Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Du Barry Was a Lady Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson August 21, 2023

Du Barry Was a Lady (sometime spelled DuBarry Was a Lady) was a successful Broadway play in 1939 starring Ethel Merman in the title role as a New York nightclub singer and Bert Lahr as a washroom attendant smitten with her. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not deem either Merman or Lahr viable enough ca. 1943 for big-screen stardom so they replaced them with Lucille Ball and Red Skelton. Scenarist Irving Brecher, who would go on to write Meet Me in St. Louis a year later, penned the screenplay and songwriter Nancy Hamilton handled the adaptation duties for tailoring Herbert Fields and B.G. DeSylva's play to the silver screen. According to author Tony Thomas (The Films of Gene Kelly, Song and Dance Man), Cole Porter composed twenty songs for the original stage production but the film's scribes only retained three: “Do I Love You?,” “Katie Went to Haiti,” and “Friendship.” Two other Porter ballads (“Well, Did You Evah?” and “Taliostro’s Dance”) are given instrumental renditions. Additional songs were written by Burton Lane and producer Ralph Freed as well as by E. Y. Harburg, Lew Brown, and Roger Edens. Those who saw the original play and then watched MGM's production consider the latter a tamer version of the former's spicy themes.

Hat-check boy Louis Blore (Red Skelton) and singer/entertainer Alec Howe (Gene Kelly) are both in love with nightclub performer May Daly (Lucille Ball). May is seeking a rich suitor, which Louis and Alec are not. Alec tries to woo May while singing and playing the piano in her dressing room. May admits that she loves him but prefers a rich man such as Willie (Douglass Dumbrille). This draws the ire of Alec. Telegraph messenger Charlie (Rags Ragland) gives Louis a telegram, which informs him that he's won $150,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes. Louis begins spending rather lavishly and announces to the press that he's marrying Du Barry, May's on-stage persona. May accepts his marriage proposal primarily because she's interested in the money. Charlie, who has assumed Louis's job as a cloakroom attendant, coaxes Louis into slipping a Mickey Finn into Alec's drink (to put him out for a while), but Louis inadvertently imbibes the blended cocktail himself. This sends Louis into the dream world of seventeenth-century France where he becomes king Louis XV. May transforms into Madme Du Barry again and as Louis's lover. Alec is The Black Arrow, the leader of a rebel group.

Tap-dancing trio.

Du Barry Was a Lady is kind of two movies in one. The New York nightclub regulars and musicians are present in the contemporary story for two-thirds the length and then transported to France in the 1800s with their other personas for about one-third of screen time. The plot is glib and silly. Red Skelton does his comedic shtick adequately but I would have loved to see what Bert Lahr could have done with the same material. This picture is where Lucille Ball received her "flaming red" 'do from her hairstylist, which she'd maintain throughout her career. (Her vocals were dubbed by Martha Mears.) Louise Beavers (1934's Imitation of Life) portrays the stereotypical maid for the Ball character, a subservient role not unlike the one her good friend Hattie McDaniel won the Oscar for three years prior. The viewer misses the other Porter songs from the play but Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra help fill their absence with "big band" sounds that are among the picture's top performances to go along with Gene Kelly toe-dancing to “Do I Love You?” and “Friendship” with his two co-stars. Du Barry Was a Lady is very much an MGM musical of its time with top-notch production values and dazzling Technicolor photography by Karl Freund.

Du Barry Was a Lady Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Warner Archive Collection has delivered a new 4K restoration of Du Barry Was a Lady, which has been restored from the original technicolor camera negatives. The 1943 musical comedy appears in its originally photographed ratio of 1.37:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Warners' restoration team has brought back the picture's Technicolor glory. There's a nice sprinkling of grain all throughout the presentation. There are very few, if any, print artifacts or spots. The mise-en-scène features some cotton-candy colors (see Screenshot #s 11-12). The brass shines on Dorsey's trombone (see frame grab #3). Wardrobes glitter and stand out with bright hues. The Vargas calendar models look stunning! Warners has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 34903 kbps.

There's a "Song Selection" of thirteen accessible musical numbers on the disc's main menu. Twenty-eight regular scene selections are only accessible via remote.

Du Barry Was a Lady Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warners has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono mix (1790 kbps, 24-bit). The restored monaural track frequently sounds loud and punchy, with brass instruments and drums delivering an extra "thump" along the front channels. Spoken words are easy to make out. Songs and instrumental performances deliver an enlivening presence across the center stage. This is a fully restored sound track with no noticeable hiss. Cracks in dialogue and scratchy noises are each absent.
There are optional English SDH for the central feature.

Du Barry Was a Lady Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bah, Wilderness (7:16, 1080p) - this Barney Bear cartoon looks very solid.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (2:08, upscaled to 1080p) - MGM's original trailer for Du Barry Was a Lady hasn't been restored here as it displays age-related artifacts. Unlike the feature presentation, no color correction has been performed.

Note: At press time, Warners announced the MGM short, Seeing Hands, for inclusion on this disc. However, it does not appear on the Blu-ray I received.

Du Barry Was a Lady Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Du Barry Was a Lady has a farcical story (especially the French section) but the picture remains consistently watchable for the resplendent Technicolor photography, which has been lushly transferred here from a fresh 4K scan. I would have loved to see Gene Kelly dance more and it's lamentable he's only third billed here behind Red Skelton and Lucille Ball. In spite of losing fifteen of Cole Porter's songs from the Broadway play, MGM's music department should be lauded for delivering some pretty engaging tunes. I hope the Warner Archive Collection gets around to scanning The Goldwyn Follies (1938) in 4K so we can see the wondrous Technicolor images lensed by Gregg Toland in all their magic. The narrative for Du Barry Was a Lady is thin, but it's a highly attractive picture to watch, and Warners' disc earns a VERY SOLID RECOMMENDATION.