Henry V (1944 film)

Much of the film's impact comes from the vivid Technicolor cinematography (using the only Technicolor camera in England at the time),[7] spectacular period costumes and a unique blend of stylized settings, miniatures and location shooting. The film begins with a handbill floating out of the sky setting the date—the first of May, 1600–and the occasion. This dissolves into a tremendously detailed miniature model of London, with boats moving on the Thames. The camera pulls away from the Tower, gleaming white in the sun, and moves past London Bridge (crowded with buildings) to aim across the river at the densely packed city studded with churches, stretching into the distance, until St. Paul's (as it was then) can be seen. The camera pauses for a beat and then moves back to zoom in on one of the two round theatres, where a man is raising a flag inscribed The Globe Playhouse, showing that a performance is imminent. Then we go into the theatre for a vivid recreation of a production of the play as performed at that time, complete with hecklers and an annoying rain shower. The Chorus (a single actor) invokes the audience's imaginations, and when the action in the play moves to Southampton, we enter the world of the Trés Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, a late medieval Book of Hours. Costumes and hair styles are authentic, and female parts are now played by women, as when Mistress Quickly delivers the news of Falstaff's death and joins other women in farewelling the soldiers.

The Chorus now invokes our imagination to fly past the fleet, barely visible far below in a Channel filled with fog, to the court of France, where Charles VI is attended by various nobles, including the “Duke of Berri”, who is examining an illuminated volume with a magnifying glass in one hand and a clove-studded orange pomander in the other.

The setting becomes more natural in the dark night before Agincourt, when Henry walks through the sleeping camp to see how it goes with his men. The Battle of Agincourt takes place in a realistic setting (filmed in Ireland),[7] in natural fields and forests, and dialogue is delivered from the backs of restive chargers. The troops singing Non Nobis and Te Deum at Henry's bidding march toward a painted rendition of the château, which fades out and fades in to the same image, blanketed in deep snow. The next set is a near-perfect rendition of the often-reproduced February page from the Trés Riches Heures, with Pistol taking the place of the man warming himself in the cottage (but with greater modesty).

We next see the negotiations for the Treaty of Troyes, and the setting is used to great effect to clarify and increase the impact of the Duke of Burgundy's speech about the sorry state of France. Although it is spring, the camera moves out through a window to pan over a painting of the neglected countryside, specifically illustrating each line of the speech and pausing on the neglected children before panning back up to the château. Henry's courtship of Princess Katherine weaves through a lacework of Gothic arches and is followed by their marriage. To the sound of a choir, backs to the camera, garbed in magnificent cloaks, they walk to their thrones. Cut abruptly to the Globe and a closeup on the actor playing Henry, the sound of applause and a pan to the boy playing Katherine (quite effectively) as they stand in gold painted capes with the rest of the cast kneeling in a tableau on either side of them.

The Chorus draws the curtain and speaks his epilogue, the camera pans up to the boychoir singing on the balcony and then cuts to the musicians in the gallery above them and moves further up to the narrow porch where a man brings down the flag and takes it inside. Cut to the model. The camera pulls all the way back and a handbill flies into view. The credits roll by, but before the picture ends we return to the model one last time as “The End” appears over a shot of the Tower of London gleaming white on the banks of the Thames.

Olivier intentionally left out some of Henry's harsher actions as Shakespeare portrayed them – such as his remorseless beheading of the three Southampton Plot traitors: Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge; Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham; and Sir Thomas Grey; his threat to unleash his troops to rape and pillage Harfleur if the city refused to surrender; the cutting of the throats of French prisoners during the battle at Agincourt; as well as his refusal to stop the hanging of his old friend Bardolph for looting. The Chorus’ last speech contains a melancholy reference to what came after and is not in the film:

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King

Of France and England, did this king succeed;

Whose state so many had the managing,

That they lost France and made his England bleed:

Hundreds of locals were hired as extras for the Agincourt battle scenes filmed in neutral Ireland in 1943. The production company paid an additional pound to anyone who brought his own horse.[8]

Olivier agreed not to appear in another film for 18 months to reduce any detraction from the promotion of Henry V. In return, he was paid £15,000, tax-free (about £460,000 in today's money).[9]

Esmond Knight, who plays the patriotic Welsh soldier Fluellen was a wounded veteran of the war. He had been badly injured in 1941 while on active service on board HMS Prince of Wales when she was attacked by the Bismarck, and remained totally blind for two years. He had only just regained some sight in his right eye.

