive Mortimer
Lea Seidl as Fräulein Schneider
Anton Diffring as Fritz Wendel
Jean Gargoetas Pierre
Production[edit]
With a successful West End run in 1954, film producers John and James Woolf began exploring the idea of adapting Van Druten's play for the screen. In April 1954, director Henry Cornelius and the Woolfs sent a copy of the play to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for evaluation. The Board's preliminary report found numerous problems with the play which if unchanged would inevitably lead to an X certificate (no one under 16 admitted). The Board's initial report offered suggestions for how the play could be adapted to secure an A certificate (suitable for children if accompanied by an adult), including shifting the play's focus away from Sally Bowles, but recognized that such changes were unlikely because of how markedly they would depart from the original play.[3]
Director Henry Cornelius asked Isherwood to write the screenplay. He was forced to decline, as he was engaged working on the screenplay for Diane, a biopic of Diane de Poitiers, for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood.[4]
The first draft of John Collier's screenplay was submitted to the BBFC in October 1954. While the screenplay was being prepared, the Board sent four different examiners to see the play. Each agreed that the play as written was unsuitable for filming, although one held out hope that modifications could be made to allow for the A rating.[5] The BBFC demanded changes to the script, including insisting that Sally Bowles be left poor and unsuccessful at film's end because of her sexual promiscuity in the Berlin flashbacks.[6] Negotiations between filmmakers and the Board continued through November. Finally on 29 November, a resolution was reached which left filmmakers prepared for the likelihood that the film would be certified X regardless.[7]
Filming commenced in mid-October 1954. Cornelius had wanted to film in Berlin but was unable to because of currency issues with the studio.[1] Isherwood had hoped to be in London for the filming but his lover Don Bachardy was unable to secure the permission of his local draft board to obtain a passport.[8]
Ratings and certification[edit]
The BBFC reviewed I Am a Camera on 9 May 1955 and objected to a single line of dialogue ("Surely he hasn't got a crush on shoes at his age?") that carried an implication of foot fetishism.[7] With that line replaced, the film received an X certificate.[9] In 1961 Associated-Rediffusion asked the BBFC to review the film, hoping to secure an A certificate so as to broadcast the film on television. While acknowledging that the subject matter was mild in light of subsequent films like Room at the Top, Look Back in Anger and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the BBFC found that the abortion subject matter prevented re-certification without re-editing.[10]
Upon its American release I Am a Camera was denied the Production Code Administration seal of approval.[11] Joseph Breen of the PCA had reviewed a copy of the Van Druten play as early as May 1953 and deemed it to have multiple Code violations. His recommendations were sent to John Van Druten, who disregarded them.[9] The PCA's Geoffrey M. Shurlock, in denying PCA approval to the finished film, cited "gross sexual promiscuity on the part of the leading lady without the proper compensating moral values required by the Code".[12] This included the film's treatment of the subject of abortion. Many theaters would not run the film without the seal.
Fred J. Schwartz, head of American distributor Distributors Corporation of America, tried to schedule a hearing with the Motion Picture Association of America in August 1955, hoping to overturn the PCA decision and obtain the seal. Schwartz hired civil liberties lawyer Morris Ernst and scheduled a screening at the Museum of Modern Art in November, hoping to turn the film into a test case against the Production Code. However, the film did not rally the critical support it would have needed to defy the code in the way that the 1953 film The Moon Is Blue had. In February 1956, Schwartz wrote to Shurlock offering to include an additional scene in which Harvey as Isherwood condemned Sally's promiscuity but would not address the subject of abortion. The Production Code section on abortion was revised in December 1956 and Schwartz once again appealed to Shurlock. Shurlock responded later that month, re-affirming the denial on the basis of the light treatment of the subject matter. Following this denial Schwartz dropped his pursuit of the seal.[13]
On 25 August 1955, the National Legion of Decency condemned I Am a Camera and at least one theater pulled the film in response to attacks on the film by Catholic priests.[14]
Critical response[edit]
British critics were nearly uniform in their disappointment with I Am a Camera, with negative reviews appearing in the Evening News, the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Daily Mirror, the News Chronicle and Tribune. Each believed that Laurence Harvey had been miscast as Isherwood. For the most part they agreed that Harris's performance was a bright spot, although the Daily Sketch expressed a preference for Dorothy Tutin,[15] who had played Sally on stage in 1954.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave I Am a Camera a bad review, finding it "meretricious, insensitive, superficial and just plain cheap". Crowther was particularly appalled by John Collier's script, blasting it for largely abandoning both the Van Druten and Isherwood source material. He also sharply criticized the abortion material, deeming it a "capstone of cheap contrivance and tasteless indelicacy". Julie Harris he labeled a "show-off" while Laurence Harvey is "an anxious straight man for her jokes", with all parties directed by Cornelius with no eye to any subtlety of character.[16]
In an August 1955 pictorial, LIFE magazine called the film's party sequence "violently funny". LIFE praised Harris's acting while at the same time finding the film spends too much time on Harris's character. Still, LIFE felt confident in predicting the film's success.[11]
Julie Harris was nominated for a 1956 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress.[17]
Isherwood recorded his distaste for the film in his diary, noting his attendance at a 22 June 1955 preview. He found the film "a truly shocking and disgraceful mess. I must admit that John Collier is largely to blame – for a sloppy, confused script. But everything is awful-except for Julie, who was misdirected."[18] In a letter to friend John Lehmann Isherwood called the film "disgusting ooh-la-la, near pornographic trash – a shameful exhibition".[19]
On the occasion of its video release in 1985, Lawrence Van Gleder for The New York Times found that this film, while suffering in comparison with the more lavish Cabaret, is still charming in its way, mostly because of Harris's performance as Sally.[20]
Phil Hall reviewed I Am a Camera for Film Threat in 2005. He questioned the casting of Harvey as Isherwood, saying that the role called for a light comedic touch that was never Harvey's forte. Harvey's underplaying of the part, he wrote, clashes with Harris's unrestrained stage-style performance of hers. Still, he found that the film is "an intriguing curio" that garners interest for its exploration of the anti-Semitism that gave rise to the Nazis and for its handling of "touchier aspects" of the original sources, including Isherwood's homosexuality[note 1] and Sally's abortion, which became a false pregnancy scare for the film.[21]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Isherwood lived as more or less openly gay in Berlin but concealed his homosexuality in the source material; the film would state only that the character Isherwood was a "confirmed bachelor".
1.^ Jump up to: a b Mayer, p. 200
2.Jump up ^ Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p506
3.Jump up ^ Aldgate and Robertson, pp. 66–7
4.Jump up ^ Fryer, pp. 250–51
5.Jump up ^ Aldgate and Robertson, pp. 70–3
6.Jump up ^ Harper and Porter, p. 171
7.^ Jump up to: a b Aldgate and Robertson, p. 73
8.Jump up ^ Isherwood, p. 465
9.^ Jump up to: a b Slide, p. 80
10.Jump up ^ Aldgate and Robertson, pp. 75–6
11.^ Jump up to: a b "Wildest Movie Binge". LIFE magazine. 8 August 1955. pp. 57–8.
