Du Barry Was a Lady Kelly, Gene performer Film 1943-08-13 MGM music Cole Porter dir. Roy Del Ruth Tommy Dorsey orchestra with Gene Krupa on drums. with Lucille Ball, Red Skeleton, Zero Mostel screen debut. A screen version of the Broadway musical "Together" with a dancing Gene Kelly. A New York nightclub cloak room attendant (Skeleton) has a crush on a glamorous singing star (Ball) who is in love with a poor but talented performer (Kelly). After being slipped a Mickey Finn by mistake he dreams he is Louis XV of France and that she is Madame Du Barry. The featured tap dance by Kelly comes early in the film when jubilant over being told by Ball that she is in love with him, goes on stage to dance an elegant solo in which he floats across the dark stage; the stage brightens and he is flanked by a chorus of eight women equally divided on each side of him. The film turns interesting when Skeleton is launched in drug-induced dream back to the 18th century royal French court with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra playing swing. The dream is dated to the Baroque but with the wigs and red brocade jackets the men are playing swing and the singers croon jive. Even in dream, Lucille Ball as DuBarry will not succumb to the affections of Skeleton as the Louis XV. "Madame" is a soft-shoe dance with them bouncing on a large mattress. Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Frank, Rusty E.: Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and their Stories 1900-1955. New York, William Morrow. (1990). Smith, Ernie: Selected List of Films and Kinescopes. In Jean and Marshall Stearns' Jazz Dance (1968). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Gene Kelly (biography) loc.music.tdabio.119 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.228