ISSUE DATE: Sept. 7, 1953
THE BUZZ:
Exquisitely blending queenly dignity and bubbling mischief, a stick-slim actress with huge, limpid eyes and a heart-shaped face was teaching U.S. moviegoers last week a lesson they already knew and loved —i.e., that the life of a princess is not a happy one. Balcony bobby-soxers for years have shed pleasant tears at the plight of trapped royalty, and breathed a happy sigh of relief when at last the royal one escapes into a commoner’s arms (Olivia de Havilland and a handsome pilot in 1943’s Princess O’Rourke; Vera-Ellen and a tap-dancing reporter in 1953’s Call Me Madam). As the princess in Paramount’s new picture, Roman Holiday, the newcomer named Audrey Hepburn gives the popular old romantic nonsense a reality it has seldom had before. Amid the rhinestone glitter of Roman Holiday’s make-believe, Paramount’s new star sparkles and glows with the fire of a finely cut diamond. Impertinence, hauteur, sudden repentance, happiness, rebellion and fatigue supplant each other with lightning speed on her mobile, adolescent face.
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