Private Life of Helen of Troy Reviews

This lavish comedy of manners and marital mores in ancient Rome was the A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum of its day, filled with topical gags and low laughs, all topped off with a healthy serving of cheesecake. Loosely adapted from John Erskine's popular novel The Private Life of Helen of Troy and Robert Emmet Sherwood's play The Road to Rome, the movie takes the classical story of faithless Helen of Troy (Maria Corda), whose indiscretion with Paris (Ricardo Cortez) of Sparta lead cuckolded husband King Menelaus (Lewis Stone) to declare war in hopes of getting her back, and recasts it as bedroom farce. When the dust settles, the unrepentant Helen has returned to Troy and is vamping the Prince of Ithaca. The plum role of Helen went to director Alexander Korda's then-wife, German actress Maria Corda (they divorced three years later, and he went on to marry another protégé, Merle Oberon), and afforded her extensive opportunities to model costumes whose design favored scantiness over historical precision. Production company First National's promotional campaign for this film included a team-up with the notorious tabloid New York Graphic, featuring many risqué photos of Corda.