12.Jump up ^ Shurlock, quoted in Slide, p. 80
13.Jump up ^ Slide, pp. 80–2
14.Jump up ^ Slide, pp. 80–1
15.Jump up ^ Aldgate and Robertson, p. 75
16.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley (9 August 1955). "Screen: 'I Am a Camera'". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
17.Jump up ^ Mayer, p. 201
18.Jump up ^ Isherwood, p. 509
19.Jump up ^ Lehmann, p. 92
20.Jump up ^ NEW CASSETTES: FROM 'COPPERFIELD' TO TOSCANINI
21.Jump up ^ THE BOOTLEG FILES: “I AM A CAMERA”
References[edit]
Aldgate, Anthony and James Chrighton Robertson (2005). Censorship in Theatre and Cinema. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1961-5.
Fryer, Jonathan (1977). Isherwood: A Biography. Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12608-5.
Harper, Sue and Vincent Porter (2003). British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-815934-X.
Isherwood, Christopher, and Katherine Bucknell (ed.) (1996). Diaries Volume One: 1939—1960. Michael di Capua Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-118000-9.
Lehmann, John (1987). Christopher Isherwood: A Personal Memoir. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-1029-7.
Mayer, Geoff (2003). Guide to British Cinema. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-30307-X.
Slide, Anthony (1998). 'Banned in the USA': British Films in the United States and Their Censorship, 1933–1960. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-254-3.
External links[edit]
I Am a Camera at the Internet Movie Database
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Cabaret (musical)
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"Tomorrow Belongs to Me" redirects here. For the Sensational Alex Harvey Band album, see Tomorrow Belongs to Me (album).
For the 1972 film, see Cabaret (1972 film).
Cabaret
Cabaret OBC.jpg
Original Broadway Cast recording
Music
John Kander
Lyrics
Fred Ebb
Book
Joe Masteroff
Basis
John Van Druten's play
I Am a Camera
Productions
1966 Broadway
1968 West End
1972 Film
1986 West End revival
1987 Broadway revival
1989 Argentina
1998 Broadway revival
2003 Spain revival
2006 Spain National Tour
2006 West End revival
2008 UK Tour
2008 Portugal
2008 Argentina revival
2010 Massachusetts, US
2011 Cameri Theater, Israel
2012 Brazil revival
2012 West End Revival
2013 Merzig, Germany
2014 Broadway revival
Awards
Tony Award for Best Musical
Tony Award for Best Score
Tony Award for Best Revival
Drama Desk for Outstanding Revival
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit, inspiring numerous subsequent productions in London and New York, as well as the 1972 film by the same name.
It is based on John Van Druten's 1951 play I Am a Camera, which was adapted from the short novel Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood. Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it is based in nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with the young American writer Cliff Bradshaw.
A sub-plot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub. The club serves as a metaphor for the threatening state of late Weimar Germany.
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Productions 2.1 Original Broadway production
2.2 Original London production
2.3 1986 London revival
2.4 1987 Broadway revival
2.5 1993 London revival
2.6 1998 Broadway revival
2.7 2006 London revival
2.8 2012 London revival
2.9 2014 Broadway revival
2.10 Other productions
3 Synopsis 3.1 Act I
3.2 Act II
4 Character list
5 Songs 5.1 Notes on the music
5.2 Recordings
6 Awards and nominations 6.1 Original Broadway production
6.2 1987 Broadway revival
6.3 1993 London revival
6.4 1998 Broadway revival
6.5 2006 London revival
6.6 2012 London revival
6.7 2014 Broadway revival
7 References
8 External links
Background[edit]
Sandy Wilson, who had achieved success with The Boy Friend in the 1950s, had completed the book and most of the score for Goodbye to Berlin, his adaptation of I Am a Camera, when he discovered that producer David Black's option on both the 1951 Van Druten play and its source material by Christopher Isherwood had lapsed and been acquired by Harold Prince. Prince commissioned Joe Masteroff to work on the book. When Prince and Masteroff agreed Wilson's score failed to capture the essence of late-1920s Berlin, John Kander and Fred Ebb were invited to join the project.
The new version was initially a dramatic play preceded by a prologue of songs describing the Berlin atmosphere from various points of view. As the composers began to distribute the songs between scenes, they realized the story could be told in the structure of a more traditional book musical, and they replaced some of the songs with tunes more relevant to the plot. Isherwood's original characters were changed as well. The male lead became an American writer who teaches English; the anti-Semitic landlady was transformed into a tolerant woman with a Jewish beau, Herr Schultz, who owned a fruit store; two language students were eliminated; and two loathsome but integral characters—prostitute Fräulein Kost and Nazi Ernst Ludwig—were added to the mix. The musical ultimately expressed two stories in one: the first a revue centered on the decadence of the seedy Kit Kat Klub; the second a story set in the society of the club.[1]
After seeing one of the last rehearsals before the company headed to Boston for the pre-Broadway run, Jerome Robbins suggested the musical sequences outside the cabaret be eliminated. Prince ignored his advice. In Boston, Jill Haworth struggled with her characterization of cabaret performer Sally Bowles. Critics thought the blonde dressed in a white dress suggested senior prom more than tawdry nightclub.
Prince's staging was unusual for the time. As the audience filled the theater, the curtain was already up, revealing a stage containing nothing but a large mirror reflecting the auditorium. There was no overture; instead, a drum roll and cymbal crash led into the opening number. The juxtaposition of dialogue scenes with songs used as exposition and separate cabaret numbers providing social commentary was a novel concept that initially startled the audience, but as they gradually came to understand the difference between the two, they were able to accept the reasoning behind them.[2]
Productions[edit]
Original Broadway production[edit]
After 21 previews, the original Broadway production, directed by Harold Prince and choreographed by Ron Field, opened on November 20, 1966 at the Broadhurst Theatre, eventually transferring to the Imperial and then the Broadway before finally completing its 1,165-performance run. The cast included Jill Haworth as Sally, Bert Convy as Cliff, Lotte Lenya as Fräulein Schneider, Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz, Joel Grey as the Emcee, Edward Winter as Ernst and Peg Murray as Fräulein Kost. Replacements later in the run included Anita Gillette and Melissa Hart as Sally, Ken Kercheval and Larry Kert as Cliff, and Martin Ross as the Emcee.
The 1968 roadshow (Broadway Company National Tour) featured Melissa Hart (Sally), Signe Hasso (Fräulein Schneider) and Leo Fuchs (Herr Schultz). The tour included (as the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera), Ahmanson Theatre, and The Curran Theatre in San Francisco, also in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas.
Original London production[edit]
The first West End production opened on February 28, 1968 at the Palace Theatre with Judi Dench as Sally, Barry Dennen as the Emcee, Lila Kedrova as Fräulein Schneider and Peter Sallis as Herr Schultz. It ran for 336 performances.[3]
1986 London revival[edit]
London 1986 Revival Production
In 1986, the show was revived in London at the Strand Theatre starring Kelly Hunter as Sally, Peter Land as Cliff and Wayne Sleep as the Emcee, directed and choreographed by Gillian Lynne.
