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.
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