#63 Cabaret (1972)

#63 Cabaret (1972)

Sally: [singing] Life is a cabaret ol' chum, so come to the Cabaret!

Brian Roberts: You're American.
Sally: Oh God, how depressing!  You're meant to think I'm an international woman of mystery.  I'm working on it like mad.

Cabaret is one of the better musical adaptations.  Liza Minnelli, who plays, Sally Bowles, an American girl performing as a singer/dancer at the Kit Kat Klub in early 1930's Berlin, is insanely talented.  She is a great singer and an even better dancer and actress.

She befriends Brian, a young British man who is a new arrival in Berlin and is teaching English to support himself.  The two begin a relationship, which eventually morphs into a strange menage a trois with a wealthy German aristocrat named Max.  This causes tension between Brian and Sally.



Brian initially finds Sally's vivacious, impulsive, and over-dramatic nature charming and fun, but seeing her turn her charms on Max, he begins to perceive her misplaced over-confidence as ridiculous and naive: "Aren't you ever gonna stop deluding yourself, hmm?  'Handling Max?'  Behaving like some ludicrous little underage femme fatale?  You're -you're about as fatale as an after dinner mint!"

When they are both abandoned by Max after he tires of them, they reconnect in their disappointment.

The story is sad.  Sally becomes pregnant, and Brian wants to raise the baby with her in England, though they can't be sure if he is actually the father.  He becomes excited about the idea, but Sally balks at the bleak future she sees before her as a poor mother and housewife in England.  She still dreams of becoming a big star, and ultimately gets an abortion, devastating Brian:

Brian: You did it, didn't you?
Sally: Did what, darling?
Brian: The abortion.  In God's name why?
Sally: One of my whims?
Brian: Is that all you can say?  ''One of my whims?''  What right?
Sally: Sally: If you wanna hit me, why don't you just hit me?
Brian: But you wanted it.  Didn't you?  Me and the baby.  I suppose Max Reinhardt did show up at the club.  Or was it a friend of a friend of a friend of an assistant director who said he'd try to squeeze you into the chorus line?  That is, of course, if you -if you went to bed with him.
Sally: You think that?
Brian: Yes.
Sally: Well then, it's just as well, isn't it?  For you, for everyone.  And, darling, would you be an angel and just let me get some sleep?
Brian: Tell me why you did it.
Sally: What is there to say?  You've said it all in one way or another.
Brian: Sally, please.  I have to know.
Sally: Okay.  I'm self-centered, inconsiderate...and what was the third adjective?  Oh, yes.  And I have this infantile fantasy that one day I'll amount to something as an actress.  A dinky little cottage in Cambridge?  A playpen in the bedroom, diapers on the towel rack...How soon would it be before we started hating each other?

He forgives her, but the relationship is broken beyond repair, and he soon returns to England without her.

Performing at the Kit Kat Klub.

The music and the dance numbers are terrific, and my oldest daughter enjoyed watching them with me, getting a kick out of Sally.  I'm happy to be raising another musical theater buff -now I have someone to take to shows with me.

Also present is an ominous undercurrent of danger as we see the Nazi Party continue to rise in power and influence throughout the movie.

It's not a happy story, but it's worth seeing, and the soundtrack is worth buying.

#64 Network (1976)

#64 Network (1976)

Diana Christensen: I'm interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army.  The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment.  Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage.  That's your job, Ms. Hobbs.  You've got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us.  The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals.

Howard Beale: I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

Network was very disappointing to me.

Seeing the cast (William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall), and reading the plot, I thought it would be good.  Instead it was tedious.  I will admit that Faye Dunaway was good.  She won Best Actress.  Additionally, Peter Finch won Best Actor and Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting Actress, but they were less memorable in my opinion.

Finch is Howard Beale, a news anchor who has been fired and then says that he's going to kill himself on air during one of his final broadcasts.  Dunaway's character, Diana, a brilliant but cold-hearted executive for the network, takes full advantage of the situation and gets him a regular spot spouting his ranting rhetoric, garnering great ratings for the network.  Holden plays Max Shumacher, a jaded network executive who begins an affair with Diana.  The affair very unsurprisingly goes downhill when the fact that Diana's only real passion is for her job becomes glaringly obvious.  Max heads back to his wife (Beatrice Straight) to appeal to her better nature, telling Diana: "You're television incarnate, Diana.  Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy.  All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.  War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer.  And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy.  You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays.  You're madness, Diana.  Virulent madness.  And everything you touch dies with you."



It's just not that interesting.  The inner workings of a television network are cynical and dull.  Beale's off the cuff, anti-establishment speeches are monotonous.  For example:

"Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube.  This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died.  Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor.  And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?"

It goes on and on.

Once more, I think this is a case of a movie being very modern and edgy when it came out, but no longer packing the same punch today.  I've heard it all before.  Everyone bashes reality TV (while watching it anyway) and decries TV stations as exploitative and money-obsessed.  It's nothing new anymore.