Cinema: Liza: Ja--the Film: Nein

CABARET

Directed by BOB FOSSE

Screenplay by JAY ALLEN

First came the short stories by Christopher Isherwood. Then John Van Druten strung them together to make a play called I Am a Camera, which eventually became a movie with Julie Harris. All this furnished the raw material six years ago for a Broadway musical called Cabaret, which is now reincarnated as a movie.

Something has been lost in the translations. Isherwood's stories were taut, bittersweet recollections of bohemian Berlin in the early '30s. By the time Scenarist Allen and Director Fosse have wrung them out,...