Liza Minelli is so great in this movie. Sexy as heck. Adventurous, sexually liberated bohemian on the outside, lost little girl with Daddy abandonment issues on the inside. She tries to seduce Michael York by showing him the former, but only succeeds when she unwittingly reveals the latter. I still have lots of questions. We never really get a sense of just how much Sally has lived up to this role she's playing, that is, just how sexually experienced is she, and how much is just talk? She only sleeps with two men as far as we know over the course of the movie.

I do love the scene when the virgin Natalia seeks romantic advice, and we awkwardly witness just how wrong Sally is for this kind of mentorship, suggesting for example, that maybe Natalia and Fritz can just kind of keep it casual, a concept clearly beyond Natalia's comprehension! Then, just after we've completely fallen in love with Sally, she does this ... thing ... acting out of fear as the prospect of domestic bliss in England is becoming too close to reality, something Sally sees more as a prison than an escape. However you lean politically and ethically about this act, in terms of the movie, it's emotionally devastating, especially since she doesn't even inform York in advance.

I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to feel about Sally after she does it, and I don't know what's going to happen to her as she remains in Berlin just as things are about to get really ugly.

The scene is Berlin just before the completion of Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Two apolitical people go about their lives while impending doom surrounds them. Cabaret is a ground-breaking combination of social drama and musical entertainment. It's one of the best examples of films from the New Hollywood. This was a short time in American cinema where the studios were producing challenging and director-led personal films.

What Cabaret does which is so unique is to reinvent what the musical could be. It's a film that is essentially a drama that uses musical numbers to comment on its story. The songs all fit into a realistic narrative. Most of them are sung within the confines of the Kit Kat Klub, the cabaret of the title. In taking this approach the movie is more able to incorporate a disturbing subject such as the Germany's progression to Nazism into this most fantastical and joyous of film genres. All of the songs comment on the social situation in Germany at the time and because they are all performed in the cabaret they can be explained in a real context, cleverly allowing those who do not even like musicals to enjoy them as they do not break the illusion of reality. The one song that is performed outside the club is perhaps the most memorable however. 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' is sung by a young fresh-faced boy with an angelic voice. It starts out quite beautifully but as it progresses the camera pans down and we see the emblem of the swastika on a band around his arm and realise he is a Hitler Youth. The words suddenly take on an altogether more sinister meaning. It's a moment that really encapsulates the way that fascism seemed like a progressive way ahead for the majority of people at the time. With the benefit of hindsight we, of course, see the horror of what it represents but for many Germans at the time, the ideals of Hitlerism had an attraction, and 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me' brilliantly illustrates both these points.

Another way in which the film differentiates itself from most others that deal with this time and place is that there is barely a mention of the Nazis at all. All the Nazis characters exist in the periphery of the story, they barely interact with the characters in any way. Their significance is in no need of emphasis; their presence is ominously felt throughout. Cabaret reflects the changes in Germany from the point of view of people living in their own little world but the true horror is never far from the surface. The strange insular world of the Kit Kat Klub encapsulates this perfectly. Hosted by the enigmatic, almost supernatural, Master of Ceremonies, it's a decadent place that exists apart from the realities of Hitlerism, a place that we all know must be ultimately doomed when the Nazis fully rise to power.

Performances are universally great with Michael York and Liza Minnelli both putting in very fine work. Minnelli especially has to be credited for combining both dramatic acting and musical performances of both the highest calibre. The songs themselves are memorable and work in the clever double way of providing entertainment while commenting on dark issues below the surface. In a sense, that is the genius of Cabaret overall.

Two of the most successful movie musicals adapted from Broadway shows are The Sound Of Music and Cabaret. Of course what could Maria Von Trapp and Sally Bowles possibly have in common, other than the times they live in and how they dealt with them.

Cabaret takes place at the tail end of the Weimar Republic era as Sally and her crowd party on while Germany is surrendering its freedom to an authoritarian minded party and its leader. Liza Minnelli is Sally Bowles in what is her career screen role.

With the fading away of the musical genre, we don't get to see Liza Minnelli too often as a singer so be grateful that Cabaret is recorded and popularly available. Her role also calls for a great actress as well, so small wonder she won an Oscar in 1972 as Best Actress. Her award was one of eight that Cabaret received.

Cabaret ran for 1165 performances from 1966 to 1969 on Broadway and it was reversed there in terms of casting. On stage it was an English woman and an American man expatriate it Weimar Berlin and starred Jill Haworth and Bert Convy. Michael York took the role of the rather naive young man who while renting a room, falls in with Liza Minnelli and her hedonistic lifestyle.

Repeating his role as the Cabaret emcee is Joel Grey who was the Best Supporting Actor for 1972. I think it would have almost been impossible to do a film version of Cabaret without Grey. He's one fey and evil man who is quite willing to adapt to the new Germany. My guess is he found a boyfriend later on in Ernest Roehm's SA and later paid dear for it, either killed during the Night Of the Long Knives or died in one of the camps.

I've always loved the contrast between the Von Trapp family who saw what was coming to Austria and took measures to flee and Sally Bowles who kept on in her words, going like Elsie. York could see what was coming as did many others in her crowd. One can only hope she did eventually.

Liza Minnelli's best song was one especially written for the screen version by songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb. With all the awards Cabaret won, amazingly that Maybe This Time didn't even rate a nomination for Best Original Song. In an era when good film songs were at a premium, that was inexcusable.

One other comparison with Sound of Music. The song sung by the young Aryan pure Germans, Tomorrow Belongs To Me is a frightening number. I could see young Rolf who became a Nazi while courting the Von Trapp eldest being part of that.

Cabaret is a film guaranteed to last forever, something that will never date and something we always have to be reminded about.