William Wyler’s perennial charmer is 100% undiluted entertainment: Gregory Peck and the new star Audrey Hepburn share a Roman fairy tale that’s also a tourist’s dream. A runaway Princess takes in the town like a galavanting Cinderella, not realizing that she’s being set up for an image-damaging photojournalism exposé. The show is a hands-down joy and one of brightest hits of the 1950s. One surprise is that it was also finessed to make just the right political statement for the Cold War — even though it was written by ‘dangerous’ Dalton Trumbo, using a front.

Roman Holiday 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Paramount Pictures
1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 118 min. / Street Date August 15, 2023 / Available from Amazon / 25.99
Starring: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams, Margaret Rawlings, Tullio Carminati, Maurizio Arena. Marco Tulli, Catherine Wyler, Judy Wyler.
Cinematography: Henri Alekan, Franz F. Planer
Art Directors: Hal Pereira, Walter Tyler
Costume Design: Edith Head
Film Editor: Robert Swink
Original Music: Georges Auric (Title music: Victor Young)
Assistant directors: Herbert Coleman, Bernard Vorhaus
Screenplay and story by Dalton Trumbo; additional screenwriting by John Dighton; originally credited to blacklist front Ian McLellan Hunter
Produced by Robert Wyler, William Wyler
Directed by William Wyler

Before WW2, European vacations were the exclusive domain of the top 20 percent of American earners. But, wow, what an incredible middle class came about in the 1950s. A growing postwar prosperity and a favorable $ exchange made it possible for more Yanks to afford a few weeks in England, or France, or Italy. The travelogue notion surely added to the appeal of William Wyler’s Roman Holiday. The smash hit won 3 Oscars out of 10 nominations. Its original screen story reworks Cinderella for an age of global poltics, in which news bureaus competed for scoops on glamorous stories about royalty, that might have international implications.

Technically Roman Holiday is a romantic comedy of the kind that Billy Wilder might concoct, complete with a ‘meet cute’ setup. But its ‘realistic fantasy’ sells the notion that chivalry, fair play, unselfish romance and higher values might exist in press conferences and publicity tours for ‘elite’ celebrities. Let’s call it benign innocence, not a denial of reality.

The film is best known for launching English actress Audrey Hepburn to instant stardom — she won a Best Actress Oscar the first time at bat. Ace Hollywood director William Wyler scored numerous Best Actor Oscars for his leading ladies. He also made very few films that couldn’t be described as exceptional, and exceptionally intelligent. But in 1953 Wyler wasn’t known for comedy. The humor in this relaxed and romantic winner comes far more naturally than in most scripted comedies.

It’s Italy, where news correspondents vie for hot news for the U.S. syndicates. The gentlemanly conduct of reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) wins him a terrific scoop. He comes to the aid of a young woman (Audrey Hepburn) sleeping on a stone bench and lets her sleep in his apartment. Only the next day does he learn that she’s Princess Anne, who will someday be the queen of an undidentified European monarchy. A personal exclusive on her would be journalistic gold. Joe tells his editor (Hartley Power, the narrator-ventriloquist of the final tale of Dead of Night) to expect the hot scoop of the year.

Frustrated by her official diplomatic duties, Anne had run away from her royal minders, unaware that they’d given her a sedative. Not letting on about his profession, Joe agrees to escort ‘Anya Smith’ around the city for the day, conniving with his photographer pal Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) to document everything, tabloid-style. Meanwhile, the Italian police aid agents from Anne’s country in locating the missing Princess, whose presence is necessary to insure the diplomatic equilibrium. Joe and Irv are counting their riches to come, as Joe realizes he’s falling in love … a development that promises trouble for all.

There’s no need to catalog the graces of Roman Holiday. The Hollywood production was entirely shot on location in Italy, with a top star and a dazzling new discovery fitting in perfectly with the scenery and some carefully chosen locals. They include the distinctive Marco Tulli, who made an amusing impression the same year in John Huston’s Beat the Devil. Gregory Peck’s charm is effortless. Because he exudes integrity even when standing still with his hands in his pockets, Peck doesn’t fully convince as an ambitious opportunist who’d take advantage of a young woman. But fairy tales can get away with that kind of dodge.

