Cabaret (Liza Minnelli)

(Amazon UK link)

We’ve had the film Cabaret on our shelves for over a decade. As far as I remember, it was a free DVD which a relative acquired with a Sunday newspaper, and then passed on to us. I’ve looked at the blurb a couple of times, and thought it sounded interesting… but it’s taken until now for us to finally sit down and watch it.

The film was made in 1972, so inevitably the style is a bit dated - and perhaps deliberately so because it’s set in the 1930s, in Germany. Apparently it was based on a stage show which was based on a book, but I’m not familiar with either of them. 

Quite a bit of the film is set in a popular night club in Berlin, with a cabaret show hosted by a made up man (Joel Grey) who is excellent at what he does, though it’s not a style that appeals to me at all. He makes crude jokes which the audience laugh at, and sometimes dances with the women (one of whom is a man in drag…). Sally (Liza Minnelli) is one of the stars of the show and it’s quickly clear that she lives a highly promiscuous lifestyle.

There are several scenes in the night club throughout the film, with singing and dancing. There are also scenes set elsewhere, many of them in the apartment complex where Sally lives. A young man from the UK called Brian (Michael York) is looking for somewhere to stay; he has very little money, and is doing some teaching to supplement his income. 

Brian is persuaded to move into an empty room in the same block, and Sally sets out to seduce him. But he doesn’t really respond, which is when questions emerge about his sexuality. However they agree to be platonic friends, and she does appreciate having someone she can talk to. Inevitably this eventually develops into something more. 

There’s another side story involving a man who falls in love with an uptight Jewish woman, and yet another involving a very wealthy man who seems to be interested in Sally… and while Brian is, at first, suspicious and jealous, he quickly becomes friends with him too. 

And alongside all this is a gradual rise of the Nazi party. At first just handing out leaflets, and raising awareness. Gradually we see more and more images of people in Nazi uniform, until, by the end, they are in the majority even in the night club.

All of which would be fine, but there’s another side story involving an unwanted pregnancy that seems to be wanted for a while… and which ends in a negative way that left quite a bad taste. It had looked as though the film was going to have a happy-ever-after conclusion, but that doesn’t happen at all. 

Add to that the fact that I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. Liza Minnelli is excellent as a singer and dancer, and her acting is good too, presumably deliberately in an overdone ‘old movie’ style. Michael York is also very good in his role, although I never entirely reconciled his clean, almost innocent Cambridge student look with what he gets up to in his private life. 

But the whole is a long way from my experience, and I was rather horrified at the rampant sexism, promiscuity and - in places - violence of the era. I found most of the singing and dancing scenes rather risqué - at times sordid and I couldn’t see why the audiences at the night club would have found them so amusing. Though they were undoubtedly well done. But the style of music isn’t to my taste at all. 

It’s ultimately quite a sad story, too.

I did think about abandoning it after the first half hour, but decided to keep watching. It’s a classic in its way, and the juxtaposition of the night club and the rise of the Nazi party is cleverly done. But it’s not a film I plan to see again, and I wouldn’t particularly recommend it. However, it won a lot of awards and is still popular, even more than five decades after it was made, so don’t necessarily take my word for it.

The US rating is PG which, I suppose, is due to the lack of anything explicit; yet there’s a lot which is sensual in the dancing, and a lot of implied intimacy and sordidity, as well as discussion of sex and related diseases. Perhaps that would go over the heads of young children, but I wouldn’t want to show this to a child. Apparently the UK has rated it 15.

There are a couple of extras on our DVD, and we started watching one with interviews from some of the cast, recorded - we assume - when the DVD was made. It was mildly interesting at first, but we got bored after about ten minutes so we didn't watch it all.  

Review copyright 2026 Sue's DVD Reviews