Joe Bradley is a reporter for the American News Service in Rome, a job he doesn't much like as he would rather work for what he considers a real news agency back in the States. He is on the verge of getting fired when he, sleeping in and getting caught in a lie by his boss Hennessy, misses an interview with HRH Princess Ann, who is on a goodwill tour of Europe, Rome only her latest stop. However, he thinks he may have stumbled upon a huge scoop. Princess Ann has officially called off all her Rome engagements due to illness. In reality, he recognizes the photograph of her as being the young well but simply dressed drunk woman he rescued off the street last night (as he didn't want to turn her into the police for being a vagrant), and who is still in his small studio apartment sleeping off her hangover. What Joe doesn't know is that she is really sleeping off the effects of a sedative given to her by her doctor to calm her down after an anxiety attack, that anxiety because she hates her...Written by
Huggo
In a scene shortly after Ann and Joe meet, she quotes a line from a poem, and they disagree about who wrote it, John Keats or Percy Bysshe Shelley. Soon after, there is an important scene on the famous Spanish Steps. Keats and Shelley both lived in Rome, Keats in a house right at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. The house is now a museum, the Keats Shelley House, devoted to Keats and other Romantic poets of the same era. See more »
Goofs
The photo Irving takes during the fight at the dance, of Ann smashing the secret service agent over the head with the guitar, is not the one taken at the moment indicated in the film and shown later as the photograph. Supposedly, when Ann first hits the agent, Irving has missed it and calls out for "Smitty" (Ann) to hit him again - and Ann obliges, striking the agent on the head a second time as Irving shoots the picture. But a look at the subsequent photo clearly shows that it was in fact taken at the moment of the first blow, not the second. In the action, when Ann hits the agent the second time, the guitar appears already broken, and the agent is turned almost 180 degrees away from Ann's face and is already sinking down from the first blow, his face barely visible. But the photo - supposedly the only one Irving got - clearly is of the first, not second, blow. There, in both the live action and the photo, the agent is facing to his left and has not sunk so far down, his face is mostly visible, and the guitar is not as damaged as in the second blow. That the photo was actually taken of the first blow is further indicated by a close viewing of the live action of Ann hitting the agent the first time. At the moment of impact the film has a brief jump-cut, indicating that a frame has been deleted from the film, and in addition the tail-end of a flash from a camera's flashbulb can be seen very briefly immediately after the cut frame. The missing film frame coincides exactly with the instant Ann hits the agent with the guitar, and is the identical shot that was used as Irving's "photograph", which he later presents to Ann in the packet of pictures he'd taken. But it's a photo of the supposedly un-photographed first blow with the guitar, not of the second blow, the only photo Irving was actually seen taking. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
News announcer:
Paramount News brings you a special coverage of Princess Ann's visit to London, the first stop on her much-publicized goodwill tour of European capitals. She gets a royal welcome from the British, as thousands cheer the gracious young member of one of Europe's oldest ruling families. After three days of continuous activity and a visit to Buckingham Palace, Ann flew to Amsterdam, where Her Royal Highness dedicated the new international aid building and christened an ocean liner, ...
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Alternate Versions
The opening credits have been digitally changed on the R1 DVD release in order to include a Story credit for Dalton Trumbo, who was not credited on the original release due to the Blacklist. The 2020 Blu-Ray release went further and gave Trumbo a Screenplay credit as well. See more »
Audrey Hepburn burst onto the movie scene with this film, her first role. She plays an English Princess traveling in Rome who is bored with her official duties and the tight schedule she's on. One night after getting a tranquilizer to calm her from the stress of it all, she sneaks away into the streets of Rome. She's found by a newspaperman played by Gregory Peck, who takes her to his place to sleep it off. When he finds out who she really is, he realizes he's on top of a gold mine of a story, and enlists his photographer friend (Eddie Albert) to get candid shots of the two while they sightsee.
Hepburn and Peck are such an attractive couple, and director William Wyler gets lots of beautiful shots of Rome, including the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Castel Sant'Angelo, and of course the classic scene they have at the Bocca della Verità. It all makes for a very romantic film. Hepburn played her part perfectly, expressing frustration and joy with such economy, as well as the restraint that comes from being a royal. Among several others, the scene with her getting her hair cut short is captivating, and it's no wonder that she won an Oscar for her performance. Peck's performance is also excellent, and Eddie Albert pulls off the part of a young rogue quite well despite being 47 at the time. I won't spoil the ending, except to say it's touching and poignant, and so perfectly shot in the Palazzo Colonna. At the end of the day this is 'just a romantic comedy', with its share of silliness, but it's so mature and magical, and with these stars in this setting, it stands head and shoulders above so many others.
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Audrey Hepburn burst onto the movie scene with this film, her first role. She plays an English Princess traveling in Rome who is bored with her official duties and the tight schedule she's on. One night after getting a tranquilizer to calm her from the stress of it all, she sneaks away into the streets of Rome. She's found by a newspaperman played by Gregory Peck, who takes her to his place to sleep it off. When he finds out who she really is, he realizes he's on top of a gold mine of a story, and enlists his photographer friend (Eddie Albert) to get candid shots of the two while they sightsee.
Hepburn and Peck are such an attractive couple, and director William Wyler gets lots of beautiful shots of Rome, including the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Castel Sant'Angelo, and of course the classic scene they have at the Bocca della Verità. It all makes for a very romantic film. Hepburn played her part perfectly, expressing frustration and joy with such economy, as well as the restraint that comes from being a royal. Among several others, the scene with her getting her hair cut short is captivating, and it's no wonder that she won an Oscar for her performance. Peck's performance is also excellent, and Eddie Albert pulls off the part of a young rogue quite well despite being 47 at the time. I won't spoil the ending, except to say it's touching and poignant, and so perfectly shot in the Palazzo Colonna. At the end of the day this is 'just a romantic comedy', with its share of silliness, but it's so mature and magical, and with these stars in this setting, it stands head and shoulders above so many others.