1987 Broadway revival[edit]
The first Broadway revival opened on October 22, 1987, with direction and choreography by Prince and Field. The revival opened at the Imperial Theatre, eventually transferring to the Minskoff to complete its 261-performance run. Joel Grey received star billing as the Emcee, with Alyson Reed as Sally, Gregg Edelman as Cliff, Regina Resnik as Fräulein Schneider, Werner Klemperer as Herr Schultz, and David Staller as Ernst Ludwig. The song "Don't Go" was added for Cliff's character.
1993 London revival[edit]
In 1993, Sam Mendes directed a new production of the show for the Donmar Warehouse in London's West End. It starred Jane Horrocks as Sally, Adam Godley as Cliff, Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Sara Kestelman as Frau Schneider. Cumming received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance and Kestelman won the Olivier for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical. Mendes' conception was very different from either the original production or the conventional first revival.
The most significant change was the character of the Emcee. The role, as played by Joel Grey in both prior incarnations, was an asexual, edgy character dressed in a tuxedo with rouged cheeks. Alan Cumming's portrayal was highly sexualized, as he wore suspenders (i.e. braces) around his crotch and red paint on his nipples.[4] The cabaret number "Two Ladies" was staged with the Emcee, a cabaret girl, and a cabaret boy in drag and included a shadow play simulating various sexual positions.[5] The score was entirely re-orchestrated, using synthesizer effects and expanding the stage band, with all the instruments now being played by the cabaret girls and boys. The brutally satiric "Sitting Pretty", with its mocking references to deprivation, despair and hunger, was eliminated entirely, as it had been in the film version, and replaced with "Money". "I Don't Care Much", which was cut from the original production, was reinstated, and "Mein Herr" and "Maybe This Time", from the film adaptation, were added to the score.[5]
Staging details differed as well; instead of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" being performed by a male choir, the Emcee plays a recording of a boy soprano singing it. In the final scene, the Emcee removes his outer clothes to reveal a striped suit of the type worn by the internees in concentration camps; on it were pinned a yellow badge (identifying Jews) and a pink triangle (denoting homosexuals). Other changes included added references to Cliff's bisexuality, including a brief scene where he kisses one of the Cabaret boys.[5]
1998 Broadway revival[edit]
The second Broadway revival was based on the 1993 Mendes-Donmar Warehouse production. For the Broadway transfer, Rob Marshall was brought on board as co-director and choreographer. The production opened after 37 previews on March 19, 1998 at the Kit Kat Klub, housed in what previously had been known as Henry Miller's Theatre. Later that year it transferred to Studio 54, where it remained for the rest of its 2,377-performance run, becoming the third longest-running revival in Broadway musical history, third only to Oh! Calcutta! and Chicago. For the Broadway production, Cumming reprised his role as the Emcee, opposite newcomers Natasha Richardson as Sally, John Benjamin Hickey as Cliff, Ron Rifkin as Herr Schultz, Michele Pawk as Fräulein Kost, and Mary Louise Wilson as Fräulein Schneider, along with Joyce Chittick, Leenya Rideout, Erin Hill, Christina Pawl, Kristen Olness, Michael O'Donnell, Bill Szobody and Fred Rose. The Broadway production was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning four for Cumming, Richardson and Rifkin, as well as the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. This production featured a number of notable replacements later in the run: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Susan Egan, Joely Fisher, Gina Gershon, Deborah Gibson, Teri Hatcher, Melina Kanakaredes, Jane Leeves, Molly Ringwald, Brooke Shields, and Lea Thompson as Sally; Michael C. Hall, Raúl Esparza, Neil Patrick Harris, Adam Pascal, Jon Secada, Norbert Leo Butz and John Stamos as the Emcee; Boyd Gaines and Michael Hayden as Cliff; Tom Bosley, Dick Latessa, Hal Linden, Laurence Luckinbill, and Tony Roberts as Herr Schultz; and Blair Brown, Polly Bergen, Mariette Hartley and Carole Shelley as Fräulein Schneider.
2006 London revival[edit]
In September 2006, a new production of the show opened at the Lyric Theatre, directed by Rufus Norris,[6] and starring Anna Maxwell Martin as Sally, James Dreyfus as the Emcee, Harriet Thorpe as Fräulein Kost and Sheila Hancock as Fräulein Schneider. Hancock won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical. Replacements later in the run included Kim Medcalf and Amy Nuttall as Sally, Honor Blackman and Angela Richards as Fräulein Schneider, and Julian Clary and Alistair McGowan as the Emcee. This production closed in June 2008 and toured nationally for two years with a cast that included Wayne Sleep as the Emcee and Samantha Barks and Siobhan Dillon as Sally.
2012 London revival[edit]
A revival opened in the West End at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 2012, following a four-week tour of the UK, including Bromley, Southampton, Nottingham, Norwich and Salford.[7] Will Young plays the Emcee and Michelle Ryan portrays Sally Bowles.[8] It was announced on 10 August 2012 that Siân Phillips, Harriet Thorpe and Matt Rawle would also be joining the cast. The production was made by the creative team behind the 2006 London revival, but they had created a different set, lighting, costumes, choreography and direction. The 2012 revival focuses more on comic aspects, but still expresses the harshness of 1931 Germany.[9] In August 2013 the show went on tour, again with Young as The Emcee, Siobhan Dillon reprising her role of Sally and Lyn Paul joining the cast as Fraulein Schnieder.[10]
2014 Broadway revival[edit]
In September 2013 Roundabout Theatre Company announced plans to return the company's acclaimed 1998 production to Studio 54 in New York.[11] For this, the show's third Broadway revival, Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall reprised their respective roles as director and co-director/choreographer to recreate their work from the earlier production. Alan Cumming starred again as the Emcee while Academy Award-nominee Michelle Williams made her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles. On October 7, 2013, Tony Award nominees Danny Burstein and Linda Emond joined the cast as Herr Schultz and Fraulein Schneider.[12] The production began a 24-week limited engagement with previews from March 21, 2014 with opening night on April 24, 2014. This engagement was later extended to a 36 week run concluding on January 4th, 2015. [13]
On August 21, 2014 it was officially confirmed that Emma Stone will replace Michelle Williams as Sally until February 1st 2015 after Williams leaves the production on November 9th, and Alan Cumming will continue in the role "The Emcee" until the show's current closing date in March 2015.[14]
Other productions[edit]
A BBC Radio 2 radio broadcast in 1996 at the Golders Green Hippodrome starred Claire Burt (Sally Bowles), Steven Berkoff (Emcee), Alex Hanson (Clifford Bradshaw), Keith Michell (Herr Schultz), and Rosemary Leach (Fraulein Schneider).
Since 2003, there have been successful international stagings of the show (many of which have been influenced by Mendes' concept), including productions in Texas (US), Colombia, Canada, Malaysia, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Melbourne, Peru, France, Venezuela, Serbia, Spain, Argentina, Israel and Greece. In 2008, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed an extremely powerful production at the Avon Theatre designed by Douglas Paraschuk and directed by Amanda Dehnert,[15] featuring Bruce Dow as the Emcee, Trish Lindström as Sally, Sean Arbuckle as Cliff, Nora McClellan as Fraulein Schneider and Frank Moore as Herr Schultz.
The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada announced a new production of Cabaret for its 2014 season.[16] The production, which will run from April 10 – October 26, 2014 at the Festival Theatre, is directed by Peter Hinton after the Mendes production with choreography by Denise Clarke and features Juan Chioran as the Emcee, Deborah Hay as Sally, Gray Powell as Cliff, Benedict Campbell as Herr Schultz, Corrine Koslo as Fraulein Schneider and Jay Turvey as Ernst.
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]
At the dawn of the 1930s in Berlin, the Nazi party is growing stronger. The Kit Kat Klub is a seedy cabaret, a place of decadent celebration. The Klub's Master of Ceremonies, or Emcee, together with the cabaret girls and waiters, warm up the audience ("Willkommen"). In a train station, Cliff Bradshaw arrives, a young American writer coming to Berlin to work on his new novel. He meets Ernst Ludwig, a German who offers Cliff work and recommends a boardinghouse. At the boardinghouse, Fräulein Schneider offers Cliff a room for one hundred marks; he can only pay fifty. After a brief debate, she relents and lets Cliff live there for fifty marks. Fräulein Schneider observes that she has learned to take whatever life offers ("So What?").
As Cliff visits the Kit Kat Klub, the Emcee introduces a British singer, Sally, who performs a racy, flirtatious number ("Don't Tell Mama"). Afterward, she asks Cliff to recite poetry for her; he recites "Casey at the Bat". Cliff offers to take Sally home, but she says that her boyfriend Max, the club's owner, is too jealous. Sally performs her final number at the Kit Kat Club aided by the female ensemble ("Mein Herr"). The cabaret ensemble performs a song and dance, calling each other on inter-table phones and inviting each other for dances and drinks ("The Telephone Song").
The next day, Cliff has just finished giving Ernst an English lesson when Sally arrives. Max has fired her and thrown her out, and now she has no place to live, and so she asks him if she can live in his room. At first he resists, but she convinces him (and Fräulein Schneider) to take her in ("Perfectly Marvelous"). The Emcee and two female companions sing a song ("Two Ladies") that comments on Cliff and Sally's unusual living conditions. Herr Schultz, an elderly Jewish fruit-shop owner who lives in her boardinghouse, has given Fräulein Schneider a pineapple as a gift ("It Couldn't Please Me More"). In the Kit Kat Klub, a young waiter starts to sing a song—a patriotic anthem to the Fatherland that slowly descends into a darker, Nazi-inspired marching song—becoming the strident "Tomorrow Belongs to Me". He initially sings a cappella, before the customers and the band join in.
Months later, Cliff and Sally are still living together and have fallen in love. Cliff knows that he is in a "dream," but he enjoys living with Sally too much to come to his senses ("Why Should I Wake Up?"). Sally reveals that she is pregnant, but she does not know the father and reluctantly decides to get an abortion. Cliff reminds her that it could be his child, and seems to convince her to have the baby. Ernst enters and offers Cliff a job—picking up a suitcase in Paris and delivering it to his "client" in Berlin—easy money. The Emcee comments on this "Sitting Pretty", or (in later versions) "Money".
Meanwhile, Fräulein Schneider has caught one of her boarders, Fräulein Kost, bringing sailors into her room. Fräulein Schneider forbids her from doing it again, but Fräulein Kost threatens to leave. She also mentions that she has seen Fräulein Schneider with Herr Schultz in her room. Herr Schultz saves Fräulein Schneider's reputation by telling Fräulein Kost that he and Fräulein Schneider are to be married in three weeks. After Fräulein Kost leaves, Fräulein Schneider thanks Herr Schultz for lying to Fräulein Kost. Herr Schultz says that he was serious and proposes to Fräulein Schneider ("Married").
At Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz's engagement party, Cliff arrives and delivers the suitcase to Ernst. A "tipsy" Herr Schultz sings "Meeskite" (Meeskite, he explains, is Yiddish for ugly or funny-looking), a song with a moral ("Anyone responsible for loveliness, large or small/Is not a meeskite at all"). Afterward, looking for revenge on Fräulein Schneider, Fräulein Kost tells Ernst, who now sports a Nazi armband, that Schultz is a Jew. Ernst warns Fräulein Schneider that marrying a Jew may not be wise. Fräulein Kost and company reprise "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", with more overtly Nazi overtones, as Cliff, Sally, Fräulein Schneider, Herr Schultz and the Emcee look on.
Act II[edit]
The cabaret girls, along with the Emcee in drag, perform a kick line routine which eventually becomes a goose-step. Fräulein Schneider expresses her concerns about her union to Herr Schultz, who assures her that everything will be all right ("Married" (Reprise)). They are interrupted by the crash of a brick being thrown through the window of Herr Schultz's fruit shop. Schultz tries to reassure her that it is just children making trouble, but Fräulein Schneider is afraid.
Back at the Kit Kat Klub, the Emcee performs a song-and-dance routine with a girl in a gorilla suit, singing that their love has been met with universal disapproval ("If You Could See Her"). Encouraging the audience to be more open-minded, he defends his ape-woman, concluding with, "if you could see her through my eyes... she wouldn't look Jewish at all." (The line was intended to shock the audience and make them consider how easily and unthinkingly they accepted prejudice, but protests and boycott threats from Jewish leaders in Boston led Ebb to write an alternate final line, "She isn't a Meeskite at all."[17]) Fräulein Schneider goes to Cliff and Sally's room and returns their engagement present, explaining that her marriage has been called off. When Cliff protests, saying that she can't just give up this way, she asks him what other choice she has ("What Would You Do?").
Cliff tells Sally that he is taking her back to America so that they can raise their baby together. Sally protests, declaring how wonderful their life in Berlin is, and Cliff sharply tells her to "wake up" and take notice of the growing unrest around them. Sally retorts that politics have nothing to do with them or their affairs. Following their argument, Sally returns to the club ("I Don't Care Much") (in the 1998 Broadway and 2012 London revivals, Sally takes cocaine before leaving Cliff's room). At the Kit Kat Klub after another heated argument with Sally, Cliff is accosted by Ernst, who has another delivery job for him. Cliff tries to brush him off, but when Ernst asks if Cliff's attitude towards him is because of "that Jew at the party", Cliff attacks him—only to be badly beaten up by Ernst's Nazi bodyguards and dragged out of the club. On stage, the Emcee introduces Sally, who enters to perform again, singing that "life is a cabaret, old chum," cementing her decision to live in carefree ignorance and freedom ("Cabaret").
The next morning, the bruised Cliff is packing, when Herr Schultz visits. He tells Cliff that he is moving to another boardinghouse, but is confident that the bad times will soon pass. He understands the German people, he says, because he is a German too. When Sally returns, she reveals that she has had an abortion; Cliff slaps her. He still hopes that she will join him, but Sally says that she has "always hated Paris" and hopes that when Cliff finally writes his novel, he will dedicate it to her. Cliff leaves, heartbroken.
