The Trouble With
Royalty-Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday
DVD Review
By Sam
Lowell
Roman
Holiday, starring Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, story by Dalton Trumbo, a
Hollywood Ten member not originally created in the red scare Cold War 1953s but
only in 2003 on the re-released
No question
it was tough being royalty in say the 16th, 17th,18th,
19th centuries especially in places like England, France and Russia
where you very likely might lose your head, literally, if you made a false
move, or were just in the way of human progress. Not so in the 1950s when the
royal remnant was just hanging around collecting payments, kissing babies and
opening fairs. The film under review, Roman
Holiday, puts a little different spin of the toughness question, the
problem with celebrity, acting royally in a democratic age, and being in the
spotlight without any relief for what after all is an accident of birth. Of
course this romantic comedy written by the red scare Cold War Hollywood Ten
member Dalton Trumbo doesn’t deal seriously with the issue of why there is a
need for even a remnant of royalty in a democratic age but does in a whimsical romantic
comic way deal with that problem of just trying to be an ordinary Jill when the
world is always watching you.
Here is the
dilemma, here is Princess Anne, played by fetching Audrey Hepburn, of some
unnamed European country who is on a whirlwind tour of that continent trying to
drum up support for her country and do the whole endless scheduled obligatory
rounds that royal prestige requires. But our Princess is a bit feisty, is ready
to fly the coop, has had it with ceremony, schedule and formality. That flying
the coop is what drives this storyline.
Once she
flies the coop from her country’s embassy in Rome (after having been given a
sedative to calm her nerves when she freaked out with the routine she had to
put up with) she is picked up by Joe, played by Gregory Peck, an average democratic
American Joe who just so happened to be a newspaper reporter in exile in Rome waiting
for his big scoop to fly away from his own coop. Because the Princess was
acting dopey he eventually chastely brought her to his apartment to sleep it
off. Naturally too once the embassy found out she had escaped they were in a
frenzy to find her, bring her back to the fold. The chase is on.
Of course Joe
did not know at first who he had on his hands, but once he got wise he saw nothing
by blue skies and big bylines in his future. A big fat exclusive on the secret
life of a real live Princess, guys would have killed, would still today do so
maybe worse, for that kind of up close and personal story. Complete with
photographs (to be provided surreptitiously by a “flash” friend and associate).
The Princess of course wants to remain anonymous and the game of cat and mice proceeds.
But Anne really did want to see how the other half lived, had her own wish list
of fantasies she would like to play out. And Joe obliged her. Things got sticky
though as Anne had to turn back into Cinderella at midnight because this unlikely
pair fell in love just that quickly. But commoners and princesses don’t mix in
the real world, usually, and princesses of presumably small and unnamed countries
have certain duties and responsibilities to uphold so they part, part to
eventually go their separate ways. Without a hint of scandal since Joe forsook
his big chance once the deal went down. This one was slow in spots but is a prime
example of a feel good classic romance even if thwarted, 1950s style. And
Audrey Hepburn still looks fetching over fifty years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment