Cabaret is a
1972 American 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.
The film is loosely based on the 1966
Broadway musical
Cabaret by
Kander and Ebb, which was adapted from
The Berlin Stories of
Christopher Isherwood and the play
I Am a Camera. Only a few numbers from the stage score were used; Kander and Ebb wrote new ones to replace those that were discarded. In the traditional manner of musical theater, characters in the stage version of
Cabaret sing to express emotion and advance the plot, but in the film version, musical numbers are confined to the stage of the cabaret and to a
beer garden. Only two of the film's major characters sing any songs.