Review of Roman Holiday (1953) by Ben H — 15 Aug 2009

I was really impressed with how Wyler and Traumbo captured the princess' humanity. My 1st instinct was that it was going to veer off on a bunch of information on how she's the princess; this is royalty, more shots and more shots of proper people acting proper, yada yada and even more boring information that drags the story in the beginning before it finally takes off into what everyone praises it for. But then after 10 seconds of thinking like this they show the shoe loss/leg itching scene and it all just goes away.

The rest of the film continues on this path of a different way to tell this story and it kept me engaged and I really wanted to know what was going to happen with the relationship between the leads, with her family, etc. I said to myself, "nice save".

However, I see why Cary Grant turned down the reporter role. The focus is on the princess and not the reporter. For someone of his caliber to take a step aside is hurting your already well established career. All the gossip and hype at the academy awards was on whether or not Audrey would get an Oscar or not. Whether she was too new and much of an amateur or just well deserving and it doesn't matter on whether or not she's not seasoned and deserving. Yet the film got 10 awards! ... But the focus was on her. I'd pass on it if I were Grant as well. There's a bunch of other just as good projects that can help my career just as well, and we all know this didn't hurt him.

So for a "not as big as the best there is" name like Gregory Peck, was probably the right choice. He even suggested that her name come before the title along with his because he knew she was going to be big. Says a lot about his character.

I was upset by the ending though. It was noble and honorable, however a let down in the end. Not really sticking to the codes of romantic comedies. To go through the ups and downs with these characters, becoming totally engaged with them and entangled in this story to get an ending that lets me down and kind of frustrates me, makes me feel like, "I went through all that for nothing!?".

I say to myself, no the nobility and honor that they chose to leave me with should suffice, but it really doesn't. It should be, but that's a text book answer, and in my heart deep down it's just not what I needed to feel good about it all and 100% approve of this movie. Only 90% at most, everything else was right on, but I just can't give it my total satisfaction.