On the train to Paris, Cliff begins to write his novel, reflecting on his experiences: "There was a cabaret, and there was a master of ceremonies ... and there was a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany ... and it was the end of the world." ("Willkommen" Reprise). In the Kit Kat Klub, the Emcee welcomes us (in the 1998 revival, he strips off his overcoat to reveal a concentration camp prisoner's uniform marked with a yellow Star of David and a pink triangle, and the backdrop raises to reveal an electric fence). The cabaret ensemble reprises "Willkommen", but it is now harsh and violent as the Emcee sings, "Auf Wiedersehen...à bientôt..." followed by a crescendo drum roll, a cymbal crash, where the emcee lurches forward and the lights violently flicker out (It is heavily implied that this signifies the emcee committing suicide by throwing himself on the electric fence)[18] . In the 2012 London revival, the letters spelling the word "Kabaret" are lined up on the stage; the Kit Kat Klub boys/girls, Sally and the Emcee walk through them to the back of the bare stage, stripping naked. Ernst then slowly crosses the stage, knocking over each letter, which falls with a crash. When he exits after knocking over the last letter, the naked cast members huddle together at the back of the stage, white flakes begin to fall down upon them and the sound of hissing gas is heard.
Character list[edit]
The Emcee – The Emcee of the Kit Kat Klub, a leering, ghoulish, flamboyant figure
Sally Bowles – The headlining British singer at the Kit Kat Klub
Clifford "Cliff" Bradshaw – An American writer traveling through Berlin
Fräulein Schneider – An older woman who runs the boarding house that Cliff and Sally live in
Herr Schultz – An elderly Jewish fruit shop owner who falls in love with Fraulein Schneider
Ernst Ludwig – A German man who befriends Cliff when he arrives in Berlin, later revealed to be a Nazi
Fräulein Kost – A prostitute who rents in Fraulein Schneider's boarding house
Rosie, LuLu, Frenchie, Texas, Fritzie, and Helga – Girls who perform alongside Sally at the Kit Kat Klub
Bobby, Victor, Hans, and Herman – The Cabaret boys of the Kit Kat Klub (Bobby and Victor are twins)
Nazi Youth – A young boy involved in the Nazi Party.
Sailors #1 and #2 – Fraulein Kost's sailors
Nazi Guard – Ernst's bodyguard at the Kit Kat Klub
Max – Owner of the Kit Kat Klub
Songs[edit]
Act I"Willkommen" – Emcee and Company
"So What?" – Fräulein Schneider
"Telephone Song" – Cliff and Company
"Don't Tell Mama" – Sally, Rosie, LuLu, Frenchy, Texas, Fritzy and Helga
"Mein Herr" – Sally (replaced "Telephone Dance" in 1998/2012 revival)
"Telephone Dance" – Company
"Perfectly Marvelous" – Sally and Cliff
"Two Ladies" – Emcee and Two Ladies (Bobby replaces one of the ladies in 1998 revival)
"It Couldn't Please Me More" – Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz
"Tomorrow Belongs to Me" – Nazi Youth/Waiters/Emcee
"Why Should I Wake Up?" – Cliff
"Don't Go" – Cliff (replaced "Why Should I Wake Up?" in 1987 revival)
"Maybe This Time" – Sally (replaced "Don't Go" in 1998/2012 revival)
"Sitting Pretty" – Emcee and Girls
"Money" - Emcee and Company (mashed up with "Sitting Pretty" in 1987 revival, and replaced "Sitting Pretty" in 1998 revival)
"Married" – Herr Schultz and Fräulein Schneider (Fräulein Kost in German)
"Meeskite" – Herr Schultz (Cut in 1987/98/2012 revivals)
"Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (Reprise) – Fräulein Kost, Ernst Ludwig and Company
Act IIEntr'acte / Kickline – Emcee and Girls
"Married" (Reprise) – Herr Schultz (Cut in 2012 revival)
"If You Could See Her (The Gorilla Song)" – Emcee
"What Would You Do?" – Fräulein Schneider
"I Don't Care Much" – Emcee (1987/98/2012 revivals)
"Cabaret" – Sally
Finale Ultimo – Company
Notes on the music[edit]
Of the prologue of songs originally planned, only "Willkommen" remained. One of the dropped numbers, "I Don't Care Much", was eventually restored to the 1987 production. "Roommates" was replaced by "Perfectly Marvelous", but largely serves the same purpose, for Sally to convince Cliff to let her move in with him. "Good Time Charlie" was to be sung by Sally to Cliff while they are on their way to Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz's engagement party, with Sally mocking the overly dour and pessimistic Cliff with the lines "You're such a Good Time Charlie/What'll we do with you?/You're such a Good Time Charlie/frolicking all the time..."). "It'll All Blow Over" was planned for the end of the first act: Fräulein Schneider is concerned that marrying a Jew might not be wise, and Cliff is concerned about the city's growing Nazism. In the song, Sally tells them both that they have nothing to worry about and that all will turn out well in the end. She eventually convinces Cliff and Fräulein Schneider to sing the song with her. (Both this song and "Roommates" are occasionally underscored by the ostinato rhythm of the piece.) These three deleted songs were recorded by Kander and Ebb, and the sheet music for the songs was included in The Complete Cabaret Collection, a book of vocal selections from the musical.
The song "Mein Herr", which was written for the 1972 film, and "Maybe This Time" (an earlier song of Kander and Ebb's, written for the unproduced musical Golden Gate) were included in the 1998 revival. In this revival, "Mein Herr" would replace "The Telephone Song", which already had a small appearance before "Don't Tell Mama". "Maybe This Time" replaced "Why Should I Wake Up?", and was sung by Sally in her own personal reflection (both were included in the 2012 London revival). Previously, in the 1987 revival, a new song was written for Cliff entitled "Don't Go".
In addition, there were two "Money" songs. Originally, the song "Sitting Pretty" was sung by the Emcee and backed up by the Cabaret girls in international costumes and their units of currency (representing Russian rubles, Japanese yen, French francs, American dollars, and German Deutschmarks). For the movie, this number was then replaced by "Money, Money", and sung by the Emcee and Sally Bowles. However, "Sitting Pretty" was still heard briefly in the film. For the 1987 revival, there was a special version comprising a medley of both money songs, and motifs from the later song were incorporated into the "international" dance that had "Sitting Pretty". For the 1998 revival, only the later song written for the movie was used. This version added the Cabaret Girls, and had a darker and raunchier edge to it.
Recordings[edit]
1999 studio cast recording
The first recording of Cabaret was the original cast album, with some of the songs (especially "Sitting Pretty"/"The Money Song") heavily edited to save disk space, and others (especially "Telephone Song") taken at a faster tempo.[citation needed] When this album was released on compact disc, Kander and Ebb's voice-and-piano recording of songs cut from the musical was added as bonus material.
The 1972 movie soundtrack with Liza Minnelli is perhaps the best-known of the recordings, although the movie is much re-written and eliminates all but six of the original songs from the stage production.
The original London cast recording (1968) was released in the UK and reissued on the CBS Embassy label in 1973. Both the 1986 London and 1998 Broadway revival casts were recorded.
