Roman Holiday Review (1953)
Director: William Wyler
Writer: Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert
Release Date: August 27, 1953

Roman Holiday sits at number two on my Top 5 Audrey Hepburn Films list, and rewatching it again for the Audrey rewatch series it has been just as enjoyable as the first time I saw it, and the dozen or so other times since then.

I said in the hub piece that this was the first Audrey Hepburn film I ever watched, and I meant what I said there, it is impossible to watch this movie and not fall in love with her. Not literally, of course, but you know what I mean. There is something about Hepburn in this film that reaches through the screen and grabs you by the collar, and once it has you it doesn’t let go. I have seen a lot of films in my life and I cannot think of another performance quite like it.

William Wyler directed, and this was his first collaboration with Hepburn; he would later direct her in The Children’s Hour, which kicked off this rewatch series. Wyler was one of the great directors of his era and he knew exactly what he had in Hepburn from the moment he saw her screen test. He gave her the room to breathe and the space to be charming and funny and real, and she filled every inch of it.

The story is simple in the best possible way. Princess Ann (Hepburn) is a young European royal in the middle of a suffocating official tour of European capitals. She sneaks out of her Rome accommodations one night, a sedative kicks in, and she ends up on a park bench where she is found by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American newspaper reporter who recognizes her and immediately sees a story. He takes her back to his apartment, she sleeps it off, and the next morning the two of them spend an unscheduled day wandering Rome together while Joe’s photographer friend Irving (Eddie Albert) trails them discreetly with a camera. Joe intends to sell the story. Things get complicated.

Peck is wonderful here. He is not the typical romantic lead; he is practical, a little cynical, and motivated by money at the outset, which gives the film an honest underpinning that most romantic comedies of this era didn’t bother with. The way his feelings shift over the course of the day is played with a restraint that makes it entirely believable. He was enough of a gentleman that when he saw Hepburn’s screen test he insisted on her receiving top billing alongside him, which was a remarkable thing to do for an unknown actress making her American debut. That generosity shows in the film itself. He never tries to outshine her. He just holds the space steady and lets her do what she does.

Eddie Albert is excellent in the supporting role as Irving, providing most of the film’s laughs without ever feeling like comic relief for its own sake. The Bocca della Verità scene — where Joe sticks his hand in the stone mouth of the ancient Roman mask and pretends it has been bitten off — is one of the great moments in old Hollywood comedy, and it works entirely because both Peck and Hepburn commit to the bit completely.

Rome itself is practically a third character. Wyler shot on location throughout the city and the film is full of landmarks that have been there for centuries — the Spanish Steps, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Trevi Fountain. It gives the whole thing a texture and beauty that a studio production never could have matched, and it makes you feel the magic of the day Ann and Joe are having in a way that goes beyond just watching two attractive people enjoy each other’s company.

The screenplay has a curious backstory worth mentioning. It was written by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten who was blacklisted during the Red Scare era. Unable to work under his own name, he used fellow writer Ian McLellan Hunter as a front, and Hunter received the Academy Award for Best Screenplay as a result. Trumbo was only formally credited decades later. It’s a strange footnote to one of the warmest and most genuinely delightful screenplays Hollywood ever produced.

The ending is the thing people always come back to with this film, and rightly so. It does not give you the fairy tale. Joe and Ann say goodbye knowing they will never see each other again, and both of them carry themselves with a dignity that is quietly heartbreaking. A lesser film would have found a way to put them together. Roman Holiday respects its characters and its audience too much for that, and the honesty of that ending is a large part of why the film has lasted as long as it has.

A film like this could never be properly remade. It’s not just that you couldn’t find two actors with the chemistry and class of Hepburn and Peck — though you couldn’t. It’s that the sensibility of the whole thing belongs to a specific time and place that no longer exists. The restraint, the dignity, the romance that builds without ever needing to be explicit about itself. Hollywood doesn’t make films like this anymore because Hollywood doesn’t know how. Roman Holiday is a one-of-a-kind piece of work and it remains as fresh and alive today as it was in 1953.

Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role. It was her first major film. She was 24 years old. That’s not just a nomination… that’s the win, on the first try, against the full field. If you have never seen an Audrey Hepburn film, this is the one you start with.

At this point it could probably go without saying, but if you’ve never seen Roman Holiday before you should absolutely remedy that and go watch it right now. Better it yet, just go ahead and purchase the Bluray because it should most definitely be part of your collection.

Roman Holiday gets a five out of five: EXALTED.

If you enjoy this one, you might also like to check out my review Charade starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant or another Audrey Hepburn classic, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Or click here to check out more movie reviews.

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