This is another of those classic films that everyone is supposed to have watched but I never have. In fact, I’ve never even watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s, widely considered Audrey Hepburn’s most defining role. Roman Holiday is where she got her start though so it feels appropriate to watch this first. Watching this, I was certainly struck by how astonishingly young she looks here.

Ann is the crown princess and heir of an unspecified country on a tour of Europe. This is a working visit however and as such every aspect of it is stage managed according to a strict schedule with her handlers telling her exactly what to do and what to say. One day, on the verge of having a nervous breakdown due to all the pressure, she decides to slip out of the palace and explore the city of Rome on her own. She happens to meet Joe Bradley, a down on his luck American working as a reporter. Though he doesn’t recognize her at first, providing plenty of opportunity for laughs, he eventually does and realizing that this could be the scoop of a lifetime, plays along with her day off in Rome.

The plot is standard Hollywood fare and Joe’s photographer friend even sums it up pithily as “princess goes slumming”. Still, it works here partly because of how perfectly it is executed but mostly because of the immense amount of charm that Hepburn brings to the role. She’s every bit the prim and proper princess when she’s on the job but switches to a mix of naiveté and enthusiastic joyfulness that can’t help but win audiences over. The childlike wonder and happiness that she exudes as she practically skips across the streets of Rome makes her simply adorable. It’s no wonder that she achieved the incredible feat of winning the Oscar for Best Actress for this role, her first starring role in a feature film and at the age of 24.

I especially appreciated how Roman Holiday neatly avoids the usual assortment of traps that would have made it a mediocre film. Though it’s billed as a comedy-romance, the romance part is so understated as to be almost absent. I loved that they never need to talk about it even right to the end. It’s something that they just know in their hearts and can communicate with their eyes. Gregory Peck’s Joe allows Ann to completely dominate the film, so he’s really acting as the audience surrogate. The whole film is played straight, free of any sarcasm or any nastiness of any kind at all. This would pretty much look ridiculous if you’d tried it today. The sense of noblesse oblige alone, as if real-life royalty would sacrifice anything for the good of the people,  would make the plot implausible in the extreme. Yet because this has the feeling of a timeless Hollywood classic, you feel like giving this film a pass.

This means that though it isn’t terribly substantial, this is a sweet and highly entertaining film that I think will easily delight even modern audiences today.