What’s Worth Watching: Take a Cinematic Escape With Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday
Courtesy of Everett Collection
Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday (Saturday, March 7, 8/7c, TCM)

For those of us sniffling and sliding our way through a winter that polar bears would flee from (stop smiling Los Angelenos), Roman Holiday—director William Wyler’s 1953 soufflé (or should we say zabaione), of a romantic comedy about a bored princess and jaded reporter who meet cute in the Italian capital—is the perfect dose of sunshine. There’s the irresistible (Oscar-winning) Audrey Hepburn as the runaway Princess Ann, and the dependably grownup Gregory Peck as Joe, an expat American writer who thinks he’s stumbled on a headline-making story and then falls for the young beauty, plus the Eternal City as seen from a Vespa in luminous black and white.

The charming movie may be sweet and bubbly but it has just the right dash of sophistication to keep it from being saccharine. Like a perfect Prosecco.