Winston Churchill instructed Olivier to fashion the film as morale-boosting propaganda for British troops fighting World War II. The making and release of the film coincided with the
Allied invasion of Normandy and push into France. An early preview trailer of the film showed contemporary London just before cutting to the film's aerial footage of London in 1600. The film was meant to cost £350,000 but ended up costing nearly £500,000.
Setting Much of the film's impact comes from the vivid
Technicolor cinematography (using the only Technicolor camera in England at the time), 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), 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).
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 when she was attacked by the , and remained totally blind for two years. He had only just regained some sight in his right eye.
Filming 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".
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. As part of the BBC Summer of British Film series in 2007, it was shown at selected cinemas across the UK.
Film music The score by
William Walton is considered one of the greatest British film scores, and excerpts from it, such as the orchestral
Suite from Henry V, have been performed in concert. A recording of the score arranged by
Christopher Palmer, with actor
Christopher Plummer reading the speeches given by the Chorus, Henry V, and the Duke of Burgundy, was released in 1990 under the title
Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario. The score incorporates elements from a well-known vocal adaptation of French folk-songs called ''
Chants d'Auvergne'' by
Joseph Canteloube. Ralph Vaughan Williams had also suggested tunes to Walton that he had used in his brass band overture 'Henry V' of 1933 including 'Agincourt Song', 'Reveillez-vous, Picards' (Old French Marching Song) and William Byrd's 'The Earl of Oxford's March' all of which Walton used. The 2007 re-release of Sir
Neville Marriner's recording of the score also includes original versions of earlier music by composers whose works were incorporated into the score, including selections from Canteloube's ''Chants d'Auvergne''. ==Reception==