"roman-holiday"

Here are ten key movies that revive the old-fashioned concept of romantic love — the only thing, as another bard put it, that there’s just too little of...

The movies' portrayal of women over time reflects the evolving social dynamic of the past century, revealing much about what has and hasn't changed. As certain special movies demonstrate, feminists were staking their territory long before there was a name for them.

There’s an extra frisson of excitement to be found in what I call “launch pad” movies. This is not necessarily a movie star’s first film, but rather the one that propels him or her to that exalted status. In these special outings, you can feel a certain electricity coming off the screen; it's as if the performer is announcing in a subliminal stage whisper: “I’ve arrived!”  Here are twenty key launch pad vehicles for some of my favorite stars, spanning eighty years of movie history.   

It was gratifying, if not particularly surprising, to see Cillian Murphy capture the Best Actor Oscar this year. He’d just starred in the year’s most critically acclaimed film, “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Picture. It was a big performance in a very big movie.

Why were so many of our very best actors born in April? It’s an unanswerable question, of course, but intriguing nonetheless. And in the rarefied world of movie stardom, the concentration of April birthdays is pretty remarkable.

We’ve just returned from an extended stay in Italy, most of it spent in Rome. It was an unforgettable trip, with all the stars aligning. We experienced a heady mix of lovely weather, welcoming people, fabulous food and wine. With beauty and history around every corner, you could almost forget all the horror happening to the East.

A style icon and Hollywood legend, there's not much to say about Audrey Hepburn that hasn't already been said — but we'll say it again anyway. She's worth it. Born in Brussels, for much of her youth Audrey was unlucky enough to live in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, where she and her family suffered considerable privations. At war's end, she headed to London, quickly latching on to performance and dance. A natural, she won her first Broadway role at the age of 22 in "Gigi," and became an overnight phenomenon two years later when she made her starring film debut in "Roman Holiday."   She'd go on to shine in film after film throughout the '60s. After that heady decade, she decided to scale back somewhat and spend more time as a mother to her two sons. Later still, Hepburn became a U.N. goodwill ambassador, championing the cause of hunger in developing countries.

Baby boomers who grew up watching a lot of television probably know Eddie Albert best as Oliver Douglas, the city lawyer turned farmer on “Green Acres.” But like many actors who star in a popular TV series, Albert became so closely identified with the role that it’s almost jarring to see him in a movie, or to realize he’d been one of Hollywood’s most reliable character actors.

A multiple Oscar-winner from 1953, “Roman Holiday” is best remembered as the film that launched Audrey Hepburn like a bottle rocket out of an empty Peroni. This charmer plays like a modern fairy tale. On an official visit to Rome, the lovely Princess Anne (Audrey Hepburn) feels cooped up and bored in her lavish hotel suite. One night, she slips out incognito to sample the “real” Rome. Reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) happens upon her, and at first thinks she’s an innocent waif lost in the big city. When he finally realizes who he has in his midst, Joe knows he’s got the scoop of his life. But given his growing feelings for Anne, can he really bring himself to exploit the situation? Of course not! This is Gregory Peck – he couldn't exploit a broken ATM spitting out 10,000-Lire notes, much less a pretty young girl.