bigverybadtom I have no idea how the movie compares to the play it was based on. But the movie was meant to be light wartime entertainment, a relief from the hardships and dreariness of the times. The movie may not have had depth, but it wasn't really intended to. It was meant to show pretty sets and pretty girls and silly comedy and entertaining music.On its own merits, it achieves it goals. The storyline is about the question of marrying for love or money, but that is secondary to the slapstick performance of Red Skelton or the music of Tommy Dorsey and his musicians or the displays of feminine beauty. The scene where the French peasants revolt against the king in the dream sequence also serve as subtle wartime propaganda.The movie is also the first major film starring Lucille Ball, who gives a straight performance compared to the clowning she would be known for later in her career. Good as a period piece, but it makes no pretensions of high art.

Robert Gold This 1943 Arthur Freed production had a great cast, gorgeous Technicolor, various personalities of the day like Tommy Dorsey (and Dick Haymes and Jo Stafford singing in the flashback sequence), but it's a rather boring film. It's a movie made for a person with the intellect of a fifth grader. I had to stop the film after an hour and watch it the next day to complete it, as my patience had reached its limit for the day. I will say that many musicals of the day had puerile plots, but this one really was on the lower half of the scale.Lucy and Red, both talented, didn't strike me as all that funny. And Lucy singing with Rita Hayworth's voice double Martha Mears looked and sounded strange. When you're looking for Rita, and you get Lucy, it is quite the shock. I will admit that after checking my facts Martha sang for Lucy before she sang for Rita in Cover Girl one year later, but I still "heard" Rita singing.Gene was good as always but I couldn't quite see why he wanted Lucy so much. She was beautiful but cold in an icy manner.Clara "Auntie Em" Blandick had a small bit in a subway which was quite good. And Lana Turner also appears in the film in an uncredited cameo.Virginia O'Brien, always fun, helped the proceedings as well.If you're a fan of the MGM musical, you should see it, but it's not a film that will make a list of the top film musicals.

theowinthrop It is a good musical, but it lacks...Cole Porter's score? DU BARRY WAS A LADY was a successful Porter show, mostly due to the antics of it's stars Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman. Merman was pretty svelt in her early Broadway and Hollywood career, and she was able to play the role of May Daly as it really was written - a gold digger who did not like the attentions of Lahr's Louis Blore (in the musical the attendant in the men's room of the nightclub in the modern portion of the story). When playing Du Barry, Merman's May is constantly keeping Louis at arm's length - and enjoying his discomfort. That is not the situation in the film...but the film varies in many ways.Besides the fact that squeamish MGM people changed Louis into a cloak room attendant, he faces two rivals for May. In the musical it was only Alec (Gene Kelly here), but in the film there is also Willy, the nightclub owner (Douglas Dumbrille) who actually turns out to be quite a nasty customer towards his monarch in the 18th Century section. In the show Willy was a trifle more sleazy in both modern and 18th Century sections, and actually sells a half interest in the club to Louis when he is enriched by his Irish Sweepstakes winnings.There was no Swami character in the musical - but it's nice to see Zero Mostel in one of his earliest roles: he plays the Swami for all he can squeeze out of it, wild-eyed in his crystal gazing (and managing to get a five dollar bill out of Andrew Toombs, as one of the customers). By the way, his name in the 18th Century section is not Taliostra, but Cagliostro - he is fitted into that section as the 18th Century charlatan who was dragged into the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Mostel also does his imitation of Charles Boyer in the show, which was apparently from his own nightclub act (according to Robert Osborne, on Turner Classic Movies tonight).There was also no Ginny (Virginia O'Brien) character to pair off with Louis at the end. But there is no reason to be critical of this - Louis does deserve something for his giving up on May.This film version does preserve two songs of Porter's score. "Do I Love You Do I?" which Gene Kelly first sings and then dances to on stage is a good number. By the way, his dance routine here with the chorus girls may be the first time (on film) that he did that "push-up" positioned jump slide that he later repeated in THE PIRATE). There is also the conclusion of the musical with the principles (including band leader Tommy Dorsey) doing "Friendship". Lucille Ball would later sing the same song with Vivian Vance on I LOVE LUCY, so she sings it here. Oddly enough in that number she uses her real voice. Earlier it was dubbed to sound more sultry. One may also catch in some background dance music a third number from the show, "What a Swell Party This Is!" which was later to pop up and be sung in HIGH SOCIETY.But the most interesting song change (due to it's risqué lyrics) was "In the Morning No!" That song, a duet in the 18th Century section of the film between King Louis and DuBarry, has lines like, "Do you like Pike's Peak my dear? Kindly tell me so. Yes, I like Pike's Peak my dear...but in the morning no!!" In the film it is replaced by a duet in DuBarry's bedroom between the King and her, and here the double entrendres of the new song deal with food (cheesecake, for example). Who was fooling who here? Rags Ragland's character is a busboy in the original, and a pain in the neck to Louis Blore. But he does transform into the Dauphin (future Louis XVI) and does accidentally shoot an arrow into Louis's behind (not his back as in the film). He too had a song dropped from the film - "Give Them the Ooh La La!" which is better forgotten. Not one of Porter's best lyrics or songs.But then, I have an advantage. In the late 1960s I saw DU BARRY in a revival at the old Equity Library Theater on West 103rd Street in Manhattan. It was a good production, but I best remember it for the performance of the actor playing the Dauphin. Impish with a sinister grin, he was the charismatic figure in that production - even singing that awful tune with all the brio he'd bring to other roles. It was the only time I saw Danny DeVito in a stage production. He was wonderful.

Neil Doyle Obviously what was good for Broadway audiences was not always good for film--especially when censorship demanded certain changes. Thus, when MGM decided to make a screen musical out of DU BARRY WAS A LADY, they had to jettison most of the score and keep a few Cole Porter numbers just to satisfy the censors.The result is a bland hodgepodge of a musical looking so prettily Technicolored that it seemed to be the ideal escapism the world needed in 1943. It also had the advantage of giving new exposure to GENE KELLY, MGM's new dancing star first seen with Judy Garland in FOR ME AND MY GAL. Two other talents, LUCILLE BALL and RED SKELTON share top billing with Gene, giving Lucy a big chance to shine in all her Technicolor glory.But the story is a sappy one and gets off to a slow start with some banal musical and comedy moments that take place in the nightclub where Red works as a hatcheck man, Lucy is a singer and Gene an aspiring songwriter, before we get to Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra delivering some solid jazz/swing with Gene Krupa on the drums.The plot starts with Lucy informing Kelly she can't afford to fall in love with a poor guy. Red becomes a wealthy gent when he wins the Irish sweepstakes and Lucy reluctantly agrees to marry him for his money with no objections from Red. When Rags Ragland offers to help Red get rid of his competition by slipping a Mickey into Kelly's drink, the plan misfires and Red falls into a coma, believing he's King Louis XV and Lucy is Du Barry with Gene as odd man out--the Black Arrow.Unfortunately, the 18th Century part of the story has not much more wit than the modern sequences although it's amusing to see all the cast in powdered wigs and period costumes going through some slapstick paces.Lucy and Red make a good pair with the right comic timing and chemistry, but Gene Kelly's role is a pivotal one and probably one of his weakest earlier roles.Summing up: Lots of eye candy with all the Technicolor trimmings MGM usually put into their musicals. And watch for a brief guest star cameo from Lana Turner and an early glimpse of Dick Haymes as a singer in Dorsey's band.