Sorry, that should have said “neither were either of the eligible original songs.” They were eligible but not nominated (which is particularly inexplicable when you see the obscurities that made the cut).
The MC in that clip is great, too.
Awesome Jane Horrocks, she’s great in just about everything she’s done.
Isn’t that Alan Cumming?
…But for Mein Herrs I think you really gotta go with Miss Minelli. I mean … yowsa. I know Sally’s supposed to be mediocre but if being great means we get performances like that, it’s totally worth it.
Not only do I not recognize those songs, I’ve never even heard of those movies!
Have you ever heard of an album called The Further Adventures of Little Voice? It’s sort of a companion album to the soundtrack to Little Voice. More songs in more voices in combinations that they never did in life. Like Judy Garland, Billie Holliday, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey, and Marlene Dietrich in a grand melee version of “Hello, Dolly”. And guest singers, too, like Ewan MacGregor and Robbie Williams (and a good but kind of creepy dead/alive duet with Dean Martin).
Yes, easily the best MC since Joel Grey. Delightfully creepy and menacing.
As I mentioned above, I finally got curious enough to read Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, the ultimate source of all things Cabaret. They’re mostly disjointed snippets, though some of the characters weave in and out – one of the more important of which, a young man named Otto, who doesn’t appear in Cabaret at all.
The original Sally is very young, only 19, and (as noted above), British.
Isherwood describes her at their first meeting (which is arranged by Fritz, who has a thing for her):
A few days later, he and Fritz go to see her perform:
(The pianist is the one who gets Sally pregnant, though he’s out of the picture before the abortion.) There’s also a spree with Sally and Christopher and a rich guy, who’s an alcoholic named Clive (an American, I think, though it’s not entirely clear). Clive takes them out drinking and shopping, and there’s talk of him taking them around the world, but he then disappears abruptly, leaving only a brief note:
Natalia Landauer appears in a separate story – again, marginal overlap between the literary and cinematic versions. (Though her catchphrase, “Well, I’m sorry then, I can’t help you,” comes from Isherwood – and there is a meeting between her and Sally that goes predictably badly.) The literary Natalia ends up going to Paris to study art, and marrying there. A more important Landauer is one who doesn’t appear in Cabaret at all – her cousin, who runs the family business, with whom Christopher becomes emotionally involved.
Overall – the stories are interesting to a Cabaret fan to see what’s used and what isn’t, and how. They also have way more, and more directly, about the political environment at the time – Isherwood sympathizes with the Communists, who are damned close to invisible in Cabaret, though of course crucially important to understanding the actual politics and history of the time.
As you see various people being swept up in the emotion (or not, in the case of the old chap who is obviously troubled by it), one person looks out of place (IMO). The fedora guy who appears to simply be giving it a look of mild curiosity. Since Fosse’s not alive any longer to tell us where or not that person in particular meant anything special, it’s all speculation. But, if I’m watching this correctly, you actually see him again, in a distance shot, moving to a different seat.
When you consider how meticulously that sequence is filmed and edited, that’s not likely to be coincidence, that you first see him watching (but not caught up), then just shifting to a better(?) vantage point. He just seems to be out of place, as though maybe he symbolizes a foreigner who’s just watching the building hysteria from a distance. I’d welcome any thoughts on the subject.