GusF Otherwise known by the snappier title "Henry V", the director Laurence Olivier did a phenomenal job in bringing the play to the big screen in what became the first truly successful Shakespearean film. I loved his decision to frame the early part of the film as a play being performed in the Globe Theatre in 1600 as it was extremely innovative and clever. There are frequent interjections and laughs from the audience and it even begins to rain! It's also the closest that I'll ever get to seeing Olivier on stage. After setting sail for Southampton, however, the film becomes more realistic and less stylised. I think that this was perhaps another good decision as it could have gotten old if the theatre setting was retained for the entire film. The film also looks fantastic in glorious Technicolor.One of the best actors of his generation and to have ever lived, Olivier's performance as Henry V was up to the same standard as his directing. The great ones make it look so easy. He assembled a fantastic supporting cast, particularly Max Adrian, Esmond Knight, Harcourt Williams, Robert Newton, Freda Jackson and Nicholas Hannen. However, the only person in the film that I thought gave a bad performance was Niall MacGinnis as Macmorris. I liked him in other films but here he was so bad and over the top that I actually felt embarrassed for him as he was so thoroughly outacted by Knight and John Laurie in the one scene in which he has dialogue. Renée Asherson, who died last October only three weeks before the film's 70th anniversary, replaced Olivier's then wife Vivien Leigh in the role of Princess Katherine, whose major scene at the end of the film with Henry is very sweet and well acted by both her and Olivier even if it owes little to history. I wish that I had some French though as a few parts of the film were lost on me, I'm afraid. With Asherson's death, George Cole is the film's last surviving cast member.The film was intended as wartime propaganda and was partially funded by the British government. As such, it's quite funny that much of the film was shot in the Powerscourt Estate in County Wicklow in the neutral Irish Free State. Unsurprisingly, several parts of the play which portrayed Henry in a negative light were omitted, most notably the scenes in which he orders the murder of the French prisoners. Speaking of the French, they were clearly intended to stand-in for the Nazis in this version. I imagine that Churchill fancied himself as Henry V! Given that the film was released in 1944, its depiction of an invasion of France could hardly have been more topical. While it may be propaganda, it's first and foremost an extremely accomplished, well directed and acted film which brought the Bard to the silver screen in the way that no other film had before.

eyesour Aroint thee, Branagh! Avaunt, McKellen! Larry bestrides your narrow worlds like a Colossus, and petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about like sparrows. A little touch of Larry and the rest are almost nowhere, though Burton was not bad and Williamson was really very good. I'm not just thinking about Henry here, you will understand. But Olivier sets the benchmark, whoever tries to match him.Consequently, later performances are merely simulacra, feeble and inferior --- I wouldn't follow Ken the chubby young lad to Clapham, let alone to France; or else grotesqueries replacing rigorous mastery with totally unmotivated weirdness. I've seen an all-female Macbeth, as well as a Lady Macbeth urinating on-stage. McKellen's Richard is ludicrous and pointless, Orson is simply too fat, and I once saw Irons throw away Hamlet's soliloquies as if they were screwed up bits of waste paper.If anyone wants to know what Will really intended his words to mean, and is not too bedridden to sense the tingle in his spine, hie him to this Henry V. Upon St Crispin's Day, fought was that noble fray; and when shall England breed again, such a King Larry?

Petri Pelkonen In the beginning of the film we are in the Globe Theatre in 1600 where the Chorus (Leslie Banks) enters and implores the audience to use their imagination to visualize the setting of the play.The play tells about King Henry V of England and it focuses on events immediately before and after The Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Year's War.William Shakespeare is believed to have written the original play in 1599.I read it the same week, which was last week, as they showed the movie.Laurence Olivier, who's known for many Shakespeare adaptations has done an excellent job making the tale of Henry the Fift into a movie.The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944) is one of the most famous Shakespeare films Olivier came up with.I don't find it quite as good as Hamlet, but pretty close.Olivier makes also a very good leading man.All the actors are very well picked.Felix Aylmer is Archbishop of Canterbury while Robert Helpmann plays the part of Archbishop of Ely.Griffith Jones plays Earl of Salisbury.George Cole is the Boy.Harcourt Williams plays King Charles VI of France.Max Audrian plays the Dauphin.Renee Asherson is beautiful and also brilliant in her part as Princess Katherine.Henry V is a very showy movie.The war part looks good, not to forget the romance.A worthy Shakespeare adaptation.

