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Every ingenue has her year. It may not be the year of their first movie or first success in some facet of the entertainment world, but the year where they elevate from “promising young talent” to the “it girl” of the moment. 1972 was Liza Minnelli’s year.
If Minnelli’s pedigree wasn’t already a leg-up with her mother a thoroughbred entertainer (Judy Garland) and her father a supreme cinematic stylist (Vincente Minnelli), she’d still be launched into the stratosphere by her sheer charisma. She wasn’t just born for the spotlight, but she feels at home in it. Having cut her teeth on Broadway and winning a Tony Award by nineteen, an Oscar nomination by twenty-three, and numerous television credits, including well-known stints on her mother’s specials, Minnelli was primed for the highest echelons of showbusiness when Bob Fosse came calling.
She’d already began her partnership with John Kander and Fred Ebb in Flora and the Red Menace, the 1965 show that won her that Tony Award at nineteen. So, the three of them were already several years deep into a life-long artistic partnership that proved most fruitful and fascinating in the dynamic range of roles and songs they wrote for her. Fosse was the upstart to cinema, with just the mixed Sweet Charity to his credit, but the titan of Broadway. This group would come together to make one of the greatest films of all-time in Cabaret.
That triumph was so nice the four of them decided to see if they could capture the magic twice. Minnelli dubbed it “the first filmed concert for television,” and I find it’s more of a one-woman stage show where Minnelli performs a medley of Cabaret, contemporary pop tunes in full jazz hands swagger, and Fosse’s iconic choreography in some of his hyper-stylized numbers. It is largely a beyond winning affair with only one section that is entertaining for its camp, but also a bit of a drag. (No pun intended.)
What emerges is an enshrinement to Liza. A singular hour-long experience where we watch her sweat, sing, dance, and act her way through a variety of numbers and Halston costumes, and it’s never less than transcendent to watch her. She seems somehow outside of time. An old-school showbiz entertainer in the vein of her mother and famous pals like Frank Sinatra in an era of deep cynicism and more naturalistic performance. Minnelli is a joyful force that could destroy the backrow with the brilliance of her shine. As she said during the press tour for the 2006 remaster, “this is the kind of work I always loved doing. This is where I belong.”
Perhaps the greatest performance Minnelli ever gave was as her persona, cemented here, and ushered by Fosse, Kander, Ebb, and Halston. She pours tremulous poignancy into “God Bless the Child,” makes “Bye Bye Blackbird” look easy, and demonstrates a pleasing self-effacing humor in “Say Liza (Liza with a ‘Z’).” Nothing compares to the Cabaret medley, of course, but “Son of a Preacher Man” is nearly its rival for its strangeness as she belts out the song and gives a full Broadway dance number. Only the weird minds of Fosse and Minnelli could take that conceit and (nearly) make it work.
Minnelli’s so steamrolling in her exertion here that it’s easy to chalk up the entire success to her, but Fosse’s directorial eye should not be undercut. Fosse flirts with the near sensory overload that appears at the end of All That Jazz or some of the rhythmic editing of any of his works. Fosse keeps much of the choreography more attuned to Minnelli’s strengths – high kicks, lots of energy, or merely basking in her glow while she acts out the lyrics – but his telltale signs come roaring out in bits and pieces, most notably “Bye Bye Blackbird.” It’s an artistic give-and-take that cemented their respective reputations.
