Cabaret

Production

Allied Artists Pictures released Cabaret in February 1972. Jay Allen and Hugh Wheeler adapted the John Kander and Fred Ebb stage musical, which was itself based on John Van Druten’s play I Am a Camera and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories. Liza Minnelli starred as Sally Bowles.

Story

American performer Sally Bowles works at the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin and shares an apartment with a Cambridge graduate, Brian Roberts. The pair’s relationship plays out alongside numbers at the cabaret that comment on the country’s drift toward fascism.

Reception

Cabaret won eight Academy Awards, the most ever for a film that did not win Best Picture, including Best Director, Best Actress for Liza Minnelli, and Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey as the Master of Ceremonies. The film is widely considered one of the great American film musicals.