I can't wait to watch Liza in Cabaret this Tues on TCM
I can't wait to watch
Cabaret this Tues on TCM.
Gosh, Liza Minnelli is fantastic--her talent--in this particular film is unequaled.
I don't think any one could beat her in that role.
Talking about time and place--then and now, I'll give an example--remember the movie
Chicago.
Well, I went to see that movie, somewhat reluctantly.
All the actors were very, very good, indeed, but I said wait a minute--haven't I seen this before?
That movie
Chicago
really showcases Liza Minnelli and her extraordinary gift. Those
people were real good, but as good as they were they only showed how
expert Liza was in comparison. I longed to watch Liza in
Cabaret as I watched
Chicago.
The whole movie is just about perfect. Joel Grey and Michael York
and Marisa Berensen--I was mesmerized watching it--not having a clue
what it was about--it was a movie of my time, of my young adult
hood--that always marks the time, who and when of what we are doesn't
it?
Liza has the knack of portraying bold and vulnerable at the same
time--Joel Grey--gosh--who ever saw anything like that--while he is
equally gifted he still serves to show off my Liza.
She deserves
the praise--everyone deserves praise involved in that show--who knew it
was a musical--that's news to me, as they don't break into song at any
given ridiculous moment. I thought it was just Liza singing a few songs
in a club because that's what she does.
The unanswerable question:
Seriously--what was Liza suppose to do as an entertainer given her heritage--how can anyone live up to that? That's got to be a tough act to follow--she gave it her all, how taxing, she is to be commended for excellence.
What would be do without Liza, Robert and TCM? As PBS says--Its a gift of art to the viewer and what a gift it is.
It all came together in that show--what a gift of life and talent for all of us---thanks Liza--you deserve it.......cl
copied from TCM................
10:15 PM ET
CABARET
After a box-office disaster with his film version of
Sweet Charity in 1969, Bob Fosse bounced back with
Cabaret
in 1972, a year that would make him the most honored director in show
business. And he wasn't the only winner in this case, as the film also
brought Liza Minnelli her first chance to sing on screen and an Oscar
for Best Actress. With Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Joel
Grey), Cinematography, Art Direction, Sound, Adapted Score, and Editing,
it holds the record for most Oscars earned by a film not honored as
Best Picture.
Cabaret was the first property to travel from book to dramatic play to dramatic film to stage musical to screen musical (
Auntie Mame
would match that path a few years later). It had started as
Christopher Isherwood's short story "Sally Bowles," about an amoral
singer living in Berlin during the 1930s, and was later included in his
collection,
The Berlin Stories. "Sally Bowles" and another story
about a gigolo who admits he's Jewish to win the heart of an heiress
provided the basis for John Van Druten's
I Am a Camera, a 1951
stage play starring Julie Harris as Bowles, which was adapted for the
screen in 1955. Then, in 1966, Harold Prince scored a hit with
Cabaret,
a musical version featuring a different subplot (about a gentile
landlady in love with a Jewish grocer) and a new character called the
M.C. that made Joel Grey a star.
A film version of
Cabaret was inevitable, but it was held up for
years when the first deal, with Cinerama, Inc., for an unprecedented
$2.1 million, fell through. At the time, off-screen companions Warren
Beatty and Julie Christie were considered for the leading roles. When
ABC Pictures and Allied Artists finally picked up the rights for $1.5
million, Broadway producer Cy Feuer signed on to produce the picture,
with Bob Fosse directing and a budget of less than $5 million.
Playwrights Jay Presson Allen and Hugh Wheeler went back to the original
stories to restore the subplot about the gigolo and the Jewish heiress.
They also drew on original author Christopher Isherwood's openness
about his homosexuality to make the leading male character, a writer
modeled on him, a bisexual who shares his bed and a male lover with
Sally. Fosse decided to increase the focus on the Kit Kat Club, where
Sally performs, as a metaphor for the decadence of Germany in the 1930s
by eliminating all but one of the musical numbers performed outside the
club. The only remaining outside number is "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," a
folk song rendered spontaneously by patrons at an open-air cafe in one
of the film's most chilling scenes. In addition, the show's original
songwriters, John Kander and Fred Ebb, wrote three new songs, "Mein
Herr," "Money," and "Maybe This Time."
The new songs were all performed by the film's leading lady, Liza
Minnelli ("Money" also featured Grey). Ironically, she had auditioned
to play Sally in the original Broadway production. Some involved with
the show say she was too inexperienced at the time (though she had
already won Broadway's Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical).
Others have suggested she was too big a presence for the role as written
on Broadway. By the time
Cabaret reached the screen, however,
Minnelli was a major film star, having won an Oscar nomination as the
emotionally damaged college student in
The Sterile Cuckoo (1969).
Cabaret opened to glowing reviews and strong box office,
eventually taking in more than $20 million. In addition to its eight
Oscars, it won Best Picture citations from the National Board of Review
and the Hollywood Foreign Press and took Best Supporting Actor honors
for Grey from the National Board of Review, the Hollywood Foreign Press,
and the National Society of Film Critics. But the biggest winner was
Fosse. Shortly before the Academy Awards, he won two Tonys for
directing and choreographing
Pippin, his biggest stage hit to
date. When months later he won Emmys for directing and choreographing
Liza Minnelli's television special
Liza with a Z, he became the first director to win all three awards in one year.
Producer: Cy Feuer
Director: Bob Fosse
Screenplay: Jay Presson Allen, Hugh Wheeler
Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Art Direction: Hans Jurgen Kiebach, Rolf Zehetbauer
Music: Ralph Burns, John Kander
Principal Cast: Liza Minnelli (Sally Bowles), Michael York (Brian
Roberts), Helmut Griem (Maximilian von Heune), Joel Grey (Master of
Ceremonies), Fritz Wepper (Fritz Wendel), Marisa Berenson (Natalia
Landauer), Elizabeth Neumann-Viertel (Fraulein Schneider).
C-124m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Frank Miller
--
chloelouise
