Roman Holiday – review

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Roman Holiday, film
Sweet 60: Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Paramount
  1. Roman Holiday
  2. Production year: 1953
  3. Country: USA
  4. Cert (UK): U
  5. Runtime: 118 mins
  6. Directors: William Wyler
  7. Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Gregory Peck
  8. More on this film

Roman Holiday is the movie that made Audrey Hepburn a star back in 1953, as a runaway princess on a state visit to Italy. Looking Givenchy-elegant at 60, it's back in cinemas, and only the big screen can do justice to its scintillating monochrome images. Hepburn invariably played opposite men old enough to be her father (Bogart, Cooper, Astaire, Grant, Harrison). But in Roman Holiday her co-star Gregory Peck, as the journalist who becomes her kindly protector-exploiter, was only 13 years older, and this was a gain. Chic, charming, vulnerable and very funny, she won our hearts and minds in Roman Holiday, and Peck has never appeared more relaxed.

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