Counting down the last 10 of 100 Consecutive Movie Nights…
Last night I watched this epic, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, backed up by a cast of thousands. This lavish production was made while Britain was still at war, in fact it was partly financed by the British government as a morale booster, and Churchill himself had input in the script revisions. (Besides shortening the play for time, several instances were cut in which the King does some extremely not-nice things. Apparently they wanted to keep the film as uplifting as possible.) Henry V was a good choice for a rousing, patriotic picture, with Henry’s memorable pre-battle speeches (“Once more unto the breach! Dear friends, once more…” and “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”), not to mention a plucky British army beating all the odds to win a decisive victory over a foreign foe.
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