Come to This Eerie, Spectacular ‘Cabaret’

With neo-Nazis and other extremists making noises around the globe, watching the Oscar-winning musical “Cabaret” in a spectacular new letterboxed Warner Home Video laser release ($40) is an unsettling experience.

Few films, much less a musical, have ever shown more effectively how a well-organized, dedicated minority can take over a country while everyone else goes about their daily business. The Fred Ebb-John Kander Broadway musical was impeccably transferred to the screen by director-choreographer Bob Fosse in 1972, winning eight Academy Awards, including best actress (Liza Minnelli), best supporting actor (Joel Grey), best director, best cinematography (Geoffrey Unsworth) and score adaptation (Ralph Burns).

In using the Kit Kat Club and its overweening master of ceremonies to show the corruption, the glitzy phoniness and the final downfall of prewar Berlin, Fosse utilized every inch of the widescreen format. The composition of many of the scenes, both in long shot and close-up, is breathtakingly effective in both the dramatic narrative and the production numbers. The Ebb-Kander songs seem far more powerful on screen than on stage. But for years, “Cabaret” has been shown on broadcast television in edited, pan-and-scan prints that distort the film and blunt its impact. Even the full version on videotape is marred by the distorted blown-up image.

On this new two-disc release, the beauty and form of Fosse’s vision comes through with great force. Few directors have ever composed on the wide screen as effectively as Fosse did in “Cabaret.”

He went back to Christopher Isherwood’s original story, staging all the numbers at the boozy, depraved club--with the exception of a Nazi youth’s beer-garden performance of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” which turns into a spontaneous Nazi rally. That number, one of Fosse’s most powerful filmic ideas, is a stunning reminder of how quickly and devastating the Nazi threat is becoming real. The close-up of young and old faces turning the song into an anthem of arrogance mixed with hate remains in the mind long after the film is over.

While every scene at the Kit Kat with Grey is spellbinding, none is more so than the famous final distorted image of an audience now filled with Nazis. The laser freeze-frame (CAV, on Side 3) makes it even more ominous. Minnelli’s title song, the frenzied “Mein Herr” and her show-stopping “Maybe This Time” (written for the film) are beautifully staged. “Money (Money),” sung by both Minnelli and Grey and also written for the film, bubbles with the sinister undertow at which Fosse excels.

If “Cabaret” makes for too rough an evening, try the widescreen edition of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” which also focuses on Nazis taking over a country. Although sugarcoated by the sentimental score, the message is still well-presented, especially the climactic song that takes the Von Trapp family out of danger. Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and the rest of the cast are first-rate and the hummable songs far less distressing than anything in “Cabaret.”

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New Movies Just Out: “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” plus animated short “Off His Rockers” (wide-screen, Disney, $40); “Honeymoon in Vegas” (New Line, $40); “Cool World” (widescreen, Paramount, $35); “Light Sleeper” (LIVE, $35); “Sneakers” (widescreen, MCA/Universal, $40) and “Death Becomes Her” (widescreen, MCA/Universal, $35).

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Coming Soon: Pioneer plans a $70 special edition NC-17 release of “Basic Instinct,” due in early April, that promises added footage, an audio track from director Paul Verhoeven, as well as interviews with him and stars Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

Disney’s restored version of “Pinocchio,” released theatrically last year, will be available on laser for $30 March 26, the same day as its video release; there will also be a $100 collector’s edition on standard play (CAV), which will also include a 28-page book on the making of the film and a CD soundtrack.

FoxVideo will offer “The Last of the Mohicans” for $40 on April 7.

Voyager’s Criterion Collection plans to release “The Player,” with extra footage plus commentary by director Robert Altman, screenwriter Michael Tolkin and interviews with 20 screenwriters on March 31 at $100. Warner will release the Wesley Snipes thriller “Passenger 57” on April 14 at $30. LIVE’s “Bob Roberts,” a political satire starring Tim Robbins, is due April 28 at $40. MCA/Universal plans to release “Trespass,” the action drama with Ice-T and Ice Cube, May 12, for $35.

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Older Titles Just Released: “Shoot the Moon” (MGM/UA, 1982, $40), a drama about the breakup of a marriage starring Albert Finney and Diane Keaton; “Jet Pilot” (MCA/Universal, 1957, $35), an aerial adventure with John Wayne and Janet Leigh; “Von Ryan’s Express” (widescreen, FoxVideo, 1965, $50), Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard in World War II saga.