Madame Du Barry

On my one and only trip to Paris, I took a bus tour to the Palace at Versailles. The magnificently ostentatious palace was almost certainly visible to many of the poor peasants below. It's a monument to the obliviousness of the French monarchy before the revolution. So is this film.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that liberties were taken with the facts, and it left some events largely unexplained. But the overall theme is the arrogance of the upper classes right until the end. ("At least it's better than being hanged," says one character being led away to the penitentiary near the end, apparently unaware of their ultimate fate.)

Delores Del Rio is charming as the free-spirited Madame du Barry, and Reginald Owen is fine as the blustery, pompous Louis XV. I was particularly impressed with Maynard Holmes as the fat, inept, but good natured heir to the throne.

Definitely worth watching if your looking to kill some time with a glass of wine.

I just saw this delightful 1934 film on TCM, mainly because I always enjoyed the star Dolores Del Rio. Story wise this is not historically accurate as our heroine was a schemeing vixen & paramour of Louis XV of France. This film is more of a comedy than history. Miss Del Rio was one of the most beautiful of all actresses of the time & a reasonably good actress. Reginald Owen A leading actor of the era plays King Louis XV superbly. Anita Louise is very good as Marie Antoinette, The queen was a teen then as well as the Dauphin who later becomes Louis XVI. The actor who plays him was superb,The dauphin was only 16 when he met Marie (who was 15), They definitly seem the ages. The sets & costumes are excellent. In the thirties all films were made on the studio lot.(Warner Bros.) They had real craftsmen back then. who created Palaces & gardens for next to nothing.

If you want to spend an enjoyable 80 minutes, catch this film I am glad I saw it.

rating *** 88 points/100 IMDb 8

It seems that Madame Du Barry really captured the imagination of Hollywood. The made a movie about her in 1912, 1917, 1919, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1935, and 1954. I watched the 1930 version starring Norma Talmadge. It was a romanticized version that they admittedly said was a fictionalized telling of Madame Du Barry's saga. Whether the 1934 version was more accurate or not, it was certainly more fun.

The spicy Dolores Del Rio played Jeannette Vaubernier aka Madame Du Barry. What "Madame Du Barry" captured, that "Du Barry, Woman of Passion" (1930) failed to capture, was that Jeannette was a prostitute. She was a known prostitute and King Louis XV (Reginald Owen) fell for her because she was so different. She was sassy, fearless, confident, and unrefined. And she had King Louis XV wrapped around her little finger. Naturally, people hated her for it.

Personally, I didn't hate her at all. I viewed her like I view a spoiled child; she was only doing what King Louis enabled her to do. If she turned the castle into her own playground and thumbed her nose at decorum, then King Louis was the blame. Madame Du Barry never pretended to be something she wasn't. She never aspired to be queen or to rule France, she was Cyndi Lauper up in that joint: she just wanted to have fun.

Dolores Del Rio brought all the sass and spunk she could for the role. She was the ultimate non-conformist and a third degree black belt in not giving AF. While some of her behavior could rightly be called impertinent and uncouth, you had to respect her at least a little.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

This wonderful film seemed to be more "MGM" than "Warner Brothers", because the period detail and lavishness of the clothes, sets and furniture is really great.

You can see & tell this lovely movie, one of the last "would-have-been" Pre-Codes, was badly "butchered" by the stronger censorship which was enforced by the Hays's-Breen Office, while it was being filmed?, because the holes in the plot MUST be due to an important "amount" of cuts.

In spite that the title role belongs to wondrously beautiful Dolores del Río, yet to reach higher acting ranks in her own native country (Mexico) in Emilio Fernandez's masterpieces "María Candelaria", "Bugambilia", et al, who does a very good job, as the mischievous "Comtesse Jeannette DuBarry", I feel that the film is almost stolen from her by reliable and funny Reginald Owen as the lecherous old King Louis XV, one of the all time great character actors.

This film is not really and historical/"pseudo-historical" drama, but more a comedy of sorts, with the Versailles Court as the back scenery, for all kinds of funny intrigues.

Anita Louise is pretty and sweetly "spoiled" as the young Marie Antoinette (this actress excelled in period stuff...she later acted in Warner's 1935 "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and "The Sisters" with Bette Davis, she "went again" to the XVIIIth Century France, this time to impersonate Marie Antoinette's doomed best friend, "La Princesse de Lamballe", in the sumptuous 1938 Shearer vehicle; and yet again, I remember her fondly in the highly enjoyable 1940's frolic "The Bandit of Sherwood Forest", opposite Cornel Wilde).

The rest of the supporting cast is uniformly very good, especially the players who impersonate the Dauphin (the future Louis XVI) and the Duke of Richelieu. And those three daughters of the King ("Mesdames"), are a joy to behold!

A Picture that deserves being watched.

MADAME DU BARRY, a wanton, vivacious young woman, catches the eye & the heart of the aging Louis XV and quickly becomes his mistress. Through guile & intelligence, she soon finds herself the most powerful woman in France.

Dolores Del Rio shines in this funny, lavish & sadly neglected film. Her Mexican accent is more than compensated for by her fiery beauty & fine acting. She is perfectly matched by Reginald Owen as Louis, in one of his finest roles, somewhat ribald & ridiculously in love. An odd cinematic couple they may be, but they are never less than entertaining.

An excellent cast supports them: Maynard Holmes & Anita Louise as the childish Dauphin & strong-minded Marie Antoinette; Victor Jory, Osgood Perkins, Verree Teasdale, Henry O'Neill & Ferdinand Gottschalk as sundry court officials & hangers-on; Dorothy Tree, Helen Howell & Joan Wheeler as Louis' spiteful daughters; Halliwell Hobbes as the English Ambassador; and Arthur Treacher as the snooty Master of the Bedchamber.

Movie mavens will spot, in uncredited roles, Doris Lloyd as the madam of the royal brothel; and Robert Greig, as Louis' chef, who shares a hilarious omelet-making scene with Reginald Owen.

Curiously, the film takes great pains in making the Dauphin & Marie Antoinette into sympathetic figures, especially during their bizarre wedding night sequence, only to turn them into villains in the very last scene.

Warner Bros. must have spent a pretty penny on this film - and it shows. Its pre-Production Code status is also very evident from the somewhat salacious content & dialogue.

What really happened to Marie Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse Du Barry, after the death of Louis XV in 1774? She retired to a life of luxury in her private château and kept up a schedule of intrigues & dalliances throughout the reign of Louis XVI. With the outbreak of the Revolution, Du Barry escaped to England in 1793. Foolishly, she returned to France & was arrested on charges of conspiracy against the New Order. Du Barry had her appointment with Madame Guillotine on December 8, 1793. She was 50 years old.