I’ve been getting into old movies a lot lately.  You know, the ones you always hear references to but haven’t seen?  Roman Holiday was Audrey Hepburn’s breakout film, the first one she starred in.  Gregory Peck had been a star for nearly years by then.

Roman Holiday is the original royalty-goes-incognito-and-enjoys-some-freedom film.  A lot of it seems trite now – like the princess being delighted someone was mean to her – but you have to keep in mind, at the time, it was brand new.  Just as Some Like It Hot introduced the first guys-masquerading-as-girls bit, this concept hadn’t been used until then.  (It kind of was in Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, but that was more a mistaken identity thing and it wasn’t a movie.)

Very basically, Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn), royalty from some indeterminate country, is tired of always doing as she’s told, being a public figure, and wants to just be normal, like the people she sees in the street from her balcony.  So she eludes her attendants, hits the town, and stumbles across reporter John Bradley, played by Gregory Peck.  No one knows that the princess has disappeared.  Her people have put out that she has canceled all public appearances because she’s sick.  Bradley doesn’t know who she is at first, but he figures it out and tells his boss at the paper that he’s working on a real scoop. Since we know now how these things end, we know he tells his editor the story didn’t pan out and keeps the princess’ secret.

The princess doesn’t want to go back and take her proper place again, but she does and that scene is wonderful, as is the entire ending.  It’s not necessarily what you’d expect, but it’s perfect.  I loved it.

Another thing that was new at the time: Bradley shows the princess a stone head that he says is called the Mouth of Truth.  You know, you put your hand in its mouth and if you’re a liar, it bites it off.  She doesn’t really believe him, but … she is lying … so she makes him do it first.  He does, creams, and pulls out an arm with no hand … until he pulls his cuff back to reveal it.  Again, trite now, but it wasn’t then.

This was Ms. Hepburn’s breakout role and she handles it very well.  Her princess is very childlike at first, but her time on her own grows her up quickly.  Ms. Hepburn very believably goes from the spoiled, discontent child to the suddenly-mature young adult.  She now commands a respect from her attendants that the spoiled child would never have dared, and probably would never even have thought to do it.

Not to take anything away from her performance, but it has to have helped that she was paired with Gregory Peck.  He had been a star for almost ten years by then and knew the film business in a way she did not yet.  And he’s also just such a great actor.  When he first comes across the princess, he thinks she’s drunk and he wants nothing to do with her.  But she clearly is not safe on her own, so he takes her back to his place and puts her to bed on the sofa.  Everything he does seems so natural and comfortable and, well, real.  It’s always such a joy to watch him work.

And another thing.  My image of Gregory Peck is from To Kill a Mockingbird, the first time I saw him.  It wasn’t until this film that I noticed, OMG, he was gorgeous!

Definitely see this film, but try to see it as fresh as it was in 1953.  That’s not easy because we’re all so familiar with the genre now, but it’s worth it to try.