Chicago

For the casual moviegoer who cares little for the history behind their entertainment, the names Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner will mean nothing to them. Yet these two women are at the very heart of one of the biggest movie musicals of the 21st century. In 1924, Beulah was arrested for the murder of her lover. She claimed innocence, alleging that he came after her, and they both reached for her husband’s gun before she managed to shoot him dead. She further muddled the narrative by claiming she barely knew the man she killed and that he broke in and tried to rape her, a fabrication most likely dreamed up by her attorneys. 

Belva was also arrested for shooting and killing her lover, a married man. She claimed to have no recollection of the crime, having blacked out while out on the town in various jazz clubs, drinking, and partying with the man she allegedly killed. The defense attorneys successfully argued that the victim might have killed himself rather than being murdered, and Belva was acquitted of his death. Beulah and Belva were heavy inspirations for the characters of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly as written by Maurine Dallas Watkins in her satirical 1926 play, Chicago. This play, while based on the two unrelated murders, was also inspired by many other violent crimes committed in Chicago at the time, where it seemed that no women were being prosecuted for their violent acts. Watkins covered many of these trials as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

In 1927, Cecil B. DeMille produced a silent adaptation of the play featuring a former Mack Sennett actress, Phyllis Haver, one of Sennett’s bathing beauties. This adaptation lacked much of the satire and harsh criticism that permeated the play, appeasing the censor board by meting out punishment to the killers rather than allowing them to be acquitted. In 1942, a second adaptation was commissioned, this time with Ginger Rogers in the lead. This film, Roxie Hart, tackled the Hays Code in a different way, equally unsatisfactorily. In Roxie Hart, the title character has been falsely accused of the murder, therefore, could be acquitted without violating the Hays Code, which insists criminals had to be punished in the end. Neither way of telling this story works well for social satire. 

In the 1960s, Bob Fosse was made aware of the story by his wife, Gwen Verdon, when she read the stage script. Fosse made multiple attempts to purchase the rights to it with the intent to produce a musical adaptation, but Maurine Dallas Watkins refused to sell the rights to him. This went on and on until 1969 when Watkins died and her estate came to an agreement with Fosse and producers Richard Fryer and Verdon. Their idea was to merge the themes of justice, show business, and contemporary society through vaudevillian-stylemusical numbers. It debuted on stage in 1975 but ultimately was not much of a success in large part due to its cynical nature. It was this version of the story that eventually made it to the big screen in 2002 in the wildly successful and critical darling Chicago, a throwback to musicals like Fosse’s own Cabaret.

Chicago came out at a time when the big-screen movie musical was out of style and mostly dismissed as a viable moneymaker. It was considered a risky gamble to bankroll this film. Bob Fosse had been trying to get the film made back in the 1970s, planning it to be his follow-up to Cabaret but ultimately couldn’t get it off the ground before he died in the mid-1980s. By the late 1990s, Chicago had a bit of a revival on the stage, taking a minimalist approach, and that brought the story and music back into the public’s mind and it was announced shortly afterwards that the film version was finally going to be made. 

To make the film more cinematic, the vaudevillian musical numbers were retained but restaged as cutaways in the minds of the performers, juxtaposed with the realities of the moment. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the characters and their emotional states. The film’s budget meant that shortcuts had to be incorporated, though, and there are several musical numbers that suffer from this, most notably in Cell Block Tango, where it can’t quite hide the feeling that it’s being performed on a sound stage. Still, the choreography is so stunning, and the camera work highlights the actresses, who are mostly doing all the footwork for real, allowing us to see the actresses’ faces during much of it. Catherine Zeta-Jones even insisted on having shorter hair so that her face could be seen during her dancing, showcasing her background training in dance theater. This choice allows us to see past the technical limitations and appreciate the visuals and the choreography. 

Where Chicago falters is by not giving us anyone to really root for. Sure, we don’t want to see Roxy or Velma executed, but by opening the film with Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones) storming into her dressing room with blood all over her hands, washing them off, and taking the stage in defiance of what she just did, that hardly gives us a sympathetic character. Likewise, we see Roxy (Renée Zellweger) in the throes of passion with Fred Casely (Dominic West), only to shoot him when he reveals that he lied to her to get her into bed. This is followed up by the police questioning her and her husband, Amos (John C. Reilly), whomshe has duped into taking the heat for the shooting, claiming it was a burglar. Roxy is only exposed when the name of the deceased is revealed, and Amos knows the man personally, realizing that his wife was two-timing him. Roxy changes from the adoring wife to a spiteful, angry woman mid-song. Neither Velma nor Roxy is sympathetic in any way, and Amos is shown as a sap, easily manipulated and the type of person you look right through and never really see. The only sympathetic character is Katalin (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) who is on death row for a brutal murder she maintains she is innocent of. Her story is told entirely in Hungarian to spare most of us from the grizzly details. She is the only one who insists she is innocent of any wrongdoing but she will be the only one we see executed.

The final two pieces of the puzzle are the corrupt warden of the female prison, Matron “Mama” Morton (Queen Latifah), and the duplicitous, greedy lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), who has never lost a case but only really cares about whether you can cover his $5,000 fee. Mama will do anything for her prisoners provided you can pay the exorbitant price for her services, this includs introducing you to the right people for a cut of the profits should you become an entertainer. Billy Flynn has a perfect record of getting people acquitted in court primarily because he is a master manipulator and is willing to break the law himself in order to cast reasonable doubt on even the most obviously guilty clients. He gets a wonderfully campy musical number playing a ventriloquist and puppeteer manipulating both his client and the press. Later, he will do a dance number in court to show off how expertly he sideswipes some particularly damning evidence. 

Chicago struck it big with audiences, many of whom hadn’t seen a musical quite like this before. Cabaret was thirty years in the past, and younger audiences just weren’t being drawn to see this World War II-era burlesque musical. Chicago brought this kind of entertainment back into the cultural zeitgeist and repopularized it for a while. Films like Burlesque in 2010 would try to build off that success without nearly the same effect. When the Oscar nominations came out, Chicago was a hot topic, competing with the middle chapter in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a better-made film but suffering from being the middle chapter in a three-part story. Chicago’s social satire and sarcastic tone struck hard and fast, and it ended up winning the night.

Quite simply, there was nothing quite like this in cinemas at the time. The novelty of it after such a long drought from big cinema musicals propelled Academy voters to cast their lot with the film. Just the year before, we had Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, but that film, while also Oscar-nominated, didn’t have the buzz and excitement that Chicago did. There was just something about all that Bob Fosse-style cabaret dancing and staging that really lit up the screen and made this one of the more memorable films to ever win the Best Picture Oscar. It suffers from having no one to root for but makes up for it by being infinitely watchable and peppered with a lot of songs that will stay with you long after you finish watching it.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Martin Richards (won)

Best Director: Rob Marshall

Best Actress: Renée Zellweger

Best Supporting Actor: John C. Reilly

Best Supporting Actress: Queen Latifah

Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Bill Condon

Best Art Direction: John Wyhre and Gordon Sim (won)

Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe

Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood (won)

Best Film Editing: Martin Walsh (won)

Best Original Song: “I Move On” by John Kander and Fred Ebb

Best Sound: Michael Minkler, Dominick Tavella, and David Lee

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Release Date: December 27, 2002

Running Time: 113 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly, Lucy Liu, and Colm Feore

Directed By: Rob Marshall