A 1999 two-CD studio recording contains more or less the entire score, including songs written for the movie or for later productions, and many incidentals and instrumentals not usually recorded. This recording features Jonathan Pryce as the Emcee, Maria Friedman as Sally, Gregg Edelman as Cliff, Judi Dench as Fräulein Schneider, and Fred Ebb as Herr Schultz.
The most recent recording of Cabaret is the cast recording of the 2006/2007 London revival at the Lyric Theatre. The recording includes James Dreyfus as emcee and Anna Maxwell Martin as Sally Bowles. The recording peaked number 107 on the French Albums Chart[19] and number 49 and the Dutch Albums Chart.[20]
In addition to these recordings, cast albums for the French, Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Austrian, Dutch, and two German productions have been released.[21]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Original Broadway production[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1967 Tony Award Best Musical Won
Best Original Score John Kander and Fred Ebb Won
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Jack Gilford Nominated
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical Lotte Lenya Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Joel Grey Won
Edward Winter Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Peg Murray Won
Best Direction of a Musical Hal Prince Won
Best Choreography Ron Field Won
Best Scenic Design Boris Aronson Won
Best Costume Design Patricia Zipprodt Won
1987 Broadway revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1987 Tony Award Best Revival of a Musical Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Werner Klemperer Nominated
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Alyson Reed Nominated
Regina Resnik Nominated
Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival of a Musical Nominated
Outstanding Actor in a Musical Joel Grey Nominated
Outstanding Director of a Musical Hal Prince Nominated
1993 London revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1994 Laurence Olivier Award Best Musical Revival Nominated
Best Actor in a Musical Alan Cumming Nominated
Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical Sara Kestelman Won
Best Director of a Musical Sam Mendes Nominated
1998 Broadway revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
1998 Tony Award Best Revival of a Musical Won
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Alan Cumming Won
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical Natasha Richardson Won
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Ron Rifkin Won
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical Mary Louise Wilson Nominated
Best Direction of a Musical Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall Nominated
Best Choreography Rob Marshall Nominated
Best Orchestrations Michael Gibson Nominated
Best Costume Design William Ivey Long Nominated
Best Lighting Design Peggy Eisenhauer and Mike Baldassari Nominated
Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival of a Musical Won
Outstanding Actor in a Musical Alan Cumming Won
Outstanding Actress in a Musical Natasha Richardson Won
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical Michele Pawk Nominated
Outstanding Director Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall Nominated
Outstanding Choreography Rob Marshall Nominated
Outstanding Orchestrations Michael Gibson Nominated
Outstanding Set Design Robert Brill Nominated
Outstanding Costume Design William Ivey Long Nominated
Outstanding Lighting Design Peggy Eisenhauer and Mike Baldassari Nominated
2006 London revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
2007 Laurence Olivier Award Best Musical Revival Nominated
Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical Sheila Hancock Won
Best Theatre Choreographer Javier de Frutos Won
2012 London revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
2013 Laurence Olivier Award Best Musical Revival Nominated
Best Actor in a Musical Will Young Nominated
Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical Siân Phillips Nominated
2014 Broadway revival[edit]
Year
Award
Category
Nominee
Result
2014 Tony Award
Best Featured Actor in a Musical Danny Burstein Nominated
Best Featured Actress in a Musical Linda Emond Nominated
References[edit]
Mordden, Ethan (2001). Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960s. New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0-312-23952-1.
Green, Stanley (1980). Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80113-2. reprint.
Jones, John Bush (2003). Our musicals, ourselves: a social history of the American musical theatre. University Press of New England. p. 243. ISBN 9780874519044.
1.Jump up ^ Mordden 2001, pp. 152–54
2.Jump up ^ Mordden 2001, pp. 156–57
3.Jump up ^ Green 1980, p. 53
4.Jump up ^ Reice, Sylvie (March 10, 1998). "Curtain Up Review". curtainup.com.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Brantley, Ben (March 20, 1998). "Desperate Dance at Oblivion's Brink". New York Times.
6.Jump up ^ "Listing for 2006 revival". thisistheatre.com. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
7.Jump up ^ "Will Young to make West End musical debut in Cabaret". BBC. 18 May 2012. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
8.Jump up ^ "Michelle Ryan to join Will Young in Cabaret revival". BBC. 25 May 2012. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
9.Jump up ^ "Heads it's Lia - tails it's Kristin: The toss of a coin will decide leading lady for Harold Pinter's revived play". Daily Mail. 10 August 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
10.Jump up ^ Rosie Bannister (26 Jun 2013). "Will Young returns to emcee Cabaret tour - Theatre News". Whatsonstage.com. Retrieved 2013-09-09. "Will Young is set to reprise his role of Emcee in a UK tour of Rufus Norris' production of Cabaret, which will open at the New Wimbledon Theatre on 28 August 2013."
11.Jump up ^ "Willkommenn! Roundabout Will Welcome Tony-Winning Cabaret Back to Broadway With Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams in 2014." Playbill.com. 4 September 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
12.Jump up ^ http://www.broadwayworld.com//article/Danny-Burstein-and-Linda-Emond-to-Play-Herr-Schultz-and-Fraulein-Schneider-in-CABARET-Revival-20131007
13.Jump up ^ http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Michelle-Williams-Extends-Run-in-Broadways-CABARET-20140721#.U9ip-8pZTcc
14.Jump up ^ http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater-arts/emma-stone-joins-cabaret-article-1.1910216
15.Jump up ^ http://www.southwesternontario.ca/news/stratford-festival-review-terrific-cabaret-in-both-senses-of-the-word
16.Jump up ^ http://www.shawfest.com/playbill/cabaret/story/
17.Jump up ^ Jones 2003, p. 243
18.Jump up ^ Williams, Albert. "Shock Treatment", Chicago Reader, Chicago, 17 June 1999. Retrieved on 23 October 2014.
19.Jump up ^ MUSICAL - CABARET (ALBUM). lescharts.com. Accessed on August 8, 2013. (in France).
20.Jump up ^ MUSICAL - CABARET (ALBUM). dutchcharts.nl. Accessed on August 8, 2013. (in Dutch).
21.Jump up ^ "Cast album information". Cast Album DB.
External links[edit]
Cabaret at the Internet Broadway Database
Plot and production information at the Guide to Musical Theatre
Floormic.com Page
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Links to related articles
Wikipedia book
Categories: 1966 musicals
Broadway musicals
Drama Desk Award winning musicals
Helpmann Award winning musicals
LGBT-related musicals
Musicals based on plays
West End musicals
Berlin in fiction
1931 in fiction
Musicals by Kander and Ebb
Works set in cabarets
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Cabaret (1972 film)
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Cabaret
Original movie poster for Cabaret.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Bob Fosse
Produced by
Cy Feuer
Written by
Joe Masteroff (Play)
Screenplay by
Jay Presson Allen
Story by
Christopher Isherwood
Starring
Liza Minnelli
Michael York
Joel Grey
Fritz Wepper
Marisa Berenson
Music by
Songs:
John Kander
Fred Ebb (Lyrics)
Adaptation score:
Ralph Burns
Cinematography
Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by
David Bretherton
Production
company
ABC Pictures
Allied Artists
Distributed by
Allied Artists
Release dates
February 13, 1972
Running time
124 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
German
Budget
$2,285,000[1]
Box office
$42,765,000[2]
Cabaret is a 1972 musical film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey.[3] The film is set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the ominous presence of the growing Nazi Party.
