Roman Holiday on DVD

William Wyler created his share of masterpieces over his long Hollywood career, from Wuthering Heights to The Best Years of Our Lives to Ben-Hur, and despite a slow start Roman Holiday is another.

Roman Holiday is the film that made Audrey Hepburn a star and earned her a Best Actress Oscar, and it isn’t hard to see why. She delightfully and charmingly plays Ann, a European princess on an official tour of Europe. In Rome, the frustrations of the young girl who really only wants to be an ordinary person get the best of her and she runs away from her cocoon of handlers and protectors. She doesn’t mean to stay away long, but falls asleep on a bench and is rescued by reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) who, unable to wake her up from here sleep-inducing drugs, ends up taking her home rather than leave her at the mercy of the outside world.

At work the next day he discovers her identity and cooks up a scheme to use his newfound influence with her to exploit the poor girl and get the exclusive story that’ll make him a bundle of money. He enlists his photographer friend Irving Radovich (terrifically played by Eddie Albert) to help in the scheme and they convince Ann (who, thinking her identity is a secret, calls herself Anya) to spend a day sightseeing Rome while Irving surreptitiously snaps shots of her Roman Holiday.

Naturally, while Joe’s exploiting the poor girl he manages to fall in love with her, and this changes everything. No longer does he want to plaster her face all over the pages, under his byline; it wouldn’t be fair to the girl because, despite being a public figure, she’s also a real person and a darn fine one, which he hadn’t expected.

Meanwhile, she’s also falling in love with him but, as with Anakin and Padme in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, they both have their lives and their duties and they were calling to them loudly and clearly.

Roman Holiday is delightful, charming, heart warming, a splendid motion picture that really must be seen to be appreciated. As mentioned, it starts slowly, but it’ll hook you and reel you in by the time its 118 minutes are over. The cast is wonderful and, though Gregory Peck wasn't Wyler's first choice for the role of Joe (Cary Grant was), he does a very good job here.

The DVD is darn good, too. The black and white, “narrowscreen” (4x3) image has been restored “frame by frame” (according to Paramount) and it looks very good indeed. It’s sharp and bright and clean and easy on the eyes, though owners of 16x9 TV’s will have to stretch and/or zoom the picture to properly fit their rectangular screens lest they run the risk of burning in the bars to the side of the “full screen” picture. This is a necessary compromise, however, since the movie is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio rather than being cropped into some phony widescreen.

Audio is Dolby Digital mono and it’s fine, all things considered.

Paramount has piled on plenty of extras, too, with this Special Collector’s Edition disc. First up is an interesting and entertaining documentary “Remembering Roman Holiday” followed by a shorter look at the film’s restoration. You also get a featurette on Edith Head, the legendary costume designer, as well as a photo gallery and trailers.

Roman Holiday, from Paramount Home Video
118 min. “narrowscreen” (1.33:1), not 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital mono
Starring Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert
Written by Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton,
Produced and directed by William Wyler

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