Idol of Paris: the lusty 1948 costume drama with a sensational whip duel

The melodramas produced by Gainsborough Studios during the first half of the 1940s are among the most successful British genre films ever made. The Wicked Lady topped the box office in 1946, and the stars of the films enjoyed an unprecedented level of fame. Head of Gainsborough Maurice Ostrer deserves much of the credit for this cycle of films, but J. Arthur Rank regarded them as lowbrow potboilers and Ostrer eventually left and set up on his own.

Taking producer R. J. Minney and director Leslie Arliss with him, he established Premier Productions. He also signed Michael Rennie, one of the stars of The Wicked Lady, to a five-year contract worth £300,000, making him, briefly, the highest paid film star in Britain. Other signings were mostly unknowns, Ostrer plucking young actress Beryl Baxter from the West End stage and bringing her, Eithne Webb and Andrew Cruickshank into Premier’s talent roster.

Premier’s first production was an adaptation of a 1935 novel by German writer Alfred Schirokauer entitled Païva Queen of Love. It was based on the life of an actual mid-19th century courtesan, Esther Lachmann, who rose from poverty to become ‘Queen of the Half-World’. Ostrer was obliged to sanitise the character, renamed Theresa, to present her as a virtuous woman thrust into relationships with a succession of weak, wayward and unscrupulous men, each with his own selfish reasons for pursuing her.

Baxter was to play Theresa, whose adventures span 106 minutes of screen time. After attempted rape by a rich young cad, she’s rescued from starvation by an impoverished Russian tailor (Andrew Osborn). They marry and he encourages her musical career, which leads to her romance with famous composer Henry Herz, played by Michael Rennie. His unfaithfulness drives her to seek solace elsewhere and she marries a marquis for his title, while earning herself a reputation as a cocotte, receiving lavish gifts from wealthy men. 

This brings her into conflict with Cora Pearl, the ‘Queen of the Half-World’, played with great verve by Christine Norden. Theresa claims her title and becomes the toast of Paris, before falling from grace and rediscovering her true love, the sickly tailor.

The censors listed many objections to the script presented to them, the biggest problem being the theme of prostitution itself, along with the notion of a woman keeping her husband on immoral earnings. Several lines of dialogue were flagged for removal (“Why do you think I keep a ladies’ orchestra? For the music?”), and they also recoiled at the vulgarity of depicting “old Frenchmen licking their lips”.

With controversial elements excised, the film began shooting at Elstree Studio on 14 July 1947 and was completed in 65 days, fairly swift for such an elaborate production. Aware of the difficulty selling a film lacking in major stars, Ostrer tasked his publicity team, led by Bill Luckwell, with designing an extravagant campaign. 

To encourage exhibitors to push the film, Maurice Ostrer offered incentives for cinema managers who sold the most tickets. The first prize was an all expenses paid week in London, which included a visit to the studios to see a film being made and dinner and a show with Mr Ostrer himself.

The merchandising was certainly creative. ‘Michael Rennie shoes’ were on offer via S. A. Squirrel and Sons of Leicester, the box bearing the actor’s portrait and each pair stamped with his autograph on the inside sole. For those who preferred to emulate the look of a tubercular penniless tailor, there was the ‘Andrew Osborn hat’ by the Preston Hat Company.

The extravagant mid-Victorian costumes designed by Honoria Plesch were a big feature of the film’s promotion. An exhibition about the film entitled ‘From Script to Screen’ was staged at Simpson’s of Piccadilly, displaying the novel, script, costume designs, models of the sets, and the pièce de résistance: 15 of Plesch’s incredible dresses.

Although only 28, Plesch was an experienced designer, having started on the Boulting brothers’ film Thunder Rock in 1942. During the war she joined the Army Kinematograph Service where she even learned to produce and direct. Working mostly in the theatre, she was renowned for her outré costumes, which are very much on show in Idol of Paris. Though she was not able to indulge her penchant for bold mixing of colours, she compensates through her use of lace ruffles, tassels, spangles, jewels, pearls, ribbons, feathers and huge pleated sleeves. She creates contrast by mixing patterns and textures and using bold decoration: one of Christine Norden’s dresses is adorned with large gold embroidered birds.

Ostrer clearly felt the need to push the boundaries of the genre and staged a duel with whips between Cora Pearl and Theresa. The idea of women fighting was distasteful to the censors who insisted it should not be too brutal, and it’s actually fairly tame. But, nearly 40 years later, Arliss got the opportunity to restage a much more salacious version when he co-wrote the screenplay for Michael Winner’s 1983 remake of The Wicked Lady. The sadistic nature of the fight between Faye Dunaway and Marina Sirtis would have given critics palpitations in the 1940s and ends up with Dunaway literally whipping her rival’s dress off her back.

When Idol of Paris was released in March 1948, the critics had a field day. “The dullest and most banal British film ever made,” was the view of the Daily Worker, while the Mail wrote it off as a “deplorable charade”. C. A. Lejeune’s Observer review reflected the audience reaction when the film last showed at BFI Southbank in May 2022: “I would confidently nominate Idol of Paris as the worst film of 1948, were it not for the fact that this new British melodrama made me laugh and laugh until my ribs ached from the unaccustomed exercise… I should be failing in my duty if I tried to discourage you from sharing this unique experience.”

The film’s inadvertent comedy failed to save it from disaster, and it lost a fortune, putting an end to Ostrer’s independent ambitions. Although only three years after The Wicked Lady, the mood had changed and post-war audiences were less interested in the sadism of lusty costume dramas, especially ones devoid of the key ingredient of the established stars. 

Beryl Baxter’s film career shuddered to a halt, and she returned to the stage, her epitaph coined by People magazine: “The girl who was literally whipped off the screen.”

This rare British film is preserved in the BFI National Archive. It can be viewed upon request via our research viewing service. Special Collections items can be viewed by appointment at the J Paul Getty Jr Conservation Centre in Berkhamsted.