Customer Rating:  
Summary: What Gene Kelly does to "Do I Love You, Do I" is...ah...memorable. Thank goodness for Lucille Ball and Donald Meek
Comment: "Be brave, my friend. You are dying for your country!" says The Black Arrow (Gene Kelly) to his pal, the grubby Taliostra (Zero Mostel), as the tumbrel bears them to the guillotine.
"Yeah," says Taliostra, "but I was born in the city." Expect much more of the same with Du Barry Was a Lady.
The 1939 Broadway smash starred two powerful performers, Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman, a first rate, innuendo-filled set of songs by Cole Porter, and lots of girls and gags. So what did MGM do when the studio bought the rights? Ditched Merman and Lahr and almost all of the Porter songs. (To be fair, a good many of Porter's lyrics would not have gotten past Hollywood's Code of Decency). MGM kept the girls.
MGM bought the rights for three reasons...to have a vehicle to showcase its up-and-coming comic lead, Red Skelton; the same with their newest knockout beauty coming to them from RKO, Lucille Ball; and to use Gene Kelly until they could figure out what to do with him. Skelton plays Louis Blore, a hatcheck boy at a posh New York nightclub who has a crush on May Daly (Ball), the club's headliner. But she wants security, not love. Still, we know she likes Alec Howe (Kelly), the nightclub's MC, dancer and songwriter, who loves her. When Louis wins the lottery, May decides to marry him. But then a mistaken mickey knocks Louis out and he wakes up as Louis XV, with May as Madame Du Barry and Alec as Black Arrow, the dashing fighter for freedom. All those comic relief employees of the nightclub, the likes of Mostel, Rags Ragland and Virginia O'Brien, show up as peasants or nobles, along with just about everyone else Louis had met in the nightclub, including Donald Meek. Things finally are resolved, with happiness all around, when Louis comes to and finds himself back in the nightclub with May, Alec and all his pals.
The movie has that smooth, unreal MGM Technicolor gloss that can make even genuine talent seem artificial. The best thing that can be said is that the movie has a few highlights and a great deal of barely imaginative but skilled professionalism. To substitute for the songs by Porter that were pitched, there is, in my view, a hodge-podge of mostly second-rate and facile Hollywood music and lyric writing. In place of Porter's clever, sophisticated and amusing songs, including the inventive and salacious "But in the Morning, No" where he comes up with some startling metaphors for sex in the a.m., we're stuck with "Madame, I Love Your Crepes Suzettes" and "I Love an Esquire Girl." Even Lahr wouldn't be able to make these lyrics funny. All Skelton does is mug and prance while he performs them.
If you like Red Skelton, you might enjoy Du Barry Was a Lady. He's in almost every scene, doing all of his unusual shtick. For me, Skelton was at his most appealing when he wasn't doing all the grab-`em-by-the-throat clowning, Give me the Skelton who was Wally "The Fox" Benton, master sleuth on radio, inept in real life, in Whistling in the Dark (1941) (1941), Whistling in Dixie (1942) and Whistling in Brooklyn (1943).
Lucille Ball is a knock out, strikingly gorgeous and with that skeptical, smart look about her that, I think, perpetually flummoxed studio heads. Those arched eyebrows of hers made her a challenge to cast. One of her most sympathetic and amusing roles, I think, was in Lured (1947), but it didn't do her career much good.
More than anything else, I think it's Gene Kelly's singing and dancing to Porter's great song, "Do I Love You, Do I" that establishes how out of sync this movie is with any sense of style or respect for excellent material. The song is one of the few from the Broadway show that was kept. To do it justice (even knowing that Merman introduced it) it needs the languid sophistication of a Lee Wiley or even the driving treatment Peggy Lee gave Lover. Instead, we have a typically Kelly interpretation, all on the surface, singing and tapping, and then a fast, athletic performance with chorus girls set to a blaring, flashy orchestration. Whoever was responsible for the grotesque treatment this great song received should have had their taps stapled to their lips. Here are the words. Perhaps you'll recall the melody.
Do I love you, do I?
Doesn't one and one make two?
Do I love you, do I?
Does July need a sky of blue?
Would I miss you, would I?
If you ever should go away?
If the sun should desert the day,
What would life be?
Will I leave you, never?
Could the ocean leave the shore?
Will I worship you forever?
Isn't heaven forever more?
Do I love you, do I?
Oh, my dear, it's so easy to see,
Don't you know I do?
Don't I show you I do,
Just as you love me.
For good measure, the movie also gives us Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, an unbilled Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers (with Dick Haymes), and a curious trio called The Three Oxford Boys who imitate various dance bands by humming through their noses. The movie is glossy and bright, and if you can tolerate Red Skelton's continuous mugging and pratfalls, it might be worth a look. The DVD transfer is first rate.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lucille Ball's Musical Debut!
Comment: When I saw that "Dubarry Was a Lady" had Gene Kelly and Lucille Ball in it, I had to rent it. I don't know why, but I couldn't seem to see the two of them in a movie together. (Why do they put Gene Kelly in movies with ladies that are tall when he is so short?)
Lucille Ball plays May Daly, a nightclub singer and dancer, who has fallen in love with Gene Kelly. She refuses to marry him though because she is a poor songwriter and she wants to marry someone rich. So when Red Skelton wins a jackpot, she decides to marry him. Then they go into a big dream sequence that, I will admit, can get kind of slow.
Virginia O'Brien also stars as a waitress who has a crush on Red Skelton. So though this may not be the best musical it's worth a look!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Musical
Comment: Very fun musical with some good dance numbers. DVD transfer quality is outstanding. The colors, costumes are excellent. It's great to see Lucille Ball with that red hair in technicolor. I've always thought she was a pretty woman, but in this movie she is stunningly beautiful. What a treat for the eyes!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reserved for rabid Lucille fans
Comment: You have to be a rabid Lucille Ball fan to enjoy this rather boring piece of fluff. The sinister "comedy scenes" between Ball and Kelly are a drag and Zero Mostel makes an incredibly bad imitation of Charles Boyer. Production numbers have the usual Metro polish, the Technicolor is gorgeous, but the end result is a big disappointment. For a much better experience, look at BEST FOOT FORWARD (DVD/P&S-1.33/ENG-FUB)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Du Barry Was a Lady 1943
Comment: Hapless nightclub hat check boy Red Skelton (1913-1997) Loves glamourous chanteuse Lucille Ball (1911-1989) . Handsome hoofer Gene Kelly (1912-1996) loves her too . And Lucy ? Lucy loves money . Then Red Skelton misstakely gulps down a Mickey Finn , dreams he's in 18th-century France and before you can powder your wig , a throng of suitors - Red , Gene , King Louis XV , a dashing rebel , a sinister duke and just about -everybody loves lucy ? This glittery , tune-filled bon-bon features a supporting cast of wags and wits (including the inimitable Zero Mostel 1915-1977 ) and three Cole Porter (1891-1964) songs from the original Broadway smash : Friendship , Katie wnt to Haiti and Do i love you ? Cherchez la Lucy for comedy , music and star power from Hollywood's Golden Era . High Quality Transfer . Recommended .
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