Roman Holiday Details

This sublime and utterly charming fable rightly secured a best actress Oscar for the divine Audrey Hepburn (in a role originally intended for Jean Simmons) and resulted in both Hepburn and Rome (not to mention motor scooters!) becoming the epitome of postwar chic. The film could be viewed merely as a love story about a princess who falls for a reporter (Gregory Peck). But, not intending to detract from the charm of the story, the background is perhaps more interesting: the script was written by the uncredited, blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, a fact not revealed for almost 40 years, and actually deals in some depth with personal freedom and responsibilities, the setting and characters distancing the tale far from the communist witch-hunts in America. Immaculately directed by William Wyler and written and played with style and grace, this is a film to treasure, with both sequences and performances that will live for ever.

Wispy, charming, old-fashioned romantic comedy shot in Rome and a little obsessed by the locations; one feels that a studio base would have resulted in firmer control of the elements. The stars, however, made it memorable.