Cynical Cinema

Roman Holiday was the movie that introduced Audrey Hepburn to the world in 1953. With any luck, Paramount Home Entertainment’s new edition of Roman Holiday on DVD, out November 11th, will be the film that re-introduces her to a whole new generation of movie watchers. Because everyone should see Audrey Hepburn do her thing. And her thing is at its best in Roman Holiday. Hepburn plays a princess, Princess Anne, who gets tired of protocol and royal customs and propriety and so forth, and runs off on her handlers during a diplomatic trip to Rome. She meets American journalist Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck, and he recognizes her. Of course, being the conniving journalist that he is, he pretends not to know who she is, in the hopes of getting an exclusive interview. But he gets more…a lot more…da-da-daaaaaaa. Of course, the two of them fall in love. It’s Audrey Hepburn, and it’s the 1950s.

Audrey Hepburn existed in movies in the 50s mainly to be the woman with whom charming men could fall in love. Sometimes inexplicably, like in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, where she plays one of the most irritatingly flaky screen characters in history. But in Roman Holiday, it does actually make sense. Not only is she the most gorgeous woman ever to appear on a movie screen, she is also charming and innocent in that princess-sheltered-from-the-world sort of way. This character had appeared in movies before, and today this character shows up in at least forty movies a year, but she has never been better than Audrey Hepburn. And rarely in a movie has her male love interest made more sense than the incredibly charming Gregory Peck does here. Think about My Fair Lady, where Hepburn ends up totally in love with the cruel, capricious, self-obsessed tyrant played by Rex Harrison, and for the life of me I can’t imagine why. In Roman Holiday, the central romance makes sense. Perhaps only Sabrina sees Audrey Hepburn make an equally sensible choice in a man, while still being an appealing female love interest. More on Sabrina later today.

The impact of Roman Holiday is extensive. First of all, it made a star of Audrey Hepburn, who remains one of the best-known actresses in history. Secondly, it created what would now be known as the Audrey Hepburn “look” - which, my girlfriend the hairdresser assures me, is basically “simple yet slick”. It is an extension of her own personality, in this movie and in many others - wide-eyed, and yet sophisticated. It also changed the way people saw settings in movies, as it serves in more ways than one as a travel brochure for Rome. Movies like even In Bruges today owe, in a small way at least, a debt to Roman Holiday. It was nominated for ten Oscars, and won two - Best Actress for Audrey Hepburn, and Best Screenplay for Ian McLellan Hunter. Although it should be noted that although Hunter was given the credit for the screenplay, it was co-written by the wonderful Dalton Trumbo, a man who was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time. Roman Holiday lost out on the Best Picture award in 1953, but deservedly so. From Here To Eternity WAS a better picture. In point of fact, the REAL best picture of 1953 was Shane, but it’s a little late to quibble.

The Paramount Centennial Collection edition DVD of this wonderful film has a second disc crammed full of special features. There is a featurette called Paramount in the 50s, an interesting little look back at the classic Paramount films of that era, and this same special feature is included on the Centennial Collection DVDs of Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard, also released today. There is a 15-minute feature called Remembering Audrey, which is a little bit interesting and features interviews with her adult son and her boyfriend from later in her life. There is also a more in-depth, half-hour look at Hepburn in Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years, which focuses, like so many others, on her relationships with designers like Givenchy and her husband, Mel Ferrer. And there is a featurette on the costumes of Paramount in the 50s.

But the best special feature on the disc is a fifteen-minute look at a forgotten man. Dalton Trumbo: From A-List To Blacklist is a look at Trumbo, the writer of Roman Holiday, who was shunned by the Hollywood establishment during the communist witch-hunt of the 1950s. Of course, there were many others who suffered the same fate. Trumbo basically won the Oscar for his screenplay for Roman Holiday, but that Oscar was presented to, and accepted by, Ian McLellan Hunter, a man who had never written a word and existed only as a front for Trumbo. This is as fascinating as a documentary can be in fifteen minutes, and it’s a great look back at a dark period in American history. For people who are really interested in this man and the House Un-American Activities Committee, there are some solid full-length documentaries out there which are of course more complete. But one of the best is The Hollywood Ten, another 15-minute documentary available as a special feature on the Criterion Collection DVD of Spartacus.

Also incredible in Roman Holiday is Rome itself. As Peck takes Hepburn on a tour around Rome, the city is shot in an incredibly vivid style that makes the rest of the movie as visually appealing as Hepburn herself. Well, almost. Rarely, in 1953, were movies actually shot on location. Just about anyone else would have shot this film on a Hollywood sound stage. Director William Wyler chose not to do so, and it was the third-best decision he made in the film. Next to, of course, the casting choices of Hepburn and Peck. Although the impact of the film has been the main reason it is remembered today, it stands the test of time simply for being a great film. Although it was the first Audrey Hepburn starring vehicle, it was also one of her best.