Madame Du Barry

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.

I've noticed that this film has been referred to as a "Pre-Code Film", though this is not the case. The strengthened Production Code was enacted as of July, 1934 and this film was not released until October, 1934. So, its plot with heavily implied sex was an apparent attempt to flaunt the code--and as a result, it was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency--hurting its box office appeal to most Catholics.

As for my review, something you might want to keep in mind is that I am not a big fan of costume dramas. I find that all too often, the films look nice with all the lovely period dress BUT also tend to be rather sterile and dull--though of course, there are some exceptions. Back in the 1930s, they were rather popular--though in recent decades they've become rather rare--showing that perhaps my taste and the public's in general aren't too far apart here.

This film is about the last mistress of King Louis XV of France. For the most part, she dressed in the finest clothes and had her every whim catered to--which makes me wonder why they'd make such a film. After all, if she was a spoiled and vacuous whore (I'm definitely cutting to the heart of the matter), why is this so interesting as to merit a film? In other words, would the audience of the Depression even care about such a worthless individual? I know I sure didn't.

Sadly, the most interesting things about this infamous lady were her final days--which are not even addressed in the movie. Apparently, the people of the new French Republic also didn't care much for her and her extravagant lifestyle, so they had her beheaded. Considering how she lived while people starved, I say good riddance! And, with my attitude, you could assume I was not a big fan of this bloated costume drama or absolute monarchies! As for the film, Delores Del Rio runs around in nice gowns, acts snippy and childish and gets in a cat fight with the future queen, Marie Antoinette. Miss Del Rio's performance is very broad and it's hard to imagine her capturing anyone's heart as she doesn't exactly exude "sex appeal". As my daughter so eloquently pointed out "she's so flat!"---um, yes, I suppose that, too, is true but more importantly, she looked nothing like the surviving portraits of this trollop.

As for the king, Louis XV, the movie seemed to portray him rather accurately. Reginald Owen was about the right age, puffy and a bit of an incompetent given to his vices...in other words, he WAS Louis. His snippy ways with his ministers and too much attention to his affairs did characterize the latter years of his reign.

As for Marie Antoinette, I doubt if she continually screamed "I am Marie Antoinette of Austria!"--I THINK everyone around her already was well aware of this! She, like her husband (Louis XVI) and Madame Du Barry, seemed more like caricatures--one-dimensional and dull. I am sure these people had personalities--for good and for bad and were not much like the film portrays them.

Overall, the film looked good but didn't have much sense of time perspective. Apparently, Du Barry and the King were "best friends" for some time--though in this film, it looks like they'd only been lovers for a few days, weeks or perhaps months. Too sketchy to be of interest to history teachers like myself and probably too dull to anyone else.

By the way, in the final scene between Du Barry and Louis XV, the choice of music was odd. Why did they choose Beethoven...a German composer? Plus, this piece ("Pathetique") wasn't even written until well after Louis became worm chow.

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

"Who?" "Something extraordinary, my sire, and I've invited her to supper at the palace; a little party with the Polish nobleman." "Something extraordinary, eh?" "To see her sire, is to appreciate what I sacrifice for my king." "I suppose so. Pretty?" "Divinely so." "Witty?" "Just enough." "Her figure?" "Just right." "Her age?" "Just perfect." "18 or 30?" "Both, your majesty. She can look either." "A lady?" "As you prefer, sire." "And this is all one woman?" "And all woman, on the word of a Richelieu."

And so the Duc de Richelieu (Osgood Perkins) provides King Louis XV (Reginald Owen) with the last mistress of his life, Madame du Barry (Dolores del Río). You see, the King has grown tired of going to his "Deer Park", which has a bevy of young women all thronging to get, uh, further acquainted with him, but also have ulterior motives. Madame du Barry quickly wins his heart, but with her extravagant ways, also engenders the ire and envy of various members of the royal circle. She maintains her position, but is eventually challenged by Marie Antoinette (Anita Louise), brought from Austria to wed the Dauphin (Maynard Holmes), who will eventually become Louis XVI.

The film is based on historical characters, but its tone is to play up the comedic and naughty bits, and not necessarily to maintain its accuracy. It starts strong and it gets the opulence of the period right, and I have to say, del Río alone makes the film interesting to me. She does reasonably well, doling out lines like this double-entendre to the question about her outrageous demands.

"Madame, what are you trying to do to France?" "Just what it's doing to me."

One of her demands is to have sleigh ride in the summertime, which is then artificially created by the King's men with "all the sugar in Paris", of course while the poor suffer. There are aspects of the film that seem silly, and both Louis XV and Louis XVI appear far too clownish, but maybe there is a grain of truth in this about the 18th century royalty, and what would help usher in the age of revolution.

It's made clear that the King's infatuation is based on Madame du Barry's sexual charm, and how she beguiles him through variety. As one character puts it: "She's something new every day. With the wisdom of the gutter, she's a thousand women. ... Can't you see how she changes every day? Her dress, her manners, her talk, her face, from hour to hour - now an innocent child, now siren, now saint... laughing, storming, petting, teasing ... a duchess in the morning, a milkmaid at noon, and a strumpet at night."

I don't think we really see this variety in del Río's performance, however, or seduction which feels real. We do see her wearing a nightgown when presented to the court, as her way of standing up for herself when someone has her wig and gown stolen, but unfortunately, as the film plays out, it begins to lose some of its sizzle and steam. I read later that the film was originally intended to be more bawdy, but it became the target of those enforcing the nascent production code, and quite a bit of its content was censored. A scene with the young maidens dancing in diaphanous dresses in front of the King and his son survived, but it's all pretty tame. That's a shame, but it's still worth watching for del Río.