The film is loosely based on the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret by Kander and Ebb, which was adapted from the novel The Berlin Stories (1939) by Christopher Isherwood and the 1951 play I Am a Camera adapted from the same book. Only a few numbers from the stage score were used for the film; Kander and Ebb wrote new ones to replace those that were discarded. In the traditional manner of musical theater, every significant character in the stage version sings to express their own emotion and to advance the plot. In the film version, the musical numbers are entirely diegetic, taking place inside the club, with one exception ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me"), the only song not sung by either the Emcee and/or Sally. In the sexually charged "Two Ladies", about menage-a-trois, the emcee is joined by two of the Kit Kat girls, who sing part of the song.
Cabaret holds the record for most Academy Award wins in a single year without winning the highest honor, Best Picture, with eight awards. The film won the Academy Award for Best Director for Bob Fosse, Best Actress for Liza Minnelli, Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey, and five more technical awards. It lost the Best Picture award to The Godfather, which won three awards.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Pre-production
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Narrative and news reading
4 Differences between film and stage version
5 Soundtrack
6 Release 6.1 Critical reaction
6.2 Accolades
6.3 Home video
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 External links
Plot[edit]
In 1931 Berlin, young American Sally Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. A reserved academic and writer, Brian gives English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate in Philosophy. Sally tries seducing Brian and suspects he may be gay. Brian tells Sally that on three previous occasions he has tried to have physical relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's anarchic, bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Sally and Brian become lovers despite their earlier reservations; they conclude that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls".
Sally befriends Maximilian von Heune, a rich playboy baron who takes her and Brian to his country estate; it becomes ambiguous which of the duo Max is seducing. After a sexual experience with Brian, Max loses interest in the two and departs for Argentina. During an argument, when Sally tells Brian that she has been having sex with Max, Brian reveals that he has as well. Brian and Sally later reconcile, and Sally reveals that Max left them money.
Sally learns that she is pregnant, but is unsure of the father. Brian offers to marry her and take her back to his university life in Cambridge. After a picnic between Sally and Brian in which Brian acts distant and disinterested, Sally starts to doubt continuing with the pregnancy, and ultimately has an abortion. When Brian confronts her, she shares her fears and the two reach an understanding. Brian departs for England and Sally continues her life in Berlin, embedding herself in the Kit Kat Club.
Cast[edit]
Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles
Michael York as Brian Roberts
Joel Grey as the Emcee
Helmut Griem as Maximilian von Heune
Fritz Wepper as Fritz Wendel
Marisa Berenson as Natalia Landauer
Helen Vita as Fräulein Kost
Oliver Collignon (Mark Lambert, singing voice)[4] as Nazi youth
Production[edit]
Pre-production[edit]
In 1971, Bob Fosse learned through Harold Prince, director of the original Broadway production, that Cy Feuer was producing a film adaptation of Cabaret through ABC Pictures and Allied Artists. Determined to direct the film, Fosse urged Feuer to hire him. Chief executives Manny Wolf and Marty Baum preferred a bigger name director such as Joseph Mankiewicz or Gene Kelly. That Fosse had directed the unsuccessful film adaptation of Sweet Charity gave Wolf and Baum pause. Feuer appealed to the studio heads, citing Fosse’s talent for staging and shooting musical numbers, adding that if inordinate attention was given to filming the book scenes at the expense of the musical numbers, the whole film could fail. Fosse was ultimately hired. Over the next months, Fosse met with previously hired writer Jay Presson Allen to discuss the screenplay. Dissatisfied with Allen's script, he hired Hugh Wheeler to rewrite and revise her work. Wheeler is referred to as a "research consultant" while Allen retains screenwriting credit. The final script was based less on Joe Masteroff's original book of the stage version, and more on The Berlin Stories and I Am a Camera.
Fosse and Feuer traveled to Germany, where producers chose to shoot the film, in order to finish assembling the film crew. During this time, Fosse highly recommended Robert Surtees for cinematographer, but Feuer and the top executives saw Surtees’ work on Sweet Charity as one of the film’s many artistic problems. Producers eventually chose British cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth. Designers Rolf Zehetbauer, Hans Jürgen Kiebach and Herbert Strabel served as production designers. Charlotte Flemming designed costumes. Fosse dancer Kathy Doby and John Sharpe were brought on as Fosse’s dance aides.
Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles
Casting[edit]
Feuer had cast Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles and Joel Grey (reprising his stage role) long before Fosse was attached to the project. Fosse was given the option of using Grey as Emcee or walking away from the production. Fosse hired Michael York as Sally Bowles’ openly bisexual love interest. Several smaller roles, as well as the dancers in the film, were eventually cast in Germany.
Filming[edit]
Rehearsals and filming took place entirely in Germany. For reasons of economy, indoor scenes were shot at Bavaria Film Studios in Grünwald, outside Munich. Location shooting took place in and around Munich and Berlin, and in Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony. Editing was done in Los Angeles before the eventual theatrical release in February 1972.
Narrative and news reading[edit]
Although the songs throughout the film allude to and advance the narrative, every song except "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is executed in the context of a Kit Kat Klub performance. The voice heard on the radio reading the news throughout the film in German was that of associate producer Harold Nebenzal, whose father Seymour Nebenzahl made such notable Weimar films as M (1931), Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), and Threepenny Opera (1931).
Differences between film and stage version[edit]
The film is significantly different from the Broadway musical. In both The Berlin Stories and I Am a Camera, Sally Bowles is American (as was the actual woman upon whom Isherwood based the character), just as she is in the musical's film version. The stage version is the only version that makes her British. The character of Cliff Bradshaw was renamed Brian Roberts and made British (as was Isherwood upon whom Bradshaw was based). In the film version of Cabaret he is openly bisexual, whereas in The Berlin Stories and I Am a Camera the character is either asexual or of ambiguous sexuality. In the original stage version of Cabaret the character is notably heterosexual. The characters and plot lines involving Fritz, Natalia and Max do not exist in the stage version, and a minor character named Max in the stage version, the owner of the Kit Kat Club, bears no relation to the character in the film. Those plot points were drawn from The Berlin Stories and I Am a Camera. While in the stage version (along with Isherwood's original story), Sally is a terrible singer, who thinks she's better than she is (which prevents her from pursuing her ambition as an actress), in the film she is far more skilled.[citation needed]
Fosse cut several of the songs, leaving only those that are sung within the confines of the Kit Kat Klub, and "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" - sung in a beer garden. (In the stage musical, it is sung first by the cabaret boys and then at a private party.) Kander and Ebb wrote several new songs for the movie and removed others; "Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr", and "The Money Song" (retained in an instrumental version as "Sitting Pretty") was replaced by "Money, Money". "Mein Herr" and "Money, Money", which were composed for the film version were added to performances of the stage musical alongside the original numbers. The song "Maybe This Time", which Sally performs at the cabaret, was not written for the film. Kander and Ebb had written it years earlier for Kaye Ballard, thus it was ineligible for an Academy Award nomination. Although "Don't Tell Mama" and "Married" were removed as performed musical numbers, both were used in the film. The former's bridge section appears as instrumental music played on Sally's gramophone; the latter is initially played on the piano in Fraulein Schneider's parlor and later heard on Sally's gramophone in a German translation ("Heiraten") sung by cabaret singer Greta Keller.
