Roman Holiday: A Review

ROMAN HOLIDAY

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Audrey Hepburn.

We all dream of taking time for ourselves to be someone else, to free ourselves from the constraints of our lives. Roman Holiday packages up that fantasy with a dash of romance and true and elegant beauty as our avatar. 

Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is on a goodwill tour of Europe. Young, naive, sheltered, she is soon worn out physically and emotionally from the burden of constant state work with no time for herself. Ann yearns to see what life is like outside the embassy gates. Given a sedative to calm her, Ann still manages to escape the embassy and begins wandering the streets of Rome until the sedative takes hold.

American journalist Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) stumbles upon this young woman. Thinking that she is merely drunk, he tries to help her find her home. The girl, however, is basically incoherent and slipping into sleep. Reluctantly, he takes her to his apartment so she can sleep it off. The next day, he misses a press conference that Princess Ann was meant to give. However, when his lies about having attended the conference are exposed, he is shocked to find that the young woman in his apartment is the runaway princess.

Realizing that he has the scoop of the century in the palm of his hand, he pretends not to know who she is. For her part, she hides her true identity to him, calling herself Anya Smith and claiming to have run away from school. Now, she is free to explore the Eternal City on her own and see how the other half lives. Joe gets his friend, photographer Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) to join him as they cover this story of "the princess goes slumming". Various hijinks ensue, with Ann discovering la dolce vita and Joe finding himself falling in love. Ann's courtiers, however, are alarmed at having no princess. Will they manage to get Ann back into their fold? Will Ann and Joe find love, or will their duties separate them?

Roman Holiday is pure fantasy, but it is wise enough to know it. The film is meant as a delightful romp, and a delightful romp it is. We pretty much forgive that this romance is built on mutual deception. If one thinks on it, Joe is pretty reprehensible for taking advantage of Ann's predicament and naivete to further his own career. However, Roman Holiday shows that character evolution into someone who begins to genuinely care for this girl. Her deception is softer, more due to her position. She, however, is also attempting to deceive a man she does not know.  

Director William Wyler and screenwriters Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton (from a story by a then-uncredited Dalton Trumbo) take time to build up their separate situations until they finally meet. From there, they build on what has come before to keep their mutual deceptions going. However, Roman Holiday also has a great deal of charm and sweetness to it.

One thing that did surprise me is how much physical comedy there is in Roman Holiday. One great sight gag is when Ann tries to walk into Joe's apartment. As he leads her, she inadvertently misses the staircase, forcing him to lead her around again. Right after, Ann is about to bang on the wrong door, forcing Joe to do almost contortions to stop her from waking his neighbors. The film begins with a nice sight gag of Ann losing her shoe underneath her gown and trying desperately to get it back on. Neither Audrey Hepburn nor Gregory Peck were known as physical comedians. As such, seeing them be so adept at these bits shows not only their own talent, but that of Wyler to keep things both funny and grounded.

Audrey Hepburn made her American film debut in Roman Holiday, having already done a few films in Europe. She is beyond excellent in the role. She as previously mentioned had a rarely tapped ability for physical comedy. Here, she is the perfect blend of elegance and innocence. Breathtakingly beautiful and elegant, her Princess Ann is also able to handle the dramatic moments in the film. Her farewell scene with Peck is a moving moment in Roman Holiday, showing her courage to sacrifice her own happiness for duty. 

As this is a romantic comedy, Hepburn does not have many such moments. She brings a lightness and joy of the young girl discovering life and love as she galivants around Rome. One feels the joy she has when she gets a new hairstyle more to her liking. One also laughs when she fights off her country's secret service attempting to abduct her back to the embassy. Elegant and charming, her gamine figure and lovely face reveal Ann's delights and frustrations. 

Gregory Peck towers physically over everyone. He too is not often associated with comedy or romantic pictures. However, he is quite handsome, with a strong voice that makes Joe's lies if not believable at least plausible. I wonder if their 13-year age gap made me a bit uneasy as it was noticeable. However, for some reason Hepburn tended to be paired with actors as romantic leads who were in some cases old enough to be her father. Peck just happened to be the first.

Eddie Albert received an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor as Irving Radovich, Joe's shady photographer friend and accomplice. He had great moments of physical comedy, such as whenever Joe had to spill something on him to stop Irving from blabbing. He was pleasant enough as Irving, a man who seemed always a step behind Joe's schemes. 

Roman Holiday is a concoction of wish fulfillment. Earnest, sweet and charming are qualities that can describe both Roman Holiday and Audrey Hepburn. The film is a delightful romp, able to win all but the most ardent cynics.     

DECISION: A-