If movie genres were ice cream flavors, romantic comedies would be vanilla: Simple, satisfying, and unchallenging. You can jazz it up with toppings or mix in other flavors, but at the end of the day, it’s the comforting familiarity that’s the selling point. That being said, there’s a massive range in quality between a handcrafted artisanal pint and a two-gallon bucket of artificially flavored gloop. There’s an art to making a truly great romantic comedy, just as there’s an art to making a truly great vanilla ice cream. And on the high end of that spectrum sits Roman Holiday, perhaps the finest vanilla gelato the rom-com genre has ever served up.
Like Harold And Maude or When Harry Met Sally, Roman Holiday is one of those romantic comedies that’s inspired so many copycats that the original can almost seem too familiar to first-time viewers. Three years after Disney canonized our shared image of Cinderella with its 1950 animated classic, Roman Holiday popularized the “reverse Cinderella” romance—the story of a glamorous high-status woman who falls for an everyday guy, often while one or both of them is in disguise. Ironically, Disney would then regularly start to pull from that template, in movies ranging from Lady And The Tramp to Aladdin and Tangled.
Itself inspired by screwball comedies like It Happened One Night, Roman Holiday would go on to influence rom-coms ranging from Notting Hill and Chasing Liberty to Overboard, Long Shot, and Shakespeare In Love. The “reverse Cinderella” formula is a little bit fairy tale, a little bit Twelfth Night, and a little bit fish-out-of-water comedy (and not entirely dissimilar from the adventure romance subgenre either). The thrill comes from seeing two people who otherwise never would’ve crossed paths thrown together into a deeply intimate setting. And the romance comes from the way they shape each other for the better, even as outside forces conspire against them—or their own deception puts them at a moral crossroads.
What makes Roman Holiday special is how sweet and simple it is. In her auspicious, star-making American debut, Audrey Hepburn plays Princess Ann, a young royal on a goodwill tour across Europe. Exhausted by her endless public duties, and lightly hopped up on a sedative, Ann flies the coop in Rome, looking to finally experience the real world for herself. When she gets in over her head, however, she’s rescued—first reluctantly and then self-servingly—by Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), an American journalist hoping to score a big payday with a story about the princess’ wild day out.
Shot entirely on location in Rome, Roman Holiday unfolds over the 24 hours or so that Joe and Ann spend exploring the city together. Though it’s a splashy studio film, it has an unhurried, observational tone that calls to mind Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset as much as a classic plot-driven romantic comedy. The stakes are high in the sense that Ann’s public dignity hangs in the balance should Joe publish his story. But Hepburn also gives Ann a refreshingly self-possessed competence underneath her naïve exterior. You get the sense that she’ll be okay no matter what comes of this Italian adventure.
Indeed, Roman Holiday is a coming-of-age story as much as anything, one where we witness the birth of Hepburn’s movie star persona in a sequence where Ann trades in her pumps for flats and cuts her long bushy hair into a short, stylish bob. Roger Ebert once referred to Hepburn as “the last of the silent stars,” thanks to her incredibly expressive eyes. And they’re on full display in Roman Holiday, where one glance can tell a whole story unto itself—a quality Hepburn would continue to bring to her next decade and a half of stellar rom-com work.
In fact, while romantic comedies are traditionally driven by rat-a-tat patter, Roman Holiday’s story is foremost told visually. Working from a script by John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo (the latter fronted by Ian McLellan Hunter due to Trumbo’s place on the Hollywood blacklist), director William Wyler fills Roman Holiday with physical comedy beats worthy of a silent film. Take an early scene where Ann slips out of her high heel under her bustling ballgown, and then quietly panics when she can’t find it again. Everything you need to know about the contrast between Ann’s dignified exterior and her playful humanity is immediately captured in that simple, wordless gag.
The same goes for an extended sequence where Joe tries to find a place for an inebriated Ann to sleep, or any number of gags involving bohemian photographer Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) and his attempts to covertly capture Ann’s adventures. And then there’s the iconic montage where Ann and Joe zoom around the city on a Vespa. You can watch this movie with the sound off and it works almost as well, thanks to the beauty of the location and the intimacy of physicality that sells the romance. During the famous “Mouth of Truth” scene, Peck and Wyler reportedly conspired together to prank Hepburn by having Peck pretend to lose a hand to the statue. The way she almost melts into his arms in relief when she realizes what’s happening is a perfect rom-com moment of actor and character chemistry becoming one.