Several characters were cut from the film (including Herr Schultz) and Fraulein Schneider's part was greatly reduced, with her romantic subplot removed. Several characters from Isherwood's original stories were put back in. The entire score was re-orchestrated, with all the numbers being accompanied by the stage band.[citation needed]
Soundtrack[edit]
All songs written and composed by John Kander and Fred Ebb.
Cabaret: Original Soundtrack Recording[5][6]
No.
Title
Performer
Length
1. "Willkommen (Welcome)" Joel Grey 4:29
2. "Mein Herr" Liza Minnelli 3:36
3. "Maybe This Time" Liza Minnelli 3:11
4. "Money, Money" Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli 3:04
5. "Two Ladies" Joel Grey 3:11
6. "Sitting Pretty" Instrumental 2:27
7. "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" Mark Lambert 3:06
8. "Tiller Girls" Joel Grey 1:41
9. "Heiraten (Married)" Greta Keller 3:33
10. "If You Could See Her" Joel Grey 3:54
11. "Cabaret" Liza Minnelli 3:34
12. "Finale" Joel Grey 2:28
Total length:
38:14
The following songs from the original Broadway production were omitted from the film version: "So What?", "Don't Tell Mama", "Telephone Song", "Perfectly Marvelous", "Why Should I Wake Up?", "The Money Song" (disparate from "Money, Money"), "It Couldn't Please Me More", "Meeskite" and "What Would You Do?"
Release[edit]
The film was immediately successful at the box office. By May 1973 it had earned rentals of $4.5 million in North America and $3.5 million in other countries and reported a profit of $2,452,000.[1]
Critical reaction[edit]
The film currently holds a 97% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Great performances and evocative musical numbers help Cabaret secure its status as a stylish, socially conscious classic".[7]
In 1995, Cabaret was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2006, Cabaret ranked No. 5 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals; the song "Cabaret" was ranked No. 18 on their 100 Years...100 Songs list in 2004. In 2007, this film ranked No. 63 on AFI's 10th anniversary list of the 100 Greatest American Movies.
In 2013, the film critic Peter Bradshaw listed Cabaret at number one on his list of "Top 10 musicals", describing it as "satanically catchy, terrifyingly seductive ... directed and choreographed with electric style by Bob Fosse ... Cabaret is drenched in the sexiest kind of cynicism and decadent despair".[8]
Accolades[edit]
The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 1973, winning a total of eight:[9]
Best Director (Bob Fosse)
Best Actress in a Leading Role (Liza Minnelli)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Joel Grey)
Best Cinematography (Geoffrey Unsworth)
Best Film Editing (David Bretherton)
Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score (Ralph Burns)
Best Art Direction (Rolf Zehetbauer, Hans Jürgen Kiebach, Herbert Strabel)
Best Sound (Robert Knudson, David Hildyard)
It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, losing both to The Godfather. Cabaret holds the record for most Academy Awards won by a film which did not win the Best Picture award.[10]
The film also won seven BAFTA Awards including Best Film, Best Direction and Best Actress as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Musical/Comedy). It won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.[citation needed]
The making of Cabaret is recounted in Cabaret (Music on Film) by Stephen Tropiano (Limelight Books, 2011).
Home video[edit]
The film was first released to DVD in 1998. There have been subsequent releases in 2003, 2008, and 2012. The film's international ancillary distribution rights are owned by ABC (currently part of The Walt Disney Company), while Warner Bros. (which inherited the film from Lorimar, Allied Artists' successor-in-interest) has domestic distribution rights. Today, Warner shares the film's copyright with production partner ABC. Fremantle Media (owners of UK DVD rights under license from ABC/Disney) planned a Blu-ray release of the film in 2008 or 2009, but have since announced they no longer plan to do so.
In April 2012, Warner unveiled a 40th Anniversary screening of the new restoration of the film. Cabaret has been sold on standard-definition DVD from Warner Bros. But it was unavailable in high-def or for digital presentation because of a vertical scratch that ran through 1,000 feet, or 10 minutes, of one of its reels, said Ned Price, vice president of mastering and restoration for Warner Bros. The damage apparently was caused by a piece of dirt that had rolled through the length of the reel, starting with a scene in which York's character has a confrontation with a pro-Nazi boarding house resident, and cut into the emulsion. With the damaged images digitally "painted out" using bits from surrounding areas, "the difficult part was matching the grain structure so the fix was invisible". After automated digital repair attempts failed, the 1,000 feet of damaged film was hand painted using a computer stylus.[11]
See also[edit]
Portal icon Dance portal
List of American films of 1972
Cabaret (musical)
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b "ABC's 5 Years of Film Production Profits & Losses", Variety, 31 May 1973 p. 3
2.Jump up ^ "Cabaret, Worldwide Box Office". Worldwide Box Office. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
3.Jump up ^ Obituary Variety, February 16, 1972, p. 18.
4.Jump up ^ Legge, Charles (October 1, 2008). "Name that Teuton ...". Daily Mail (London, UK: Associated Newspapers). Retrieved November 19, 2012.
5.Jump up ^ "Cabaret (1972) soundtrack details". Retrieved March 25, 2013.
6.Jump up ^ "Cabaret: Original Soundtrack Recording (1972 Film)". Amazon.com. Retrieved March 25, 2013.
7.Jump up ^ Cabaret at Rotten Tomatoes
8.Jump up ^ Bradshaw, Peter (December 3, 2013). "Top 10 Musicals". The Guardian. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
9.Jump up ^ "The 45th Academy Awards (1973) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-28.
10.Jump up ^ "Films Winning 4 or More Awards Without Winning Best Picture". Oscars.org. AMPAS. March 2011. Retrieved September 15, 2011.
11.Jump up ^ Lynn Elber (April 12, 2012). "'Cabaret': Bob Fosse Classic Gets Restoration For 40th Anniversary". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved April 13, 2012.
Bibliography[edit]
Francesco Mismirigo, Cabaret, un film allemand, Université de Genève, 1984
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cabaret (film)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cabaret (film).
Cabaret at the American Film Institute Catalog
Cabaret at the Internet Movie Database
Cabaret at the TCM Movie Database
Cabaret at Rotten Tomatoes
Cabaret at Metacritic
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Categories: 1972 films
1970s drama films
1970s musical films
Allied Artists films
American films
American LGBT-related films
American musical drama films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Bisexuality-related films
English-language films
Films about entertainers
Films about writers
Films based on musicals
Films directed by Bob Fosse
Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award winning performance
Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winning performance
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films set in Berlin
Films set in cabarets
Films set in the 1930s
Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award
Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award
German-language films
Liza Minnelli soundtracks
United States National Film Registry films
LGBT-related musical films
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