Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to Cabaret. The winner of eight Academy Awards, it boasts a score by the legendary songwriting partnership behind another film that would energize the movie musical genre with equal razzle-dazzle 30 years later: Chicago's John Kander and Fred Ebb. Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and an impish emcee (Joel Grey) sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force. Cabaret caught lightning (and won Oscars) for Minnelli, Grey and director Bob Fosse, who shaped a triumph of style and substance. Come to this Cabaret, old chum. You'll never want to leave.

DVD Features:
Documentary:25th-Anniversary Documentary "Cabaret: A Legend in the Making"
Featurette:"The Recreation of An Era"
Interactive Menus
Interviews
Production Notes:"Kit Kat Klub Memory Gallery": The film's stars and creators reminisce about making movie musical history.
Scene Access
Theatrical Trailer

Winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey), Cabaret would also have taken Best Picture if it hadn't been competing against The Godfather as the most acclaimed film of 1972. (Francis Ford Coppola would have to wait two years before winning Best Director, for The Godfather, Part II.) Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed stage production, which was in turn inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and the play and movie I Am a Camera, this remarkable musical turns the pre-war Berlin of 1931 into a sexually charged haven of decadence. Minnelli commands the screen as nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles, who radiantly goes on with the show as the Nazis rise to power, holding her many male admirers (including Michael York and Helmut Griem) at a distance that keeps her from having to bother with genuinely deep emotions. Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub who will guarantee a great show night after night as a way of staving off the inevitable effects of war and dictatorship. They're all living in a morally ambiguous vacuum of desperate anxiety, determined to keep up appearances as the real world--the world outside the comfortable sanctuary of the cabaret--prepares for the nightmarish chaos of war. Director-choreographer Fosse achieves a finely tuned combination of devastating drama and ebullient entertainment, and the result is one of the most substantial screen musicals ever made. The dual-layered Special Edition widescreen DVD includes an exclusive 25th-anniversary documentary, Cabaret: A Legend in the Making, a 1972 promotional featurette, a photo gallery, production notes, the theatrical trailer, and more. --Jeff Shannon