Roman Holiday

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"Roman holiday" redirects here. For the 1972 cartoon, see The Roman Holidays. For holidays in ancient Rome, see Roman festivals.

Template:Infobox Film

Roman Holiday is a 1953 romantic comedy film which tells the story of Princess Ann, a young royal who runs away during a state visit to Rome and befriends Joe Bradley, a cynical expatriate American reporter who first just wants an exclusive story about a princess gone AWOL but finds himself falling in love with her. The film is also known for its Vespa footage, much praised by classic scooter enthusiasts the world over.

The film is most notable for introducing American movie audiences to Belgian-born actress Audrey Hepburn, who would win the Academy Award for Best Actress as Ann. Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert co-star.

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Credits

The movie was written by John Dighton and, fronting for Hollywood Blacklist author Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter. (Trumbo's name was digitally restored to the film's credits when it was released on DVD in 2003.)

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Princess Ann is a royal princess and heir to the throne of an unnamed country. She is officially touring several European capitals, and so arrives in Rome, where her visit is widely publicized. One night, she is very agitated and expresses her tiredness of her official role. The court doctor gives her an injection in order to calm her down, but she nevertheless secretly leaves her country's embassy in Rome and goes out alone to explore the city.

She ends up falling asleep on a public bench where Joe Bradley, an expatriate American reporter, sees her but does not recognize her. He offers her money so that she can take a taxi and return home safely, but Anya Smith, as she introduces herself, is so sleepy that she is unable to talk to the taxi driver.

Bradley finally decides to take her to his apartment so that she can spend the night in a safe place. The next morning, Bradley leaves the sleeping woman alone and arrives late at his office where his boss asks him if he has conducted the scheduled interview of the princess during the morning.

Bradley first lies and gives details of the alleged interview until his boss announces to him that the princess has suddenly fallen ill and has cancelled all interviews. He then shows a picture of her to Bradley, who suddenly recognizes the young woman whom he left sleeping in his apartment... Image:Romanholidayhand.JPG Image:RomanJoeHand.jpg

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Miscellaneous

One of the most famous scenes in the movie is when Gregory Peck puts his hand into the "Mouth of Truth", a stone face in Rome that legend says will bite it off if you tell a lie. In the film, when he pulls his hand out it is missing, causing Anya/Hepburn to scream. He then pops his hand out of his sleeve and laughs. Audrey Hepburn's shriek wasn't acting—Peck had decided to pull the gag he had once seen Red Skelton do, and had not told his costar of it before.

A now-legendary screen test resulted in Hepburn being cast as Ann. After performing a scene from the film, the director called "cut" but the cameraman actually left the camera rolling as the young actress chatted with the director. The candid footage of Hepburn that resulted won her the role.

In the 1970s, both Peck and Hepburn were approached with the idea of a sequel to Roman Holiday which would have seen Anya and Joe reunite; the idea never came to fruition. The original film was remade for television in the early 1980s.

The role that Peck played was originally written with Cary Grant in mind. However, Grant turned the role down, believing he was too old to play Hepburn's love interest. Later, the studio convinced Grant to play opposite Hepburn in Charade, where it became obvious that the chemistry between the two was as good as Grant had had with another Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn. However, they Audrey and Cary never appeared in another film together.

The movie was filmed in Newcastle, on location and at Cinecittà Studios.

It is sometimes stated that Roman Holiday was Hepburn's first American acting job. In fact, she appeared at least once on US television in 1952 -- a CBS Television Workshop production of "Rainy Day in Paradise Junction".

Image:Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck 4.jpg

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Cast

Image:Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck 1.jpg

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Awards

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Award wins

In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

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Award nominations

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External links

{{{2|{{{title|Roman Holiday}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database

Roman Holiday is also a 1931 novel by Upton Sinclair.cs:Prázdniny v Římě de:Ein Herz und eine Krone fi:Loma Roomassa fr:Vacances romaines he:חופשה ברומא ja:ローマの休日 nl:Roman Holiday sv:Prinsessa på vift zh:羅馬假期 (電影)

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