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Roman Holiday is a 1953 romantic comedy film which tells the story of Princess Anya, played by Audrey Hepburn, a young royal who runs away during a state visit to Rome and befriends Joe Bradley, an expatriate American reporter played by Gregory Peck, who first just wants an exclusive story about a princess gone AWOL but finds himself falling in love with her. Eddie Albert co-stars as Joe's trusty photographer.
The movie was written by John Dighton and, fronting for Hollywood Blacklist author Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter. (Trumbo's name was finally restored to the film's credits when it was released on DVD in 2003.) It was directed by William Wyler.
It won Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Audrey Hepburn), Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Edith Head) and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Eddie Albert), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.
One of the most famous scenes in the movie is when Peck puts his hand into the "Mouth of Truth", a stone face in Rome that legend says will bite your hand off if you tell a lie. In the film, he puts his arm into the mouth, and when he pulls out his sleeve, his hand is missing, causing Anya/Hepburn to scream before he pops his hand out of the sleeve and laughs. Audrey Hepburn's shriek wasn't acting - Peck had decided to pull a gag he had once seen Red Skelton do, and he didn't warn Hepburn in advance.
A now-legendary screen test resulted in Hepburn being cast as Ann. After performing a scene from the film, the director called "cut" but the cameraman actually left the camera rolling as the young actress chatted with the director. The candid footage of Hepburn that resulted won her the role.
In the 1970s, both Peck and Hepburn were approached with the idea of a sequel to Roman Holiday which would have seen Anya and Joe reunite; the idea never came to fruition. The original film was remade for television in the early 1980s.
In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Roman Holiday is also a 1931 novel by the author, Upton Sinclair.
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