Yet what elevates Roman Holiday from good to great—the secret ingredient in the gelato, if you will—is its ending. The movie wanders such a whimsically familiar path that it’s easy to assume you know where it’s going. But in place of a conventional happily-ever-after, Roman Holiday swerves to something more poignant. One of my favorite movie-going memories is of attending an outdoor screening of Roman Holiday back in college with a friend who had never seen it before. Her absolutely flabbergasted reaction to the fact that—nearly 70-year-old spoiler alert!—Joe and Ann don’t end up together was a perfect reminder of how much a great movie can still pack a punch decades after it’s released.
It’s here where the simplicity of the film really pays off. Where other versions of this story give their characters a big climactic fight when the truth is revealed, Roman Holiday takes an understated, dignified approach worthy of its royal protagonist. Joe and Ann’s mutual attraction slowly builds, until the bittersweet moment Ann decides to leave him behind to recommit to her royal duties. In the final scene, Joe attends a press conference with the princess as a way to reveal his real identity, reassure her he won’t write about their time together, and say goodbye—even as they can’t let anyone else in the room know that they’ve met before.
If this movie made Hepburn a star, I’m convinced it’s the final scene that won her the Academy Award for Best Actress (one of Roman Holiday’s 10 nominations and three wins). Shock, worry, and anger flash across Ann’s face when she spots Joe among the press. And yet, there’s something like relief in the fact that she wasn’t the only one keeping a secret during their whirlwind romance. Though they can’t speak openly, Joe and Ann finally meet as their true selves for the first time. And befitting the often wordless nature of their courtship, they find subtle ways to communicate just how much that day together meant to both of them.
Asked which European city she enjoyed visiting the most, Ann breaks with her stock diplomatic answer to speak honestly: “Rome. By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here, in memory, as long as I live.” The lovely idea buried at the heart of Roman Holiday is that relationships don’t have to last forever to be meaningful. It’s the antithesis of the message that fairy tales and rom-coms often sell us, and it rings all the truer for it. Joe and Ann’s perfect Roman day wasn’t enough to upend their lives over. But it was transformative for both of them.
More than anything, Roman Holiday is about love’s influence as a maturing force. Ann gains the confidence she needs to assert herself more in her carefully managed royal life, while Joe comes to realize there are principles that matter more to him than money. It’s an ending that’s romantic for its realistic poignancy, rather than its wish-fulfillment fantasy—the sort of perfectly calibrated finale that many romantic comedies aim for, but few actually manage to achieve.
“Everything we do is so wholesome,” Ann sighs in frustration at her royal handler early in the film. But Roman Holiday understands there’s value to the “sweetness and decency” that Ann initially scoffs at. Simplicity isn’t a bad thing, so long as it’s made up of the finest ingredients. The best romantic comedies prove that. And Roman Holiday remains one of the genre’s most perfectly balanced treats.
Next time: We Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!
76 Comments
There never was nor will be another Audrey Hepburn, for a first starring role she feels like a pro. If she wasn’t let onto what would happen with the Mouth of Truth, then damn did she roll with it gracefully. I must say that Eddie Albert is quite enjoyable as Pecks friend, he adds a nice touch of comedy to the entire adventure. Its honestly a flawless film, great set up, tender ending, I won’t say Audrey wasn’t ever better as Breakfast at Tiffany’s will always hold a place in my heart, but its perhaps her best well rounded film. Impossible to go wrong with it.
Ah, Breakfast At Tiffany’s – a classic film that is truly timeless and will always be seen as-Never mind.
Its a movie that would be perfect if it didn’t have the most painfully awful example of yellowface ever put to screen. The character doesn’t even matter to the plot and messes with the tone oh god why.
And, most offensive of all, he’s covering up the rangefinder window of his Nikon SP, something no Japanese man – much less a photographer – would ever do. Shame. Shame. Nippon Kogaku didn’t spend all that time ripping off Contax just for him to not use it properly.Seriously, though, it’s puzzling, since the book has him as pretty normal (for the time) Japanese-American. Unfortunately, Blake Edwards got a bit Pink Panther-y for the movie.
I read the book once and that was the most shocking thing. The character is just a normal guy who doesn’t do much. Why the hell did Blake Edwards feel he had to make him a terrible 1940s Japanese propaganda caricature played by a white man. Everyone at one point even said can we reshoot this with a real Japanese actor and Edwards shut that shit down.
