1943: Du Barry Was A Lady

Du Barry Was A Lady (del Ruth, 1943) 2/10


The historical figure Madame Du Barry was once cinema’s most popular Maîtresse. Until, Sofia Coppola’s misinterpreted Marie Antoinette was released this past year, Louis XV’s favourite lover had not been seen on the screen in over half a century. Yet from 1919-1954,directors such as Ernst Lubitsch and William Dieterle had attempted to tell her story, while actresses ranging from former silent star Norma Talmadge, Dolores del Rio and Lucille Ball had all played at least a variation of the 18th century French courtesan. It would be the latter who in her first film at MGM after leaving RKO would star in the most recent American-produced turn as Du Barry prior to Asia Argento’s 2006 effort in Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

Yet, Ball’s starring role in Du Barry Was A Lady opposite Red Skeleton and Gene Kelly is less a historical romp, but rather a tedious fantasy-laced production, which feels flat and forced in its attempts at a screwy, slightly ribald musical-comedy. Adapted from a saucy 1939 Broadway musical with songs by Cole Porter, Du Barry Was A Lady fell under the directorial gaze of Roy del Ruth and producer Arthur Freed. After inital lead Ann Sothern became pregnant, Freed hired newly acquired Lucille Ball to star as the shallow showgirl May Daly. Comedian Red Skeleton and dancer extraordinaire Gene Kelly (in his second film and his first in Technicolor) were added to play Ball’s admirers.

The film stars Skeleton as Louis Blore as a hat-check attendant at a New York nightclub who along with dancer Alex Howe (Kelly) desires the club’s star attraction May Daly, who goes by the stage name Du Barry. Yet, May discounts both men as potential suitors based on the size of their wallets. Fearful of living in poverty, the depressed Daly woos the club’s millionaires who can provide her with the financial security which escaped her parents. She sighs she may even grow to love them a little.

But when the immature Louis surprisingly comes into money, May begins to lean toward her newly-minted colleague much to the chagrin of Alex, whom she loves for every thing but his lack of financial resources. Louis’ malefic attempts to convince Alex of his intentions come undone after the former is accidentally drugged: producing an extended dream sequence in which the spendthrift is transported to pre-Revolutionary France with his co-workers and peers in tow.

With its Broadway origins, watered-down subject matter, conservative blend of up-tempo music, zany comedy and unrequited romance, Du Barry Was A Lady is typical 1940’s MGM fare. Class and gender stereotypes are prominent with working-class buffons, doting African-American servants and limited examples of open social movement.As with other MGM musicals of the period, women generally are concerned about marriage and purposeful love. Virginia O’Brien’s Ginny (the cigarette girl) consistently begs Louis to marry her, while Lucille Ball literally treats marriage as a business contract: sacrificing true love in favour of financial security. Certainly, memories of the Great Depression would play into the mindsets of characters, but given the newfound independence of women during this period it is interesting to note the conservative nature of the film’s female protagonists, especially when Louis remarks that he cannot get a real job at the shipyard because the company wants women. Thus, there is a contrast between the women outside who are actively employed in the war effort and the women at the club who require (wealthy) men to supplant their income and solidify their prospects.

Intriguingly however while these women seek out economic security in men, they are also quite sexually independent and frank for 1940’s MGM. As she repeatedly asks Louis for his hand in marriage, Ginny tries to appeal to his sexual appetite reminding him that she could come over again, until he quickly rebutes her veiled advances to staying the night. Unlike the bourgeois May, the working-class Ginny openly displays her appetite and hunger to men such as Louis. For Ginny her sexuality is an extension of her feminity:an enjoyable element of her limited social freedoms which she indulges in; for May it is a undisclosed and undesired tool for quietly obtaining material possessions from interested men. Yet, this emphasizes a notion that May is reluctantly willing to respectfully “prostitute” herself out in order to avoid the financial difficulties her parents suffered.

