My Darling Friends and Visitors
Please join me in Berlin with scenes from Cabaret and a tango from Leo Monosson.
Cabaret is a 1972 musical film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. The film is set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the ominous presence of the growing Nazi Party.
In 1931 Berlin, a young American Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts (Michael York), moves into Sally's boarding house. A reserved academic and writer, Brian gives English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate in Philosophy. Sally unsuccessfully tries to seduce 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 have failed. The unlikely pair become friends, and Brian is witness to Sally's anarchic, bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Later in the film, 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 (Helmut Griem), a rich playboy baron who takes her and Brian to his country estate. It becomes ambiguous which of the duo Max is seducing, epitomized by a scene in which the three dance intimately together in a wine-induced reverie. After a sexual experience with Brian, Max loses interest in the two, and departs for Argentina. During an argument, when Sally triumphantly tells Brian that she has been having sex with Max, Brian begins to laugh and reveals that he has as well. He storms off and picks a fight with a group of Nazis, who beat him senseless. Brian and Sally make up in their rooming house, where Sally reveals that Max left them an envelope of money.
Later on, Sally finds out that she's pregnant and says she is unsure of the father. Brian offers to marry her and take her back to his university life in Cambridge. After a scene that shows Sally's ambivalence about going to Cambridge to be a housewife and mother, she proceeds with an abortion. When Brian confronts her, she shares her fears and the two reach an understanding. The film ends with Brian departing for England by train, and Sally continuing her life in Berlin, singing "Cabaret" to appreciative audiences
Music is "Du Bist Nicht Die Erste", Leo Frey alias Leo Monosson
