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As long as you don’t pay much attention to the script, Du Barry Was a Lady is a great movie. This really isn’t too hard since there’s very little in the way of plot to deal with, and the film is padded immensely with comedic shenanigans and random performers filling up screen time with musical interludes that have little to nothing to do with the story proper. Just think of this as MGM’s musical department stuffing a film to bursting because they considered it a trial-run for up-and-coming talent.
But the up-and-coming talent featured here is Red Skelton, Gene Kelly and Lucille Ball working alongside the underrated Virginia O’Brien as a sardonic cigarette girl, Zero Mostel as a hammy swami, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos from Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. In only his third film Kelly’s screen persona seems locked into place, and he’s one of the few performers who required no transition from one persona to another before finding something that highlighted his talents the best. He came onto the screen fully formed, and while he doesn’t get too much to do here, he looks handsome as ever and the basic outline of most of his character’s predicaments are falling into place. Ball, on the other hand, isn’t given too much to do, but she has never looked more glamorous or beautiful. She looks positively stunning, and it’s easy to see why both Kelly and Skelton are head-over-heels in love with her. It’s a shame that she’s not allowed to let loose and be funny until the very end, but she plays her gold-digger showgirl for all its worth. Skelton is a presence I’ve never understood. Sure, he does fine work here, but I just don’t grasp his appeal.
So while the script is fairly inconsequential, the cinematography, bold colors and lavish costumes are stunning to behold. It’s a shame they couldn’t graft a better story to all of these lovely details and really made something classic. Du Barry is also smart enough to keep things charging forward at a quick pace, so it never bogs down and it knows it’s featherweight entertainment and never aspires to anything more. So taken for what it is – all-singing/all-dancing/all-vaudevillian comedic interludes – it’s pretty successful, but it had so many ingredients to be something much more. Ah well, that’s discussing the film that could have been made and not the one that was though.
