Chicago

Chicago, American musical film, released in 2002, that was based on Bob Fosse’s 1975 Broadway play, with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb. The movie, directed and choreographed by Rob Marshall, was a popular and critical success, winning six Academy Awards, including best picture.

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The movie begins with a performance by vaudeville star Velma Kelly (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has just killed her sister and her husband after having caught them in bed together. The star-struck Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) is in the audience with her boyfriend, Fred Casely (Dominic West), who she believes has show-business connections. A few nights later, Fred admits that he has no friends in the theatre. An angry Roxie fatally shoots him. Her loving husband, Amos Hart (John C. Reilly), is willing to admit to the murder, but the police reveal the affair between Fred and Roxie. Amos subsequently recants, leading Roxie to confess. She is taken to jail, where she meets the Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), who will do favours for money, and where Velma is already imprisoned. Mama Morton recommends that Roxie choose Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) as her defense attorney, though Flynn is currently representing Velma. Amos hires Flynn, who concocts a story that Roxie is an innocent led astray and that she killed Casely in self-defense when he attacked her for remaining loyal to Amos. Flynn stages a press conference that makes a star of Roxie. Velma, upstaged, tries unsuccessfully to persuade Roxie to partner with her in her song-and-dance act when they are released.

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Kitty Baxter (Lucy Liu), a wealthy heiress accused of murdering her husband and two women after catching all three in bed together, arrives at the jail, stealing the spotlight from Roxie. The attention-seeking Roxie improvises a pregnancy, regaining the interest of Flynn and the press. Flynn convinces Amos that the baby is Casely’s and that he must divorce Roxie. Roxie, unhappy with Flynn’s request that she appear demure at the trial, fires him. However, upon learning that fellow inmate Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) has lost her appeal and has been executed, she rehires Flynn and follows his advice. At the trial, after a staged reconciliation between Amos and Roxie and after Roxie’s testimony, it appears that she will be acquitted. However, Velma—who has been given Roxie’s diary by Mama Morton and has agreed to testify in turn for the dismissal of the charges against her—is then called as a rebuttal witness. She reads passages that incriminate Roxie, who insists that she did not write them. Flynn accuses the prosecutor of forging the passages. Roxie is ultimately acquitted (and reveals to Amos that she is not actually pregnant), but her victory is forgotten when a woman shoots a man on the courthouse steps. Roxie later fails an audition, but Velma is waiting in the wings, and the two collaborate in a successful jazz partnership.

The film’s plot was inspired by two Chicago women who, in 1924, were accused and later acquitted of having murdered their lovers. Crime reporter Maurine Watkins covered the stories for the Chicago Tribune, and she wrote a play about the women in 1926. The following year a film adaptation, also called Chicago, was released. The story inspired another movie, Roxie Hart (1942), with Ginger Rogers in the title role. The Broadway play Chicago, the first musical based on Watkins’s story, premiered in 1975. The production was directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, and it starred Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, and Jerry Orbach. The musical’s Broadway revival, beginning in 1996, was a smash hit and far more successful than the 1975 version. Chicago was the first movie directed by Rob Marshall.

Production notes and credits

• Studios: Miramax, Producers Circle, Storyline Entertainment, and Kalis Productions GmbH & Co. KG
• Director: Rob Marshall
• Writer: Bill Condon (screenplay)
• Music: John Kander
• Cinematography: Dion Beebe

Cast

• Renée Zellweger (Roxie Hart)
• Catherine Zeta-Jones (Velma Kelly)
• Richard Gere (Billy Flynn)
• Queen Latifah (Mama Morton)
• John C. Reilly (Amos Hart)

Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)

• Picture*
• Lead actress (Renée Zellweger)
• Supporting actress* (Catherine Zeta-Jones)
• Supporting actress (Queen Latifah)
• Supporting actor (John C. Reilly)
• Art direction*
• Cinematography
• Costume design*
• Direction
• Editing*
• Music (original song: “I Move On”)
• Sound*
• Writing