Roman Holiday
1953
Okay. All right. This is the one. This is the movie I want you to watch if you think you don’t like old movies. Because this is the one that will turn you around. You will be powerless to resist it. It’s that good. Am I not being clear? I LOVE this movie.
The credits begin by INTRODUCING Audrey Hepburn. It’s her first movie! And she’s absolutely ethereal in it. She plays Princess Ann, and she’s on a goodwill royal tour of Europe. (We don’t know what country she’s princess of, but really, who cares?) Has anyone ever looked more like someone who should be called “her serene highness” as she watches parades and launches ships and waves regally to crowds? This woman was born to wear a tiara.
But late at night back at the palace, being tucked in with milk and crackers, she looks more like a teenager than a royal. And like a teenager she longs to rebel, even if it’s only by wearing pajamas instead of a high-necked nightgown. She has no idea she’s about to rebel on a much more cinematic scale.
After the court doctor gives her an injection to help her sleep she escapes the palace, nestling in between the champagne bottles in the back of a caterer’s van. She hops out the back when she gets to downtown Rome. Who wouldn’t? It’s lovely and moonlit, and she’s still stoned on whatever the doctor gave her.
Enter Gregory Peck. You’ll be forgiven if you sigh audibly when you first see him, tie loosened at a late-night poker game with the guys, looking more like a movie star than any man has a right to. Gregory Peck, you guys. Even without the voice he’s swoon-inducing. And then when he speaks? I raise a disbelieving eyebrow at any woman who says she wouldn’t give up her throne for him. You know you’d at least think about it.
Gregory (Joe) is a reporter with a ticket to see the princess at a press conference in the morning. Eddie Albert is his buddy and a photographer who is likewise on princess duty. When Gregory leaves the game to stroll handsomely through the moonlit streets he finds Audrey snoozing outside by a fountain. And now we have a movie!
He wakes her and she sleepily quotes a poem. “If I were dead and buried and I heard your voice, beneath the sod my heart of dust would still rejoice.” Yes, Audrey. We all feel that way about Gregory Peck’s voice. And of course he doesn’t just leave her there. He helps her. Because she’s lovely and quotes poetry and he’s a decent guy. Tall, dark, and decent. And did I mention his voice?
So here’s where the whole thing just takes off. He doesn’t realize she’s the princess (at first) and she doesn’t tell him when she wakes up in the morning in his apartment (wearing his pajamas). There’s attraction and humor and something called charm that you’ll notice and say “Huh. Wow. That’s so nice and fresh and completely devoid of irony that I don’t quite know how to process it.” My advice: don’t process. Just enjoy.
The runaway princess decides to make a day of it, wandering around a gorgeous sunny Rome. She buys comfortable shoes. She eats gelato on the Spanish Steps. She gets an adorable short haircut that my mother reliably informed me caused a worldwide stampede of woman going to the hairdresser in 1953. I so want that haircut!
When she meets up with Gregory again there are Vespa rides and teasing at The Mouth of Truth statue and dancing by moonlight on a riverboat. Of course, let’s not forget that Gregory is a reporter for all of this, and Eddie Albert is a photographer. The story of the madcap princess is worth a lot of money. Plot complications!
Of course I won’t tell you how it all works out. You probably think you know. Ha! If it starred Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts you might know. But this is a classic film. The rules are different. All I can tell you for sure is that if you don’t start reaching for the Kleenex at the end, surely you have a heart of dust.
Things to wallow in:
I mean, Rome. The film proudly announces with the opening credits that it was photographed and recorded in its entirety in Rome. Was it ever. The city is gorgeous and crumbling and crowded and proud. They absolutely could not have made the same movie on a soundstage.
That LOOK! If you’ve seen the movie you know the one I mean. The one at the end. I find it completely overwhelming every single time. You know how I feel about dialogue, but that look is enough to make any self-respecting screenwriter just thrown down their pen and give up. Words are so not necessary.
This is not the first (or last) movie to offer the perspective that when you pretend to be someone else it frees you to be who you really are. Maybe we all just need to take off our tiaras now and then. Have some gelato. Listen to some music. Fall in love with a handsome stranger. Maybe we all need to go to Rome. I know I do.
