The film significantly differs from the Broadway musical. In the stage version, Sally is English (as she was in Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin). In the film adaptation, she is American.[5] Cliff Bradshaw was renamed Brian Roberts and made British (as was Isherwood, upon whom the character was based), rather than American as in the stage version.[5][30]: 139 The characters and plotlines involving Fritz, Natalia and Max were pulled from I Am a Camera and did not appear in the stage production of Cabaret (or in Goodbye to Berlin).[31]
The most significant change involves the excision of the two main characters: Fraulein Schneider, who runs a boarding house, and her love interest, Herr Schultz, a German grocer.[30]: 34 Their doomed romance plot, and the consequences of a Gentile falling in love with a Jew during the rise of antisemitism, was cut. With the removals were "So What?" and "What Would You Do", sung by Schneider, the song "Meeskite", sung by Schultz,[30]: 83 and their two duets "It Couldn't Please Me More (The Pineapple Song)" (cut) and "Married" (reset as a piano instrumental, and a phonograph record), as well as a short reprise of "Married", sung alone by Schultz.[38][30]: 34, 83
Kander and Ebb wrote several new songs and removed others.[5][6] "Don't Tell Mama" was replaced by "Mein Herr",[30]: 143 and "The Money Song" (retained in an instrumental version as "Sitting Pretty") was replaced by "Money, Money."[30]: 141–43 "Mein Herr" and "Money, Money", which were composed for the film, were integrated into the stage musical alongside the original numbers.[30]: 141–43 The song "Maybe This Time", which Sally performs at the cabaret, was not written for the film,[30]: 141–43 but was intended for actress Kaye Ballard.[39][40] Although "Don't Tell Mama" and "Married" were removed as performed musical numbers, both still appear in the film: "Mama"'s bridge section appears as an instrumental played on Sally's gramophone; "Married" initially plays on the piano in Fraulein Schneider's parlor, and later heard on Sally's gramophone in a German translation ("Heiraten") sung by cabaret singer Greta Keller.[30]: 155 Additionally, "If You Could See Her", performed by the MC, originally concluded with the line "She isn't a meeskite at all" onstage. The film changes this to "She wouldn't look Jewish at all," a return to Ebb's original lyrics.[41]
