Du Barry Was a Lady

Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)

THE BIG SHOW is BIGGER THAN EVER!

Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is in love with a poor dancer but wants to marry for money. When Louis wins the Irish Sweepstakes, he asks May to marry him and she accepts even though she doesn't love him. Soon after, Louis has an accident and gets knocked on the head, where he dreams that he's King Louis XV pursuing the infamous Madame Du Barry.

Date of release
1943-08-13
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (19)
Runtime
1h 41m
Genres
Comedy, Fantasy, Music
Director
Roy Del Ruth

Casting

Interesting facts

Du Barry Was a Lady is a 1943 American musical comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth, starring Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, and Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra. It is based on the 1939 stage musical of the same name. Shot in Technicolor, the film was produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Production

In 1941, RKO and MGM entered into an intense bidding war for the adaption rights to the Broadway play Du Barry Was a Lady. The play, starring Ethel Merman in the leading role with music from Cole Porter, had been a success on Broadway, as had their subsequent project Panama Hattie. MGM acquired the rights to both for $80,000. The studio quickly made a film adaption of the latter starring comedian Red Skelton and Ann Sothern.

Du Barry was initially developed as a re-teaming of Skelton and Sothern, with Keenan Wynn in the other role of the trio. However, Sothern turned down the revised role, in part because she was pregnant with her daughter Tisha Sterling. Following Sothern's departure, MGM decided to cast the newly signed Lucille Ball. MGM also cast Gene Kelly over Wynn, as a follow-up vehicle to For Me and My Gal.

Adapting the play proved to be challenging. The studio was forced to alter the script significantly to comply with the Hays Code. Much of the play's script was replaced with less risqué material and additional characters. As a result of the casting of non-singers Skelton and Ball, Freed discarded most of the play's original Cole Porter score in favor of original music created by his unit for Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra and others.

This resulted in the first portion of the film being a vaudeville segment set in the nightclub having little to do with the storyline. Unlike the play, the dream sequence featured little singing and more physical comedy bits from Ball and Skelton.

Lucille Ball later hired Karl Freund to be the director of photography on her television series I Love Lucy.

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