Cabaret is superb drama enriched by music, not a "musical" padded with the usual tacked-on, hoked-up plot. While its story centers on an American showbiz-obsessed girl, her affair with a Cambridge graduate student, and their joint friendship with a wealthy German aristocrat, Cabaret's theme is the gradual obliteration of freedom in Germany as the National Socialists rise from hooliganism to apparent idealism to—in the years after that covered by the film—supreme power….

Cabaret never oversteps drama into bathos, never bludgeons its point, never obscures the simple love story with the political message. Instead, it merges the two with remarkable effectiveness. Its force and beauty everywhere apparent, Cabaret is exquisitely intelligent cinema, ranking with the finest movies made in recent years. (p. 476)

David Brudnoy, "Cabaret and Elsewhere," in National Review (© National Review, Inc., 1972; 150 East 35th St., New York, NY 10016), Vol. XXIV, No. 16, April 28, 1972, pp. 476-77.∗