1942: Overseas newspaper correspondents inspect a beer barrel and tent 'at Agincourt', part of the set built for the production of 'Henry V' at Denham Studios.

The film was shot on location at the Powerscourt Estate in Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Ireland. The interior sets were constructed at the Denham Studios in Buckinghamshire, England. They were based on illustrations from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry the illustrator of which is also a character in the play.

The film, which was photographed in three-strip Technicolor, was hailed by critics for its ebulliently colourful sets and costumes, as well as for Olivier's masterful direction and acting. Pauline Kael called the movie "a triumph of color, music, spectacle and soaring heroic poetry".[10] James Agee reported, in Time magazine's 8 April 1946 issue, that a remarkable 75 percent of the color footage shot was used in the final release.

In 2007, the film was digitally restored to High Definition format and re-released.[11] As part of the BBC Summer of British Film series in 2007, it was shown at selected cinemas across the UK.

The score by William Walton is considered a classic film score, and excerpts from it, such as the orchestral Suite from Henry V, have been performed in concert.

According to Kinematograph Weekly the 'biggest winner' at the box office in 1945 Britain was The Seventh Veil, with "runners up" being (in release order), Madonna of the Seven Moons, Old Acquaintance, Frenchman's Creek, Mrs Parkington, Arsenic and Old Lace, Meet Me in St Louis, A Song to Remember, Since You Went Away, Here Come the Waves, Tonight and Every Night, Hollywood Canteen, They Were Sisters, The Princess and the Pirate, The Adventures of Susan, National Velvet, Mrs Skefflington, I Live in Grosvenor Square, Nob Hill, Perfect Strangers, Valley of Decision, Conflict and Duffy's Tavern. British "runners up" were They Were Sisters, I Live in Grosvenor Square, Perfect Strangers, Madonna of the Seven Moons, Waterloo Road, Blithe Spirit, The Way to the Stars, I'll Be Your Sweetheart, Dead of Night, Waltz Time and Henry V.[17]

Previous efforts to put Shakespeare on the screen included Mary Pickford's 1929 The Taming of the Shrew; Max Reinhardt's 1935 A Midsummer Night's Dream for Warner Bros; a British film adaptation of As You Like It starring Olivier and Elisabeth Bergner and scored by William Walton; and MGM's 1936 Romeo and Juliet, directed by George Cukor and starring Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard. They had all misfired. According to TCM.com "After screening Romeo and Juliet (1936), Olivier realized that the standard Hollywood camera style, which included moving in for a close-up at climactic moments, didn't work for Shakespeare. In one scene, the close up had forced Norma Shearer to whisper one of her most passionate lines. Instead, he decided to film long speeches starting in close up and then moving the camera back as the actor's intensity grew. He also decided to treat the soliloquies not as direct addresses to the audience, but as interior monologues".[18]

The film earned over $1 million in rentals in the US.[19] However, due to its high production cost and Entertainment Tax it did not go into profit for Rank until 1949.[20] It earned United Artists a profit of $1.62 million.[2] In 2007, Military History magazine listed this production 75th among "The 100 Greatest War Movies".[21]

• The Great British Films, Jerry Vermilye, 1978, Citadel Press, ISBN 0-8065-0661-X
• Sargeant, Amy. British Cinema: a Critical History. London: BFI Publishing, 2005.