Musical Magic presents: Cabaret

Set the scene for Cabaret.

It’s Berlin. The year is 1931. American cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) meets British academic Brian Roberts (Michael York), who is finishing his university studies. Despite Brian’s confusion over his sexuality, the pair become lovers, until the arrival of the wealthy and decadent playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) complicates matters for them both in a love triangle that plays out against the rise of the Nazi party and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.

Cabaret holds the record for most Oscars earned by a film not honored for Best Picture. It is listed as number 367 on Empire’s 500 greatest films of all time. Cabaret opened to glowing reviews and strong box office, eventually taking in more than $40 million. In addition to its eight Oscars, it won Best Picture citations from the National Board of Review and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, 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.

In 1995, Cabaret was the twelfth live-action musical film selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.