In early September 1953, Hollywood's newest star Audrey Hepburn graced the cover of Time magazine. A sketch of her youthful face stood out against a background of Rome's Trevi Fountain and a cone of gelato, Italy's version of American ice cream. The occasion was her movie debut in William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953). The film offered a light, but also subtle, even sad, romance involving Hepburn's character, an innocent princess visiting Rome who escapes from her uptight guardians to explore the city. Out on her own, she meets an American newspaper man played by Gregory Peck. Together they spend a day and night wandering the sites of Rome and falling in love, only to realize the princess–commoner romance can never last.

Critics and audiences embraced the film. The New York Times called Roman Holiday a “delightfully romantic and wistful comedy.” Newsweek called it one of “the most original, and endearing comedies to be credited to Hollywood in recent years.” Variety approvingly wrote, “William Wyler makes his first venture into comedy since 1935 and the switch from heavy drama is all to the good.” Al Hine, writing in Holiday, noted the movie was “a return to an older tradition of light comedy … that will stick in your memory for a long time.” The Hollywood Reporter remarked on the film's box office success enjoying crowds both in the US and particularly overseas. Referencing an executive from Paramount, the studio responsible for the film, the trade paper stated, “Besides its boxoffice [sic] performance ‘Roman Holiday’ is doing more than any film in years to advance the general prestige of Hollywood films abroad.”

Paramount Pictures emphasized the film as completely made in the Eternal City. Life magazine, in fact, described Roman Holiday as a “first-rate travelogue.” The film was the latest, and most successful, instance of American moviemakers decamping to Italy after the war. Taking advantage of low labor costs, restricted money from profits that could not be sent back to the US, and the allure of a city in the midst of revival, Hollywood producers found Rome an attractive city to make movies.