Yeah, it was very much NOT a case of “Well, we didn’t know better, that was just how things were done back then” explanation (not an excuse).It’s not like that in the source material. And even back then people were protesting.Maybe they should’ve gotten Frankenheimer to direct it instead – he’d replaced the yellowface with a kick-arse car chase, at least. C’mon, who doesn’t wanna see Audrey fangin’ it around NYC in a Healey Sprite, chased by one of her suitors in a Merc 300 SL?
Theres a review from Variety that said Mickey Rooneys character may offend many. It was written a week after the film came out, people knew. Also hell yeah I’d watch Audrey strangle a suitor with her hat!
I mean, where were they gonna find a Japanese actor who had extensive photography experience that he could leverage in the role in the 60s…Where indeed…I’m glad Rooney’s said he regrets the role, and wishes he could recast it.Apparently Blake was obsessed with his comic chops and, for no reason, decided to shoehorn him into the film, and that was about the only role they could make OTT “funny”.
Yeah shoehorn is the word. There is not a second that doesn’t feel misplaced from a worse movie.
Not Tiffany’s-related, but I’m watching the original Thomas Crown Affair, and while it’s gorgeously shot, and a classic, every seems to forget that Vicki Anderson – you know, the cute, vivacious, bubbly, smart, quirky, sassy insurance investigator that we’re all meant to love because she’s cute and sassy and quirky……kidnaps a fucking child. You know. Just to get at his dad. I mean, even if we do take into account the fact she doesn’t hurt the kid…it’s still reprehensible.And that’s not even going into the legal repercussions, meaning that literally everything brings to the case from that point forward is now inadmissible in court. And she’s up for felony kidnapping. Not quite as bad as yellowface, of course, but in the same vein as “shit in classic movies that everyone seems to casually forget”.Beautifully shot film, but.
Man that reminds me of the first time I saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Whole lot of kidnapping in that too. Or how goddamn creepy the main character in An American in Paris is to Leslie Caron. Doesn’t ruin the films but yeah I’m surprised this doesn’t get brought up much.
It’s doubly stupid, because the kidnapping does nothing for the plot. She only kidnaps the kid to get an excuse to get a suspect in the same room as Crown, and nothing comes of it. They couldn’t just bring him in for questioning, apparently, especially since the suspect’s wife rats on him anyway for $25 grand, a thread that goes nowhere – she sees the “BE A FINK!” ad in the paper, puts two and two together- nah, then the kid gets kidnapped. Her ratting on her husband is even foreshadowed, with them having a crappy marriage, fighting and nagging all the time.After that, the father just drops from the plot, like Crown’s German supermodel girlfriend.At least the remake fixed that (no kidnapping, the thieves get arrested because they’re meant to get arrested as decoys, and the “other woman” is Crown’s friend’s daughter he has guardianship over).Also, the entire reason Vicki decides to go after Crown in the original is because she sees a photo of him, gets moist, and decides has to be the one. That’s it. She sees a photo of Crown, declares “That’s him”, and that’s it, folks. Meanwhile, Detective Eddie is played for an idiot the whole time because he does silly things like follow “due process” and requires “evidence”. At least in the remake, Denis Leary’s Detective McCann is shown to simply not give a shit about high-end art theft, stating he’s got more important crimes he needs to solve. Still though – I can’t entirely hate it because the cinematography’s so gorgeous, and there’s nothing like the sheer joy of Steve McQueen’s laughter when he gets how, pours himself a martini, sparks up a box-pressed panatella, and laughs at the fact he pulled it all off.
I was gonna say I’m pretty sure the remake changed the kidnapping plot for the waaaaaay better.
Lest we forget, Mickey Rooney went to his grave insisting Mr. Yunioshi was one of his best roles, and that he deserved an Oscar for it!
Personally I think the yellowface draws focus away from the many other problems with Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn gives a great performance, and the cinematography is lovely. But the movie suffers from being made in an era that depicted misogyny much more vividly than sex work. The movie only vaguely alludes to Holly’s life and dwells on the ways men mistreat her, but it’s also full of departures into broad comedy. It’s a very 60s movie, awkwardly straddling two eras of filmmaking sensibility and not adding much to either.
Yeah, I’m not sure how much I love Breakfast. It’s fine as a movie, but I feel like it could have been richer if it had stuck more closely to the novella because the key relationship between Paul and Holly are fundamentally different because of how the movie changed their sexualities, not just the gay/straight/bi, but also how sexual Holly is.