James Hitchcock I have never really considered "Henry V" to be one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. It lacks the philosophical depth and emotional power of the great tragedies or even of some of the other history plays, such as "Richard III". It is a play which mythologises an English king whose main achievement was to start an unnecessary war with France. As Shakespeare knew well, Agincourt was a great victory in the short term but a futile one in the long term. Henry's early death meant that his great ambition of uniting the French and English crowns was never realised; the United Kingdom of England and France remains one of the great might-have-beens of world history. Moreover, modern audiences might have another problem with this play. By modern standards (which were not necessarily the standards of either Shakespeare's day or of Henry's) the English were the aggressors in the Hundred Years War; even by mediaeval standards, Henry's claim to the French throne was by no means as clear-cut as Shakespeare imagined.Despite these difficulties, "Henry V" has been the subject of two of the greatest cinematic Shakespeare adaptations, this one and Kenneth Branagh's version from 1989. One reason is that it contains some of Shakespeare's most magnificent poetry and some of his greatest set-piece speeches, mostly put into the mouth of Henry himself. It is therefore a very tempting role for Shakespearean actors, especially those who can speak blank verse as naturally as Olivier or Branagh.The two films are very different in style. Branagh's naturalistic film emphasises the bloodshed and squalor of war; contrary to what is sometimes thought, mediaeval warfare was not necessarily more chivalrous, or even less bloody, than the modern version. (The bloodiest day in British military history, when some 26,000 were killed, was 29th March 1461, the date of the Battle of Towton during the Wars of the Roses). Olivier's film is highly stylised rather than naturalistic. The scenes set in England are presented as a re-enactment of how the play might have been performed at the Globe theatre during Shakespeare's own lifetime. The French scenes were shot against sets based upon paintings from the early fifteenth century, especially the work of the Limbourg brothers. The battle scenes are more realistic, but even these play down the elements of blood and cruelty.Olivier's film- the first which he directed- was commissioned by the British Government as a patriotic morale-booster during the Second World War. The decision to portray war as something glorious rather than bloody was therefore a quite deliberate one. A sharp contrast is drawn between the heroic Henry and his French counterparts. Those parts of Shakespeare's play which show Henry in a less favourable light, such as his order to kill the French prisoners, are omitted, apparently on the instructions of Churchill, who did not want the film's patriotic message to be clouded by moral ambiguities. The French King, Charles VI, is portrayed as a senile old fool, and his son the Dauphin Louis as not only an arrogant popinjay but also a sadistic brute who slaughters non-combatants such as the young boys in the English baggage train. Stress is placed on those scenes which show the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish captains fighting together against a common enemy. (Shakespeare was probably looking ahead to the unification of the English and Scottish crowns under James I and VI, which was to take place a few years after his play was written; it is perhaps no accident that the Scottish captain is called Jamie).Of the two films I would- marginally- prefer Branagh's, which seems more relevant to a modern audience. Yet there is much about the earlier film which is of value even today. Some of the supporting performances are very good, especially from Harcourt Williams as the mad old Charles, Max Adrian as the Dauphin and Leslie Banks as the Chorus (who speaks some of the most poetic speeches not given to Henry). This is one of the few British films of the early forties shot in colour, and the colours are particularly vivid and jewel-like, making the film far more visually spectacular than Branagh's. Above all, this film gives the chance to later generations to see one of Britain's finest classical actors, at the peak of his powers, taking the leading role in a Shakespearean drama. 8/10