Cinema Sunday: Du Barry Was a Lady

A month or so back, I stumbled across a movie on TCM that unexpectedly checked off a few boxes of interest on the part of my wife Andrea.

It was a movie that starred Red Skelton. Shelton was a favorite comedian of Andrea's family and was the source of a brush with fame. Andrea's grandmother encountered Red Skelton in a K-Mart when he was in town for a live show. 

It also featured Gene Kelly, a favorite classic actor here at the Fortress of Ineptitude for his roles in Singin' In the Rain and An American In Paris.  This movie featured a young Kelly, predating his more famous roles by a decade.

And the movie also starred Lucille Ball. Long recognized as the grande dame of TV comedy, Ball spent a lot of time in the movies before I Love Lucy ever became a thing. Andrea had never seen a movie with Lucille Ball.  

So for this week's Cinema Sunday, from 1943 we present Du Barry Was a Lady.  

Madame Du Barry was a courtesan of King Louis XV, his official mistress.  One of her predecessors in the role was Madame de Pompadour of whom we learned a great deal in the Doctor Who episode "The Girl In the Fireplace".  

Madame Du Barry was not as beloved as Madame de Pompadour so she never got a Doctor Who episode made about her. 

She does, however, inspire a nightclub cabaret act.  May Daly (Lucille Ball) performs a lavish costumed musical spectacle about the scandalized mistress of King Louis XV.  Coatroom attendant Louis Blore (Red Skelton) and master of ceremonies Alec Howe (Gene Kelly) are in love with May but May only eyes for men with money. 

Until Louis actually comes into money and May reluctantly agrees to marry him. But she makes it clear: she's only marrying him for money and not for any sex stuff. 

(OK, I should point out this is an American film made in 1943 under the strict oversight of the Hays Office. May does not actually utter the words "no sex stuff" but I still heard it.) 

Louis is actually down with this because he's just happy someone as pretty and talented as May has anything to do with him, even if it is just for money. 

The Louis gets knocked unconscious (Why? Shenanigans. Let it go at that.) and finds himself the King of France, ol' royal Louie himself, King Louis XV. In this fantasy world, Madame Du Barry (Ball) is his mistress but even in his own fantasy world, she ain't putting out. Not for him, anyway. Her belongs to that mysterious daredevil, that fighter for the poor and the oppressed known only as the Black Arrow (Kelly again).   

Then there's stuff and shenanigans and yada yada yada before Louis wakes up and is back in the 1940's. Louis realizes that May and Alec are truly in love and releases May from her commitment to marry him. 

Which is all for the best as the money's gone. Louis has spent half of his new found fortune and the IRS has come to collect the rest.   

Du Barry Was a Lady began life as a 1939 stage musical but by the time the story made it to the MGM lot, very little of the original play was left. Most of the original Cole Porter score gets cut from the film.

The 18th century fantasy sequence that formed the core of the stage musical is shunted off to the last 3rd of the movie. A variety of vaudeville acts fill time in the 58 minutes before the dream sequence ever gets underway.  

Red Skelton dominates the proceedings with his signature schtick, firing off dozens of one-liners from his classic stand up comedy act. So a lot of the stage story was jettisoned to make room for Skelton's comedy routine. 

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Dept. 

Zero Mostel stars as Rami the Swami in the night club and as Taliostra in the 18th century dream sequence.  Mostel would go on to play Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks' The Producers.    

Lana Turner stars as Lana Turner. 

Louise Beavers is Niagara, May Daly's maid and confidante. Like a lot of African American women of the era, Louise was often cast in the role of someone's maid or housekeeper. I'm citing her here because she was also a maid in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a classic Cary Grant/Myrna Loy comedy that I should post about in Cinema Sunday one day.

Fun Fact:  although a long time famous red head, Lucille Ball's appearance in Du Barry Was a Lady was her debut as a red head in film. In all her previous films,she had been a brunette but who cared, they were in black and white. For her Technicolor debut, it was decided Lucille Ball needed to be more distinctive and her hair was dyed red.  Whoever made that decision, Lucille Ball liked it a lot and remained a red head for the rest of her life. 

Here's something else that I find interesting. I've written of previous classic films where the lead actor was so much older than their leading lady. In Dubarry, Lucille Ball is older than Gene Kelly and Red Skelton.  

Du Barry Was a Lady is a surprisingly slight film, more fluff than form, more style over substance. The dream sequence, so central to the stage play, feels tacked on. If you like the corny comedy of Red Skelton or the suave sophistication of Gene Kelly, there's something to keep you entertained.