"Idol of Paris" is a forgotten film based on a long out of print historical fiction entitled "Paiva, Queen of Love" by one Alfred Schirokauer, a semi-credulous Austrian biographer/novelist of real and imagined people.
The film itself as directed by Leslie Arliss, a distant cousin of George Arliss, takes place in the time of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, slouching in the frame of actor Kenneth Kent. It details the escapades of a female street urchin named Theresa adequately played by Beryl Baxter as she sleeps her way to the top of the Parisian courtesans pile.
As she flits around the stately palaces of the mid-19th century, she decides that even she is too grand for Napoleon, especially with the handsome hunks like Hertz, Michael Rennie, lurking in the shadows. Hertz is also more than ready to lift her underskirts in wild abandon.
If this is your idea of scintillating entertainment, you'll have a difficult time locating a copy of it. It was available awhile back, but now seems to have vanished. As far as this reviewer is concerned, there's a reason it has been forgotten. Better look for fast action in perfumed pantaloons elsewhere. Or give Arliss far better 1945 film "The Wicked Lady" an eyeballing.
