comedy | Tanya's Astro Blog

1953 – Roman Holiday

It is a romantic comedy directed by William Wyler, starring Audrey Hepburn as the princess (in her introduction and Oscar winning role) and Gregory Peck as the sleazy reporter wanting to make money out of the princess. Several blacklisted people worked on the film, such as the writer Dalton Trumbo and assistant director Bernard Vorhaus, who worked anonymously and were only later given credit. The movie was filmed entirely on location in Rome by Cinecittà Studios and follows various famous tourist locations. I rented it on Apple TV for 3.99 Eur.

The last two weeks have been fairly light fare in my movie and TV watching. Some romantic comedies, most of them quite middling (with the exception of Eternity, which I adored and would probably made it onto my top 5 movies of 2025). On the TV side, I did start the newest season of Bridgerton, but am not fully binge-watching it. This season, apparently, is about how a maid can make it into society – a Cinderella story as old as time. In Bridgerton it even features an evil stepmother. The opposite story – about a lady from high society falling for a commoner is not quite as common, but also is quite popular – think Aladdin, Titanic or even Dirty Dancing. But the story that is iconic until today from real life is the doomed relationship between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend.

It is that theme which the movie picks up (though apparently Paramount had to release an official statement to the Royal Family that Princess Anne was not based on Princess Margaret): burdened by duty and official events, Princess Anne longs for a while outside of court. When a stranger picks her up, she spins up a story, how she’s a runaway student and enjoys a day doing fun stuff in Rome. Little does she know that the stranger knows exactly who she is and is giving her the fun day as a way to keep her on a leash for his story he’s selling (plus he needs pictures as proof he was with her at all these locations).

And what a fun day they have – that’s the movie. Nothing super deep here, but it’s so much fun to watch these two romp around Rome, their chase on a Vespa, their joke at the Bocca della Verità, the various Palazzi, etc. It’s surreal sometimes, seeing the Trevi Fountain so empty and even a few children swimming on the rocks; today it’s so crowded that they now charge for admission.

It just works. In that sense, I continue my two-week “watch movies without much deep meaning”; and that’s not a bad thing. Audrey Hepburn really is that wonderful. The romance really is palpable between the two leads. The ending does work, but I won’t give it away (enough to say that the two leads were approached for a sequel, which then never materialized). So I am glad, I saw this movie, quite entertaining.

1933 – Duck Soup

It is a musical comedy starring four of the Marx Brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo) in their final movie for Paramount and the final movie for Zeppo. It also features Marx Brothers’ regular Margaret Dumont as Mrs. Teasdale and Louis Calhern as ambassador Trentino and the antagonist. Since I was traveling this week, I downloaded it from the Internet Archive Marx Brothers Collection, which lists their 15 feature length films.

Growing up, like my earliest memories until we got cable when I was 6, I watched a lot of 20s-40s comedy. I think, Guatemalan TV got those shows on the cheap, so lots of Harold Lloyd, The Three Stooges, even some Chaplin. I think they also dubbed them on the super cheap if at all, so that must have been the reason why the Marx Brothers didn’t make it, since their comedy is quite filled with word play also. I look back fondly at those evening watching those shows, so I thought, hey, let’s fill a cultural hole, in that I have never watched a Marx Brothers movie ever. 1933’s Duck Soup is probably their most famous one – that mirror scene being one of the most transcendental situational comedy scene in movie history.

I was also traveling this week and quite busy the week before, so I didn’t have much time, so watching this on the train back from my trip was perfect – a comedy that barely spans 66 minutes, that’s about all I could take this week.

Perhaps, I was not in the right mood… because I didn’t like it. Yes, I can see it’s a clear attempt at making fun at what was happening in Europe in 1933. Benito Mussolini outright banned the film, it is not that complicated why – Freedonia vs. Sylvania, haha. The Americans lending money only on the condition of installing a dumb beloved doofus as the head of state and it leading straight into war after countless of opportunities of avoiding that war. Yes, the political satire is strong, but for me it was just outdated. And I don’t know if it was the style or the time or both.

Probably the style, because for all the wistfulness I had at watching “The Three Stooges” as a kid, it is quite horrible programming, I saw maybe 2 minutes of an episode somewhere and immediately switched away – “how did I ever like this?”. The same here, I still don’t get the thing with Harpo; he just cuts things and honks away and people found this hilarious? Was that like a known thing? And the first time you hear as a kid Groucho yelling “tanks!” when in war and them answering “you’re welcome!”, it is probably funny, but it got an eyeroll from me, sigh. I am doubly saddened, because I am a fan of Eyebrow Cinema, he just put out his 100 favorite movies, because he passed 100k on YouTube (yay!) and he had it at 83, so I was really looking forward to it.