I do think the film is a bit more charitable to Holly then that but its definitely of its time even at its best. I’m bias I’ll admit, I think the Moon River bit is one of the greatest filmed scenes ever.
IIRC, the studio forced then to put him in for comic relief or some shit! He adds literally nothing and takes away from the action. First Poochie in cinema history
I don’t know if that’s true, exactly, given how much of a piece Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi is with Blake Edwards’s “funny furriner” type of humor.This is the same director who cast Peter Sellers in Brownface as an incompetent klutzy Indian actor, and used Sellers five times as an incompetent klutzy French police inspector, after all.
For what it’s worth, Blake Edwards spent a lot of time apologizing for that character. If only he had done the same for “The Party.”
He did although he could have reduced the damage by reshooting the scenes which a good amount of the cast wanted to do. Still better Mickeys defense, which was saying people liked it when it first came out tho.
Not really sure I agree, as some of elements that have nothing to do with Mickey Rooney in insulting yellowface didn’t age well either — like Peppard’s shifting sexuality or … whatever Patricia Neal was supposed to be.
Love Breakfast at Tiffany, despite its obvious racism flaw.But, if people want to talk about “How To Steal A Million” more so they can feel better about not wanting to talk about the racism of Breakfat, I’d be okay with that.
How to Steal a Million is an absolute delight and one of Peter O’Tooles more fun performances. I enjoy talking about that!
And unlike a lot of the films she’s famous for, O’Toole was an actual age appropriate love interest, younger even.
Yeah that’s a weird quirk in almost all her films, from Peck to Gary Cooper to Cary Grant, always far too old to an almost creepy degree. Well at least she skipped out on being in the Hitchcock film Marney, that would have been awkward.
Those three leads are just delightful. There’s not much more to say about Hepburn, but I can say Peck is likely my favorite actor from old Hollywood. I think he’s head and shoulders about Cary Grant when it comes to leading-man charm and humor, and palatability. And I agree that Eddie Albert’s really great, hilarious, and really knocks it out of the park as a sidekick/best friend. I feel like he should be mentioned more as a model of how well that role’s been executed.
*above
I think Peck was miscast in Roman Holiday because he was just too damn classy to really fit in the role of a down on his luck news stringer BUT —Peck had the good sense as an actor to just let Hepburn be Hepburn and dial down his own considerable onscreen wattage. He lets her take over, and it works out perfectly,
He would have been…but he wasn’t really there.
He was…undercover….
Agreed. Peck was always more versatile than Grant.
Roman Holiday is the movie where everyone fell in love With Audrey. And never fell out of love with her.
I find it somewhat interesting that this same story was done just 10 years earlier in Princess O’Rourke with Olivia de Havilland, right down to the princess and love interest meeting because she was drugged to sleep.This movie was much better though (since the older one is a bit more American propagana-y and a pretty tasteless ending).
Interesting that Olivia considered her role in Princes O’Rourke one of her truly satisfying ones while working at Warner Bros. That movie preceded her famous lawsuit against Warner which she won, but Jack Warner got her blacklisted as a result. It was Wyler who helped resurrect Olivia’s career when he directed her in The Heiress. She got her second Oscar for that one. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a fantastic movie. The male lead is Montgomery Clift.
Nothing much to add, other than this is one of my all-time faves, and it is amazing that Audrey found her screen persona in her first big role. Also, I was a little dubious of the ice cream metaphor, until I remembered the famous scene on the Spanish Steps, then it all made sense! 🙂
If movie genres were ice cream flavors, romantic comedies would be vanilla: Simple, satisfying, and unchallenging.
What makes this metaphor iffy for me is what would be a challenging ice cream flavor.
I think the best romantic comedies, including Roman Holiday, are arguably a bit more than just well-done empty calories to the extent they have something important, and unusual, to say about romantic relationships, and good lives in general.As you noted here, Roman Holiday’s message is in part that a romantic relationship doesn’t have to end with “happily ever after” in order for it to be a good thing in the lives of both people. It is also a commentary on what freedom really means, not so much breaking the rules and self-indulgence as autonomy and self-empowerment.Another personal favorite of mine is The Philadelphia Story, which is ultimately about how shared history, partnership, and honesty is a truer foundation for a lasting relationship than alternatives like admiration or adoration. It is also about forgiveness of both others and self, and how that makes one a better human being and a better presence in the lives of others.One thing I find interesting about themes like this is they might actually be relevant to many people’s lives. Most of us do not live epic lives with epic challenges and epic choices to make. But we do live lives where how we relate to others, including in a romantic way, could make an important difference to both us and them. And to the extent these movies have something interesting to say on that subject, I’d suggest they are important movies in a very practical sense.