The objectified sexual nature of the women at the club is evident in their songs and routines, yet is limited to stereotypes of female exoticism and duty. Songs such as “Salome,” “I Love An Esquire Girl” and “DuBarry was a Lady” range from subtle evocations of the empowerment of female sexual agency to restrictively personifying women as sex objects.The women at the club are scantily clad in a variety of risque costumes ranging from exotic Arabian dancers to short-skirted brides. Although this demonstrates the limited opportunities for women inside the club (as either provactively dressed performers or provactively dressed servers) their performances on a stage which looks like an enormous bed heightens and objectifies their sexual appeal: even going to so far as equating them with pin-up girls in a “calendar sequence.”

Conceptions of masculinity in Du Barry Was A Lady are divided into two camps. In Kelly’s Alex, there is a sensitive respectability attached to an understated, yet ambitious personality. In Louis, there is wantoness and arrogance to compensate for his emasculated position in a job generally reserved for women. He uses exaggeration to fill in his hollow pride: periodically attaching himself to Ginny for her corporeal assets, while simulataneously frightened of responsibility and commitment. The inept sexual prowess of Louis and other men in Du Barry Was A Lady can be seen in May’s foremost suitor, the aptly named Willie: an aging impotent man fond of holding cigars, but who can never lure May back to the bedroom in his apartment.

It is interesting to note given the prominent subtle hints at sexuality in the film, that upon obtaining Herbert Fields and B.G. DeSylva’s play MGM went about eliminating elements deemed too crass and undesirable such as Louis job as a men’s bathroom attendant. Yet, not even a cameo by Lana Turner (as herself) or an early appearance by Ava Gardner as an extra can inject any spice into this overlong and dull picture. The central issues with the film are to be found in its one-dimensional script and lacklustre direction. Taking almost forty minutes -in a 96 minute film- to reach the film’s central narrative, Du Barry Was A Lady is a collection of comedy mis-steps, wasted performances and mid-level song routines. The sequences with Tommy Dorsey are excellent, as is Kelly’s brief dance sequence. But the majority of this film is at best very good such as Ball’s dubbed-opening “Du Barry Was A Lady” number and “Salome,” or at worst hideously wasteful of time and talent such as the Oxford Boys sequence. Cedric Gibbons art direction ranges from the film’s sexually filtered high society club to elegant Versailles and raw French locations, whose detailed composition are lavishly expended in this picture.Karl Freund’s cinematography is sophsisticated and warm, but lacks the edge of classic black and white work, while del Ruth’s dawdling direction is careless: squandering time, talent and effort.

In Du Barry Was A Lady future blacklistee and Producer Zero Mostel makes his debut as Rami the club’s daft in-house psychic, but along with Skeleton his performance is flawed: Skeleton in his excessive physical comedy; Mostel in his muted attempts away from physical comedy. Characters such as Mostel’s Rami and Gene Kelly’s Alex routinely disappear from the proceedings, while the emphasis on who is the central character rotates at will between Ball and Skeleton. Ball’s somber effort is generally considered one of the best of her cinematic career, as she provides one of the film’s few multi-dimensional approaches with her character’s tired and superficial off-stage persona. Kelly is dependable, although his participation in the film is frittered by a director who seems unable to decide what to do with him. Time has not been kind to Skeleton’s maniacal performance. His performance has lost a lot of its charm and character with its emphasis on the type of campy expressive double-takes which has befallen Cary Grant’s work in Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace.

Although, a failure in terms of narrative and style, Du Barry Was A Lady does hold some interest for contemporary viewers. It’s coded sexuality goes against the grain of similar MGM musicals of the period, while the performances of Lucille Ball and Gene Kelly provide an interesting insight into their early years. With its Wizard of Oz-style concept of reality being contorted through a dream held promise, the filmmakers waste far too much time in exploiting the possibilities of the film: preferring to water the audience’s appetite through semi-lavish spectacles that are boring and inane. By the time the film reaches its denouement much of the film’s earlier energy has been expended in fruitless comedic endeavours, artistic mismanagement and the destruction of the auteuristic potential for the film to rise above its core material.

* Du Barry Was A Lady will be released by Warner Brothers Home Video in their upcoming Lucille Ball Signature Collection

Copyright 2007 8 ½ Cinematheque.