The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fifth with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)

In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

Director:

Laurence Olivier

Writer:

William Shakespeare (by) (as Will Shakespeare)

Stars:

Laurence Olivier, Robert Newton, Leslie Banks

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 8 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leslie Banks	...	Chorus
Felix Aylmer	...	Archbishop of Canterbury
Robert Helpmann	...	Bishop of Ely
Vernon Greeves	...	The English Herald
Gerald Case	...	Earl of Westmoreland
Griffith Jones	...	Earl of Salisbury
Morland Graham	...	Sir Thomas Erpingham
Nicholas Hannen	...	Duke of Exeter
Michael Warre	...	Duke of Gloucester
Laurence Olivier	...	King Henry V of England
Ralph Truman	...	Mountjoy, The French Herald
Ernest Thesiger	...	Duke of Berri French Ambassador
Frederick Cooper	...	Corporal Nym
Roy Emerton	...	Lieutenant Bardolph
Robert Newton	...	Ancient Pistol

Storyline

In the inspired Olivier concept, Shakespeare's play begins as a performance in the Globe Theatre, shifting in broad cinematic terms to an epic narrative of Henry V, who had developed from a dissolute youth to a purposeful monarch. Proving his ability as a soldier and skillful leader, he unites the dissident factions in the English army and goes on to crush the French, against enormous odds, at Agincourt. Arranging a treaty with the French court, he woos Princess Katharine to whom he is formally betrothed as part of the peace agreement.

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Plot Keywords:

agincourt france | globe theatre | shakespeare's henry v | murder of a child | king henry v of englamd character | 

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Taglines:

Laurence Olivier's Presentation in Technicolor of Henry V

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | History | War

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English French

Release Date:

28 October 1945 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Henry V

Filming Locations:

County Wicklow, Ireland

Box Office

Budget:

GBP475,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$62,619

Company Credits

Production Co:

Two Cities Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

137 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor) (uncredited)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the only one of the three Sir Laurence Olivier-directed Shakespearean movies in which the full title of the play was used in the opening credits.

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Goofs

The real Henry V had a large scar on the left side of his face, the result of being struck and nearly killed by an arrow at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. The scar is not shown in this film.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Chorus: O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention; a kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the war-like Harry, like himself, assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, leashed in like hounds, would famine, word, and fire crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that hath dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object: can this cockpit hold the vasty ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

The main title appears as a playbill floating over the Globe Theatre. Also, there are no opening credits except for the name of the production company and the film's title, which is commonplace today, but was very rare in 1944.

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Alternate Versions

In the American release of the film, all references to "bastards" in the dialogue were excised.

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Connections

Version of An Age of Kings: Henry V Part 2: The Band of Brothers (1960)

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Soundtracks

Agincourt Hymn
(uncredited)
Latin hymn text set to anonymous tune (1415)
Arranged by William Walton

User Reviews

Shakespeare As Poetic Pageant

"Henry V" is poetry within the historical context of English patriotic pageantry. As Shakespearean scholar J. Dover Wilson observed in a 1943 critique, it justifies and celebrates a well-ordered vision of British conservative values – respect for the monarchy and a rigid feudal class-system. And as Pauline Kael asserted in 1989, Shakespeare's text "is perhaps the greatest jingo play ever conceived."

At the beginning, a Prologue asks us to imagine "a kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene" rather than "the flat unraised spirits...on this unworthy scaffold." Laurence Olivier, who directed this 1944 film version, heeds the misgivings expressed in that Prologue. While his staging of "Henry V" begins within the enclosed intimacy of a studio-created Globe Theatre, acted before an appropriately attired Elizabethan audience, Olivier uses the medium of Cinema to physically "open up" the play as it progresses from scene to scene, increasingly taking advantage of elaborate studio scenery and lighting and mattes, ultimately using vast exterior locations for the climactic Battle of Agincourt.

Olivier, in the lead role, is a forceful King Harry, but his work and imagination behind the camera are stunning, especially for a first-time director. The humor of the fumbling "unraised spirits" who impersonate the roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Felix Aylmer) and the Bishop of Ely (Robert Helpmann) is an early surprise, as is the coarse high-jinks of Robert Newton's interpretation of Pistol, chewing up the scenery and everyone in sight. As a director, Olivier borrows from the conventions of the stage, but it isn't so much that he copies them; he transforms them. Thus, he shows us a fleet of miniature warships engulfed in an English Channel fog, a "narrator" superimposed against painted, moving backdrops, and (at the end) the bleak French postwar countryside – a zone of pillage, poverty, and heartbreak in the aftermath of battle.

This version of "Henry V" was made with a wartime audience in mind. (The 'V' in the title is a perfect symbolic reference to the times.) Here, the effete, overconfident Dauphin (Max Adrian) and other French nobles stand in for the Axis alliance; the common men who make up the motley army of archers and infantry are a parallel to the agents of 20th-century anti-authoritarianism. The French losses total about ten thousand – 8,400 of which are "princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,/And gentlemen of blood and quality." The English fatalities: only "five and twenty score." An overwhelming victory for the forces of medieval anti-Fascism.