Du Barry Was a Lady
Set in a nightclub, Ball is a big star. She is courted by rich men, but is loved by the penniless singer and composer Kelly (why he's so poor when he has what seems to be a good job is left unsaid). She's also adored by Skelton, who is a hat check boy, but he's pursued by a cigarette girl, Virginia O'Brien.
When Skelton wins the Irish Sweepstakes, he's rich enough that Ball will marry him, even though she really loves Kelly. Skelton, a decent but dumb galoot, has no trouble with Ball not loving him, but he decides to try to obstruct Kelly by giving him a mickey. Instead, he drinks it, and has a dream that he is King Louis XV, Ball is his mistress, Madame Du Barry, and Kelly is a vigilante called The Black Arrow.
Most of the action, at least in the first two-thirds, is set in the nightclub and is basically a revue. Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra play, and there are comic songs that today are meaningless, such as a trio called the Oxford Boys, who impersonate famous bandleaders of the time. I doubt there's hardly anyone left alive would get a spoof of Kay Kyser. Skelton does a number about how he loves "Esquire Girls," but that magazine is hardly the place for cheesecake anymore. I did get a kick out of O'Brien's deadpan number about Salome (the way she pronounced her name, it sounded like salami).
The movie is really all about the last act, the dream sequence, in which everyone, even Dorsey, is done up in French finery and Skelton can pull out all the stops with slapstick. As directed by Roy Del Ruth, it's painless but hardly a lasting classic. A supporting character, a telegram deliverer, is well played by burlesque comedian Rags Ragland. I read about him and was saddened to learn he died at 40 of alcohol abuse. Frank Sinatra was at his bedside when the end came. Also in the cast was an impossibly young Zero Mostel, who I always assumed was born old.
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