Imagine your favorite Broadway musicals with the same characters, story lines, yet no songs. Dolly Levi would be "The Matchmaker" without saying "Hello!"; Patrick's dear "Mame" would be "Auntie"; those cowboys of "Oklahoma!" would be looking for green lilacs instead of elephant sized stalks of corn, and Eliza Doolittle wouldn't be dancing all night in "Pygmallion". The same thing happened to the eccentric Sally Bowles of "Cabaret" in a play that ended up an almost forgotten entry in theatrical history once the team of Kander and Ebb added their songs to it.
This Sally Bowles is played by one of Broadway's greatest legends, Julie Harris, as if she were a slightly younger Tallulah Bankhead visiting pre-Nazi era Berlin. Taken in by visiting writer Christopher Isherwood (Laurence Harvey), she leads him onto a road to decadence as the growing Nazi threat increases around them.
Closer in format to the Broadway "Cabaret" than its movie musical version, "I am a Camera" is a well-acted "slice of life on the edge" that doesn't necessarily cry out for songs (even though Harris does perform one number) but wouldn't reject them, either. Shelley Winters is barely used as the anti-Semitic young musician who is in for a shock about the man she loves (Anton Diffring). Lea Seidl offers wisdom and humor as landlady Frau Schnmidt, but her sweet Jewish grocer boyfriend Herr Schultz is missing.
A great scene in a fancy restaurant with Harris swilling expensive French champagne and eating caviar while Harvey frets over the impending bill has an unexpected twist. Not much in the way of a serious linier plot, but still a lot of fun to watch.
This Sally Bowles is played by one of Broadway's greatest legends, Julie Harris, as if she were a slightly younger Tallulah Bankhead visiting pre-Nazi era Berlin. Taken in by visiting writer Christopher Isherwood (Laurence Harvey), she leads him onto a road to decadence as the growing Nazi threat increases around them.
Closer in format to the Broadway "Cabaret" than its movie musical version, "I am a Camera" is a well-acted "slice of life on the edge" that doesn't necessarily cry out for songs (even though Harris does perform one number) but wouldn't reject them, either. Shelley Winters is barely used as the anti-Semitic young musician who is in for a shock about the man she loves (Anton Diffring). Lea Seidl offers wisdom and humor as landlady Frau Schnmidt, but her sweet Jewish grocer boyfriend Herr Schultz is missing.
A great scene in a fancy restaurant with Harris swilling expensive French champagne and eating caviar while Harvey frets over the impending bill has an unexpected twist. Not much in the way of a serious linier plot, but still a lot of fun to watch.