258. Roman Holiday (1953)

Synopsis

A princess escapes her sheltered life and falls into the arms of a journalist, who doesn't know who she is. Next morning he realises the prize he has in his hands and tries to make a report on her, she doesn't reveal that she is the princess and he doesn't reveal that he is a journalist. After a great day on the town they fall in love and he drops her off at the palace. Next morning he goes to a press conference at the palace, they exchange meaningful looks and each go their way.

Review

This film has been imitated to death, be it in Notting Hill or The Princess Diaries, this has all been done so many times that it seems more than a little familiar. On the other hand, it was never bettered.

This is also Audrey Hepburn's first starring role, we saw her briefly here at the beginning of the Lavender Hill Mob, but now she has a starring role, and what an amazing role it is. Hepburn creates a whole new kind of leading lady in a single film, the innocent, quirky and fragile leading lady, the one that looks like you would break her from looking attentively at her, but is also a lovely and cute character, and her acting is superbly natural.

There is a lightness of touch to the whole film that makes it a delight to watch, but then it has the guts that all the repeated versions of this film did not have, the guts to let it end badly or at least inconclusively, as would be likely to happen in real life. It is a fairy tale, but one where you are not told that they lived happily ever-after, strange for a rom-com, but supremely effective.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

One of the most famous scenes in the movie is when Peck puts his hand into the "Mouth of Truth" (La Bocca della Verità), a stone face in Rome that legend says will bite your hand off if you tell a lie. In the film, when he pulls his hand out it is missing, causing Anya/Hepburn to scream. He then pops his hand out of his sleeve and laughs. Hepburn's shriek was not acting — Peck decided to pull a gag he had once seen Red Skelton do, and did not tell his co-star beforehand

She's so cute: