BEFORE: According to the IMDB, the real title of this film is "The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with his Battell Fought at Agincourt in France", but that's too complicated. I'm just going to use the title that appeared on the film's poster, which was good enough for Shakespeare, so that's good enough for me. Laurence Olivier carries over from "Hamlet", finishing up a 4-day stint.
THE PLOT: Adaptation of Shakespeare's history play in which the young Henry V seeks to conquer France.
AFTER: We have three stray cats in our backyard, they've been there since they were kittens, and a neighbor had them neutered, so at least I know there won't be a dozen more of them in a few months. I feed them once a day, but taking them inside is not an option, because they'd fight with the cat we already have, and anyway they're probably already too old to be trained as housecats. Two days ago we watched one of them catch and kill a bird, which was some small form of hawk, and the cat battered it about like a toy until it was dead. "Circle of life," we tried to think, but it's still hard to not ascribe some evilness to the act, since it wasn't killing for food - but the cat just doesn't know any other way to be.
Similarly, a Shakespearean film adaptation made in 1944 perhaps shouldn't be thought of as "bad", it just doesn't know any other way to be. Wiki says that this was indeed the FIRST film adaptation of the Bard's work to be commercially successful, so perhaps it needs to be forgiven for its many narrative sins. In those days you just didn't take liberties with Shakespeare, modernizing the work in any way would be considered heinous.
The film starts in a recreation of the Old Globe Theater, because that's the setting people were most familiar with, the way that Shakespeare's works were to be performed. But it's a horrible way to start a film, because the crowd is loud, and it's hard to understand what the actors are saying, and then we're sort of messing with reality as the format changes when the action moves from England to France, and we lose the crowd. The actors playing actors playing characters become the typical actors playing characters, and the tone becomes more serious - but the framing device is really unnecessary.
But whose fault is it, really, if a 1944 film's perception of a 1600s play about the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 ends up showing a bunch of men in bright leotards, wearing silly hats, talking all formal-like? Nobody involved in the production was there in person, so really all they had to go by was a bunch of colored tapestries - so if that's your frame of reference, that's the kind of film you're going to get. This is kind of like going to a Renaissance Faire - it's fun to visit for a while, but you certainly wouldn't want to live there. Er, then.
Another movie sin: French women are shown speaking to each other in actual French - which of course makes sense, but that also makes it very hard for American audiences to understand. Jeez, I studied French for four years of high school, and I couldn't understand them. So it's a NITPICK POINT - why do the French soldiers speak English on the battlefield, but the French ladies don't speak it in the castle? I mean, not even for the sake of convenient storytelling?
It's a good opportunity for me to read up on the real Battle of Agincourt, which certainly was a British rout of the French forces (oh, sorry, historical SPOILER ALERT), and learn that after the battle, Henry married Princess Catherine of France, and the French King, Charles VI, adopted Henry as his successor, and England gained control over France, at least for a time.
Hey, maybe part of the reason that movie sequels are so popular these days can be traced all the way back to Shakespeare. After all, if "Henry V" was a hit, why wouldn't he write "Henry VI"? And he even split "Henry VI" into three parts - so Shakespeare was sort of like the Peter Jackson of his time.
Also starring Renee Asherson, Robert Newton (last seen in "Jamaica Inn"), Leslie Banks (ditto), Morland Graham (ditto), Robert Helpmann, Gerald Case (last seen in "Stage Fright"), Griffith Jones, Nicholas Hannen, Ralph Truman (last seen in "The Man Who Knew Too Much"), Freda Jackson (last seen in "Tom Jones"), Max Adrian, Leo Genn, Francis Lister (last seen in "Mutiny on the Bounty"), Felix Aylmer (last seen in "Hamlet"), Harcourt Williams (ditto), Esmond Knight (ditto), John Laurie (ditto), Russell Thorndike (ditto), Niall MacGinnis (ditto).
RATING: 2 out of 10 leeks
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