I Am a Camera is a 1955 British comedy-drama film based on the 1945 book The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood and the 1951 eponymous play by John Van Druten.

Directed by Henry Cornelius, from a script by John Collier, I Am a Camera stars Laurence Harvey as Isherwood and Julie Harris recreating her Tony Award-winning performance as Sally Bowles.

[3][4] Long overshadowed by Cabaret, the 1966 stage and 1972 film adaptation of the same source material, contemporary critics have noted the historic interest of this earlier presentation.

In contemporary London, Christopher Isherwood attends a literary party for the launch of a memoir, the author of which he is surprised to learn is Sally Bowles.

Fritz hopes to live off Sally's earnings as a film star, but his ardour quickly cools at the sight of her fiancé Pierre, with whom she plans to leave for Paris that night.

They are extricated from the situation by wealthy American socialite Clive Mortimer, who pays their bill and takes them on a tour of Berlin night spots.

Writing up an account of his Nazi altercation, Chris sells his "Portrait of Berlin" to an American magazine to raise money for Sally to have an abortion.

In a subplot, Fritz tries to secure the affections of Natalia Landauer, a wealthy Jewish department store heiress and Christopher's student of English.

In April 1954, director Henry Cornelius and the Woolfs sent a copy of the play to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) for evaluation.

[7] The BBFC demanded changes to the script, including insisting that Sally Bowles be left poor and unsuccessful at film's end because of her sexual promiscuity in the Berlin flashbacks.

[1] Isherwood had hoped to be in London for the filming, but his lover Don Bachardy was unable to secure the permission of his local draft board to obtain a passport.

Schwartz hired civil liberties lawyer Morris Ernst, and scheduled a screening at the Museum of Modern Art in November, hoping to turn the film into a test case against the Production Code.

In February 1956, Schwartz wrote to Shurlock offering to include an additional scene in which Harvey as Isherwood condemned Sally's promiscuity, but would not address the subject of abortion.

For the most part, they agreed that Harris's performance was a bright spot, although the Daily Sketch expressed a preference for Dorothy Tutin,[18] who had played Sally on stage in 1954.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave I Am a Camera a bad review, finding it "meretricious, insensitive, superficial, and just plain cheap".

Julie Harris he labeled a "show-off", while Laurence Harvey is "an anxious straight man for her jokes", with all parties directed by Cornelius with no eye to any subtlety of character.

"[21] In a letter to friend John Lehmann, Isherwood called the film "disgusting ooh-la-la, near pornographic trash – a shameful exhibition".

[22] On the occasion of its video release in 1985, Lawrence Van Gelder, for The New York Times, found that this film, while suffering in comparison with the more lavish Cabaret, is still charming in its way, mostly because of Harris's performance as Sally.