Cabaret

Tonight's lineup on TCM is a night of movies directed by Bob Fosse. I see that Cabaret is on at 1:00 AM. Having recorded it the last time it was on TCM, I decided to watch it to do a post on now.

Joel Grey plays the Master of Ceremonies (no real name given), who runs the show in full stage make-up and even sings some of the songs at the Kit Kat Club, a decadent cabaret in Weimar-era Berlin. Among the entertainers who perform there from time to time is Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), an American abroad who lives a bohemian life and rooms in a boarding house since she's apparently not making enough to do well.

One day, Sally meets Brian Roberts (Michael York), a British scholar who's doing work on his doctorate that's taken him to Berlin; he's hoping to go back to Britain after finishing and becoming a professor at Oxford or Cambridge. He's also gay (or maybe bisexual by convenience), telling Sally at one point that he's slept with three women before meeting her and that it's always ended disastrously. Before all that, however, Sally helps Brian get a room in the house where she lives, as well as clients to whom he teaches English.

This brings Brian and Sally into contact with a bunch of people, of whom the most notable for our story are wealthy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem), Jewish woman Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson), and Protestant with a secret to hide Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper). The last two are important because this being early 1930s Weimar Germany, the rise of the Nazis isn't far behind, and is a theme that permeates the movie. The Nazis attack the Landauer family, while Fritz loves Natalia and would like to marry her, but to do that he's going to have to come clean and admit that he was born Jewish and is passing himself off as a Protestant to escape the anti-semitism.

As for Max, he invites Sally and Brian to a weekend at his three, and of the three possible sexual pairings between the threesome, all three happen. It results in Sally getting pregnant and not knowing who the father is. Meanwhile, the Kit Kat Club goes on, seemingly in its own little world....

Cabaret won a bunch of Oscars, and it's easy to see why. The production design is excellent; the story is quite good, and Liza Minnelli shows she could act, winning an Oscar for her role. Joel Grey won a Supporting Actor Oscar, for a role that in many ways is not a dramatic role, in the sense that his MC is not really involved with any of the plot goings on in the world outside the Kit Kat Club. The songs, however, engage in increasingly pointed if subtle commentary on what's taking place in Weimar Berlin, often shown by intercutting the numbers with the outside action.

The songs, however, might be a problem for some viewers. That sort of cabaret-style music is definitely an acquired taste, and there were points in the movie where a musical number came up and it felt as it was bringing the movie to a screeching halt. It's somewhat like a Kathryn Grayson or Jeannette MacDonald movie in that yes, both of those singers are talented, but you might have a visceral dislike for that style of music.

If you haven't seen Cabaret before, it's definitely worth a watch. It's also available on Blu-ray should you miss tonight's TCM airing.

The latest "in the FXM rotation" selection

It seems about once a week lately, I've been getting around to watching a movie that started showing up in the FXM rotation within the past couple of months. This week, that movie is The Hot Rock. It's going to be on again tomorrow at 3:00 AM and 11:25 AM.

Robert Redford plays John Dortmunder, who at the beginning of the movie is being released from prison. Surprisingly, he doesn't seem to have anywhere to go are anybody to greet him upon being released, as he's just walking along the sidewalk. That is, until a car tries to run him down. That car is driven by Kelp (George Segal), who is Dortmunder's brother-in-law. Kelp is also looking to become one of Dortmunder's partners in crime, Dortmunder being a jewel thief and Kelp owning a store selling locks in New York City, this being the era when crime in the city was really becoming a huge problem.

Indeed, Kelp has a proposal for a heist for his brother-in-law. The Star of Sahara is a big diamond that is of interest to several African countries, currently being exhibited at one of New York's museums. Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) is the UN Ambassador from one of those countries, one which thinks that the diamond is rightfully theirs but has seen it be taken from them by various of their members. Amusa would like it back for his country, and is willing to offer up to $100,000 to Dortmunder and his partners, albeit with some conditions.

Dortmunder accepts the proposal, bringing along Kelp; Murch (Ron Leibman) as the getaway driver; and Greenberg (Paul Sand) as the explosives expert. After some staking out of the museum, Dortmunder decides that the best way to get the diamond is going to involve some sort of diversion tactic to get the guards away. Chaos ensues, and they get away with the diamond.

Well, not quite. Three of them get away, but not Greenberg, who has the diamond. He decides to hide it by swallowing it, obviously planning to recover it when he defecates it out of his system. (Obviously, this places a limit on the size of the diamond.) However, there's another problem. Greenberg is in detention long enough that he elminiates it before he's released, and has to hide it in the police precinct.

So the thieves are going to have to come up with a plan to infiltratate the police station, and get that diamond from where it's been hidden. It's a complicated plan involving helicoptering onto the roof, even though none of them can actually pilot a helicopter. But it works, and they get into the precinct. Except that the diamond is no longer there. Greenberg's father (Zero Mostel) is a shyster lawyer, and on one of his visits to Greenberg in detention he was able to get the diamond, which is now in his safety deposit box, where only he can get at it because the folks at the bank know his face and his signature.

The Hot Rock is another of those movies that has a really fun premise, but winds up not quite meeting those expectations. I think part of the reason is the Zero Mostel character, whom I found intensely irritating. Another part of it is because the movie felt even more unrealistic than other heist films. A lot of the noir era heist movies, while they do have their own plot holes, work better, but all of Dortmunder's partners seem too bumbling.

Still, Robert Redford is amiable enough that the movie is certainly not a complete failure or something that should be missed. It works well enough as light entertainment if you don't think too hard about what the characters are doing. The Hot Rock did get a DVD release, but it seems to be out of print.