As you noted here, Roman Holiday’s message is in part that a romantic
relationship doesn’t have to end with “happily ever after” in order for
it to be a good thing in the lives of both people.Relationships (both romantic and platonic), like lives, have lifespans. They’re born, they grow, they live, they die. Sometimes they outlive the people who constitute them, sometimes they don’t. I know “life’s a journey, not a destination” is a groan-worthy cliché at this point but it’s still true.
I’m pretty sure you’re right that that is what Philadelphia Story’s theme was supposed to be.But from where I’m sitting, the real theme is “Get Mike drunk and don’t let him go.” I’ve never had such a serious case of second lead syndrome in my life. I’d feel bad for his girlfriend of course. But all’s fair in love and war.What do you want to bet that CK and Tracey divorced within 2 years of their remarriage?
Ha, I personally identified SO strongly with Mike on my first watch that I kinda hated the movie. It eventually became a personal favorite, but it took some doing (and actually getting married myself, I suspect).
I’m always fascinated by the shared history part of relationships. I know a number of high school friends, including former boyfriend/girlfriend pairings, who ended up reconnecting and marrying years down the road. The easy shorthand of communicating with someone you know that well, and having spent so much time with someone in their formative years to get a real feel for what they’re like at the core, clearly carries those relationships a long way. In fact I’d argue that being apart for years and experiencing the world probably makes those relationships stronger than many of the high school/college couples that stay together throughout.
After my parents divorced, my Mom met her old HS boyfriend at a reunion. His wife had passed away, they reconnected, and then they got remarried. And it was a successful remarriage for both until he eventually also passed away.And yeah, that is not an uncommon sort of story in the real world, even if it seems rather neglected in most fiction. I guess maybe it is not as entertaining as portraying the exciting rush of falling in love for the first time with someone new.As a final note, my wife and I never broke up, but we did go through a long period in which I was living in different cities (for law school, then clerking, then my first job as an attorney). We saw each other almost every weekend, but I have sometimes wondered if that period played a similar role in the sense it helped us understand how to be both independent and yet partners, apart but still with each other, that sort of thing. And we have had a strong, happy marriage (including now the long period of actually living together).
My wife and I were the same way. We met in college and I graduated a year ahead of her. I moved back to my home city, and she came down a year later. We both lived with college friends for several years after and worked in entirely different industries, so we had our own lives outside the relationship. Ended up getting married a number of years later, but I agree 100% that actually being exposed to a broad array of potential replacement partners and traveling in different circles reinforced what we thought we already knew.
I’m really baffled that in discussions of the greatest directors ever, no one ever seems to bring up William Wyler. Wuthering Heights, The Letter, The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Heiress, Roman Holiday, The Big Country, oh, and a little movie called Ben Hur. What more do you need?
The idea of “classic” filmmaking has shifted from the 40s/50s/60s to the 70s/80s/90s. William Wyler was a pro at framing glamorous people with edge lighting in B/W or color, but that style is increasingly old fashioned.
If you think that’s all Wyler was, you need to go watch The Best Years of Our Lives.
I think the more mannered acting style of the time probably doesn’t feel “real” enough to many modern viewers. Movies were still very much about showing off a bit. Meanwhile Scorsese and his contemporaries pretty much set the tone for what much cinematic storytelling looks like to this day.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a William Wyler movie I haven’t loved. The Best Years of Our Lives is still imo one of the best movies about what it’s like to come home from the war. The fact that Wyler cast a real disabled vet in a lead role was so gutsy. And the scene where Homer’s father has to remove his prosthetics and put him to bed is still every bit as affecting as it was in 1946.
I have said this many times but I’ll say it again, Best Years of Our Lives feels like a film made decades after ww2, not a year after. It understood better then any films how bad war is.
At the same time, The Best Years of Our Lives is a film that could have only been made when it was, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s so good. It’s a snapshot of the world right after the war when people are still trying to make sense of it.
Sometimes the best thing about old films is that glimpse into vanished times, both good and bad.
A lot of Roman Holiday isn’t directed in the most innovative or original way, to be sure. But that final press conference where Joe and Ann meet for the last time — nobody, but nobody could have done that better.
