258. Roman Holiday (1953)

Running Time: 118 minutes

Directed By: William Wyler

Written By: Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton

Main Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams



WHEN IN ROME...



On an Audrey Hepburn high from "Breakfast at Tiffany's", I immediately jumped to my Netflix queue and moved "Roman Holiday" to the top, so that I could experience her charm one more time.



This time around Hepburn plays Princess Ann, the crown princess of a country that is never revealed. During a European publicity tour, the princess hits all the big cities: Paris, London and she ultimately lands in Rome. It is in Rome, that the princess has an outburst and expresses her discontent with being the princess of a nation. She wants to do as she pleases, where pajamas to bed instead of expensive silk nightgowns and she's tired of all the "pleases" and "thank you's". On the night of her outburst, the doctor gives her a shot of something to make her "happy" and leaves her to her boudoir. In the night, however, Princess Ann sneaks out and makes a getaway. Meanwhile, Joe Bradley (Peck) is an American, working in Rome for the newspaper, the Daily American. One night, while leaving a poker game, he comes across a woman, half asleep and seemingly drunk on a park bench. He tends to her, pulling her into a cab with him and eventually having no choice but to bring her to his hotel room, to sleep off the booze. In reality, the girl is Princess Ann and she's hopped up on the Doc's happy medicine. When Joe awakes the next morning, he quickly finds out who he has in his hotel room and quickly schemes up a plan to break the biggest story of his career and return home to his native New York. With help from his photographer friend Irving (Albert), the duo spend a day with the Princess taking in the Rome sights and snapping candid shots of her highness.



SPOILER ALERT!



We'll get to my thoughts momentarily, but first, a story. When me and my wife were first married, in June of 2007, we moved into an apartment and it was my first taste of living away from home. One of our favorite things to do back then (and even today) was watch movies and after a failed attempt at watching every Eddie Murphy movie, we decided upon watching the IMDB Top 250 list, in it's entirety. That particular project never panned out, but I remember "Roman Holiday" as being #250 on the list. So on a hot August night, in 2007, after tracking the film down at our local library, we cuddled up together and watched it on the couch of our first apartment. This was back when I was still rating films on a 1-5 scale and I can still remember giving it the full five points. Today, it didn't hold up as well, as maybe my film palate has been so refined that I'm not so easily impressed nowadays.



For starters, I couldn't help but to be reminded of "It Happened One Night", as I watched this movie. Sure the plots are different, but you have a couple of newspapermen who act very similar, in my view. You have a man and woman who are thrown together unintentionally and ultimately you have these two characters falling in love. When thinking about all that, I also couldn't help but realize how, even for 1953, this was still a formula that had been done quite often. Man meets woman, they DON'T hit it off, but they're forced to spend time with one another and ultimately they're lovebirds. It was done in "It Happened One Night", "His Girl Friday" and "Bringing Up Baby" - all very different films, but all utilizing a very similar plot structure.



However, this time around you have Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the lead roles and those two aren't anything to sneeze at. Peck had such a commanding presence when he was on the screen. His voice seemed to boom when he talked and by the looks of him, he wasn't a small man - height wise. He oozed class and sophistication and it's hard to dismiss anything he does as not up to snuff. The same pretty much goes for Audrey Hepburn, except she oozed charm and beauty and it was hard not to take notice when she was on the screen. However, the two together didn't have as much chemistry as you'd think they would. Sure, there was a hint of something there and when Princess Ann falls apart, right before leaving Joe to go back to her kingdom, there was a slight tug at the 'ol heartstrings. But what you had here, seemed to be a case of too much vigor on one set. You had these two larger than life personalities and I think in this case, two positives, made more of a negative than another positive.



The film isn't terrible, by any means, but would this plot still hold up today. While watching "Roman Holiday", I kept thinking how lenient we used to be as far as accepting a film. I love old movies as much as the next guy, but will admit that there was a lot of sub par stuff being given a very generous nod of approval, back in the day. Would a film about a Princess and a newspaperman - well it's the 21st century, let's call him a web designer - get as many "thumbs up" as "Roman Holiday" did back in 1953? I don't think so.



RATING: 6/10 It's not BAD, but I wouldn't have even as gone so far as to include it in a "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book.



MOVIES WATCHED: 322

MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 679



August 14, 2011 7:50pm