Madame Du Barry

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.