It’s Audrey Hepburn’s first American film and her first starring role. Immediately embraced by the public, she became the darling of style-conscious New York trend-setters. People like to think of Marilyn Monroe as symbolizing the ’50s, but more young women chose to identify with Audrey Hepburn, who makes being slight and petite seem infinitely preferable. Critic Molly Haskell describes Hepburn as original in appearance and manner, with an honest but lovely self-possession that all mothers wish their girls could adopt. In the beginning, Hepburn’s princess is supposed to be spoiled: we forgive her. Heavy sedation is the only reason she’d spend the night in a bachelor’s apartment, saying things like, “Could you undress me please?”  Yet we know she’s an absolutely innocent. Like everybody’s first girlfriend, Hepburn’s smile melts all objections and breaks all hearts.

Director Wyler keeps the poles in balance: lightweight fantasy (a madcap Roman whirl) and prosaic realism (real Roman streets, crowds, cops and secret agents). Princess Anne’s subjective adventure is balanced against Joe & Irv’s predatory shenanigans. Simple goodness wins out without shedding blood, just a tear or two. We feel the Princess’s delight at being on her own for a fling in the ancient city.

The byplay between Peck and Hepburn is more than just Funny Things Happening — no situations are exaggerated, and the pair’s reactions are underplayed. The princess wants to ‘lose control’ and once or twice almost does so. Joe and Anya’s parting is a romantic tug-of-war of obligation and personal integrity. The Princess may not be rushing off on another madcap weekend soon, but neither will she continue to allow herself to be treated like a royal baby.

Peck got skipped over come Oscar time, but Hepburn won for Best Actress and Eddie Albert snagged a nomination for Best Supporting actor. Albert had scored as a cad’s cad in Wyler’s previous Carrie, but this film solidified his grip on notable supporting roles to augment his prolific TV work. Albert’s comedy work as the slow-on-the-draw Irv Radovitch is the film’s most dated material. The repeated slapstick business of Joe kicking, pushing, and spilling drinks on Irv to keep him from spilling the beans quickly becomes annoying.

Nothing, however, can top the famed standout gag at the ‘Mouth of Truth’ sculpture, one of the best scenes ever in a serio-comic romance.  →  The Mouth of Truth relates well to Dalton Trumbo’s overall theme, as both Anne and Joe are each operating under false pretenses, each hiding truths from the other. . . in a benign sort of way, of course.

Wyler and Peck did their best to repeat the gag 5 years later in The Big Country, where a big music cue helps Gregory Peck pull a somewhat similar scare-take on Jean Simmons.

It’s the Flip Side of a Blacker-Than-Black Film Noir.

Revisionist thinking now places the film’s premise in a slightly different light. As related by film writer Avie Hern, Roman Holiday can be seen as a change of direction for postwar Hollywood filmmaking, at least at the top writing and directing level. William Wyler’s postwar pictures had so far all been ultra-serious dramas, finishing with his grim Theodore Dreiser adaptation of Carrie. As Mr. Hern pointed out, Roman Holiday is a positive inversion of Billy Wilder’s 1951 Ace in the Hole, the culmination of writer-director Wilder’s noir streak, a jet-black ode to cynicism that laid a profound box office egg.

Is it fair to presume that Paramount entreated its two top talents to stay away from ironic tragedy, and perhaps make something more audience friendly?  Roman Holiday is the direct opposite of Ace in the Hole, where Kirk Douglas’s unscrupulous reporter twists a story for personal gain, putting a man’s life on the line and giving the entire journalistic profession a black eye. The movie did so poorly that its unofficial title around the studio was ‘Ass in the Wringer’.

Roman Holiday takes the same premise — a reporter in a position to benefit by exploiting his news subject — and makes it a story for the better angels of our conscience. Gregory Peck’s journalist Joe is a benevolent softie. He prioritizes ethics ahead of his tabloid training, a fitting outcome with Peck in the role. When Peck reneges on his promise to turn in a whopper exposé, his editor amiably lets him off the hook. The scene is a complete inversion of Kirk Douglas’s exhanges with his goblin-like editor back East (reptilian Richard Gaines).