Depends on where you read it – he is to me one obviously gifted director with a touch in compositions that almost no one else had. And The Big Country is my favourite western.
When I was going to film school in the 1970s, William Wyler was one of the Pantheon Classic Hollywood Directors alongside Howard Hawks, John Ford, Frank Capra, George Cukor, Raoul Walsh, William Wellman, King Vidor and Alfred Hitchcock. (Orson Welles, John Huston, Preston Sturges and Vincente Minnelli were considered part of the next generation of Hollywood, as their directing careers started in the 1940s rather than in the Silent Era.)Maybe that’s changed since then but Wyler was always One of the Greats, at least when I was learning about film.
“Mouth of Truth” huh?
The best romantic comedy of all time, period. Because we all know that the only pure love is unrequited love.The final scene of this movie gets me every time.
I was never interested in “old” films when I was younger but I absolutely fell in love with Audrey Hepburn in both Roman Holiday and Sabrina. Such tremendous charisma. Made me sorry I always brushed off watching those movies because I thought I wouldn’t be interested.
Roman Holiday is wonderful but my goodness I could watch Sabrina every single day and never get tired of it.
I remember thinking in the days after the death of Princess Diana that if someone had been on the ball they could have remade this film, and it would have been incredibly poignant.
I’m glad that didn’t happen. It’s perfect the way it is, so why remake it? Also, what late ‘90s/early 2000s actress could hold a candle to Hepburn’s performance here?
Not a soul.
There was a made for TV remake in the 80s. It was terrible.
Do you remember when Julia Ormond was picked for Sabrina’s remake?
I also remember that time Jennifer Love Hewitt played Audrey, I’m not fully sure it wasn’t a fever dream.
That was really lazy casting of the age-appropriate actress who most physically resembled her. Oof.
I’ll take The Lady Eve over it any time
One of my favorite movies of all time (as many others feel, I know). And yes, the payoff is that incredible scene at the end. The subtext powers everything in that scene—I love the halted way she delivers “I am…so glad to hear you say that.” And then—”Each in its own way—Rome. By all mean, Rome.” She’s incandescent. And the looks she and Joe exchange. Just an incredibly well-filmed, -written and -acted movie. One of the best from the Hollywood on the Tiber era and just thinking about it makes me long to visit Rome again.
“it makes me long to visit Rome again.”No kidding. I think one of the things it does so well is avoid over glamourizing the city. The Tiber seems like a river you don’t want to fall in, it seems like a place where street vendors roam, and the monuments can still feel a little downtrodden and shabby, but so alive and full of possibility.
lightly hopped up on a sedativeI do not think sedatives work that way. One is not “hopped up” on a downer.
That’s not true. Hoppy as in loopy? Like… alcohol.
Well, I’m an IPA fan so I do like hoppy beers, but still isn’t alcohol (like sedatives) a downer rather than an upper?
This article mostly discusses Hepburn, which is understandable since this was her big star turn (and Wyler knew how to use her better than any other director would for the remainder of the 1950s), but on my most recent rewatch of this I thought about Peck’s role and how his casting plays against the script: if you look just at the character on the page, Joe seems to be meant to be both not particularly good at his job and not a particularly moral person; but with Peck in the role, it’s very hard not to imagine that he’s not a diligent, ethical reporter even if the text of the film is implying otherwise. There’s never any sense that Joe would actually go through with publishing his story, because Gregory Peck characters just wouldn’t do something like that; and arguably that helps the central romance because you can just enjoy their scenes with the subconscious association of Peck with ultimate trustworthiness.
I agree that Peck was a bit of an odd choice for the role because it’s hard to see him being really sleazy enough.
But what makes it work I think is that you also struggle to see him not just sweeping her off her feet at the end. When they walk away at the end it’s impossible not to feel the sacrifice for both. A lesser male lead would have been more believable for most of the movie, but then missed the mark for the biggest scene.
Love this film – one that I watched on my mum’s recommendation. Eddie Albert is the secret sauce for this movie IMHO though.
Let me know when you get to the real good stuff (ie Lombard, Dunne, Stanwyck).
The basic premise was a staple in the 30s. Maurice Chevalier playing the rogue against the innocent princess.
The studio didn’t want to give Audrey Hepburn above the title billing, arguing that was she was not a star yet. Gregory Peck counterargued that once people saw the movie she would be & everyone would think you were dumb for not knowing that. He was right.