Roman Holiday (1953)

On a goodwill tour of Europe, Princess Ann (Hepburn) chafes under the constant pressure of official duties, and, one night in Rome, slips out of the embassy to wander the streets unchaperoned. Soon incapacitated from a sedative administered earlier by an embassy doctor, she’s discovered by a stony reporter named Joe Bradley (Peck), who doesn’t recognize her but is chivalrous enough to put her up for the night — though not too chivalrous to give her the couch.

For much of the film, the screwball-comedy premise of a young princess pretending to be a student and a reporter pretending to be a salesman (a premise with more than a little in common with the screwball classic It Happened One Night) provides a pretext for a lighthearted romp through the Rome that’s part romantic comedy, part travelogue.

Shot entirely on location at a time when most Hollywood films were shot on studio sets, Roman Holiday boasts a wonderfully vivid sense of place, with scenes set at the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and of course the Bocca della Verita (“Mouth of Truth”) escutcheon, where Peck allegedly ad-libbed one of the film’s more memorable gags, to his costar’s genuine hysterics.

Then, as the film builds toward its bittersweet climax, the characters rise to real nobility and selflessness. Peck, of course, is solid as always, and while it’s admittedly hard at times not to wonder what Cary Grant might have done with the role, Peck owns the unforgettable final scene.