William Wyler’s next movie The Desperate Hours was a violent crime story, but filtered through family values as heartwarming every as his marvelous Friendly Persuasion. Billy Wilder took his medicine and never returned to hardcore Noir territory. He instead fashioned for Paramount an ideal follow-up vehicle for the new star Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina.

Kick that Iron Curtain Right in the Slats, Trumbo.

Roman Holiday also takes a ‘quiet broadside’ at the international situation. Concerned about Soviet influence, the State Department looked to Hollywood to spread pro-American values. This is why Ambassador Clare Booth Luce tried to halt the export of ‘negative’ pictures like Blackboard Jungle, and used threats to block Italian producers from hiring the blacklisted American directors Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin and John Berry.

In its subtle way, Roman Holiday comments on East-West tensions. The Princess hails from some imaginary Eastern European monarchy, when most everything East of Austria was either already under or deeply compromised by Soviet domination. The ‘secret police’ that come to Rome to find the Princess aren’t Ruritanian constables, but sinister men in dark suits and hats. Yet at the finale, not one of the many journalists personally introduced when greeting the Princess comes from an Eastern bloc country.

The bigger irony is that this admirably pro-West and pro-America romance was secretly written by one of Clare Booth Luce’s most hated political adversaries. Hollywood Ten defendant Dalton Trumbo served hard prison time for Contempt of Congress, and could not continue working without leaving the country. It’s presumed that he wrote the story for Roman Holiday while in exile in Mexico. Trumbo used a front, Ian McLellan Hunter, for the sale. The film’s original main titles omitted Trumbo’s name, and the industry didn’t officially restore his screen credit until after his death.

Trumbo’s credit has now been returned to the film, with a change made to the main titles. The problem with that credit revision, is that it covers up the crime of the blacklist years. Giving a few star writers back their stolen credits, many posthumously, doesn’t neutralize the wrong done hundreds of other artists deprived of their careers. Is nobody concerned about such a major revision-whitewash of Hollywood history?

A better alternative would be to use the same method by which producers sometimes announce major award wins, adding a card to the front of prints. A ‘credits correction’ text card could name Trumbo and say he was denied credit when the film was new. It wouldn’t even have to say why.

Roman Holiday is marvelously entertaining in every respect. The sidebar politics doesn’t detract from its aura. But this kind of review is a good place to restate what happened.

Paramount Pictures’ 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray of Roman Holiday 4K is a handsome rendering of this vintage winner. The movie is remembered for its personalities and humor, not necessarily its visual beauty. The French-U.S. camera tag team Henri Alekan and Franz Planer go for a natural sunny Rome look, not quite neorealist but allowing Gregory Peck to go about with less makeup, etc. If it was really filmed in the summer, Peck and Albert must have been sweltering in their suits and ties.

The added Blu-ray disc contains an HD of the full feature plus all the extras. The Blu-ray is identical to an earlier Paramount Blu-ray release, the same pressing.

Paramount revised their extras lineup for Roman Holiday around 2008, coming up with an improved stack of promotional featurettes. These lead off with an intro piece by Leonard Maltin, an all-round fine item.

A full list is below. Some have the same general contents but the one on Dalton Trumbo now has improved interview input from direct sources like actress Marsha Hunt. The piece shows how the title sequence was changed, removing the credits for Ian McLellan Hunter and neatly replacing them with Dalton Trumbo’s name. We are pleased to note that interviewee Nicholas Meyer makes the identical argument we do against the revision to the film’s official credits. We like seeing Trumbo’s name where it belongs, but it just feels like a historical cover-up.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Roman Holiday 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Featurettes:
Filmmaker Focus: Leonard Maltin on Roman Holiday
Behind the Gates: Costumes
Rome with a Princess
Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years
Dalton Trumbo: From A-List to Blacklist
Paramount in the ’50s: Remembering Audrey
Theatrical Trailers, Photo Galleries.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: August 6, 2023
(6975roma)

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