Editing Henry V (1944 film) (section)

==Reception==
According to [[Turner Classic Movies]]'s Frank Miller, Olivier's ''Henry V'' was the first Shakespeare film to receive "both critical and popular acclaim."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/77778/henry-v#articles-reviews|title=Henry V (1944)|website=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=2019-10-12}}</ref> The British critics gave it a lukewarm welcome but word of mouth took care of that, and the film broke all records by running for 11 months in London. In 1946, a cagey release strategy in the United States was undoubtedly helped by the "ecstatic" reviews from U.S. critics, "hailing it as one of the screen's first great works of art and the most impressive directing debut since Orson Welles' ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' (1941)."<ref name=":02">{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/77778/henry-v#articles-reviews|title=Henry V (1944)|website=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=2019-10-12}}</ref>

Miller adds that "Olivier won Best Actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Review, also capturing the latter's Best Picture award and coming within a few votes of beating ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]'' (1946) for the New York Film Critics Award in that category."<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/77778/henry-v#articles-reviews|title=Henry V (1944)|website=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=2019-10-12}}</ref>

Writing in [[The New Republic]], film critic [[Manny Farber]] offered this appraisal of Olivier's performance:

{{blockquote |The picture’s artistic value rests in the perfection of the portrait of a great medieval leader-type, the kind of power-happy, wily statesman who terrifies people today...Olivier sends chills down your back as he smiles at an insult; he makes you uneasy, talking in a charming, bland way of how necessary it is that there be a just reason for conquering France…his transformation during the war into a deeper, greater person is made evident in an almost magical way. Olivier’s real feat, though, is in having directed a film that is always as exciting, even more so, than the Shakespeare play.<ref>Farber, 2009 p. 277-278. The New Republic, issued on 8 July 1946.</ref>}}

The film was highly acclaimed around the world. [[James Agee]], who reviewed it separately for three publications, called it "one of the cinema's great works of art".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ingham|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dC8lDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 |title=Stage-Play and Screen-Play: The intermediality of theatre and cinema|date=2016-12-08|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-317-55521-6}}</ref> Agee continues: "''Henry V'' is one of the great experiences in the history of motion pictures. It is not, to be sure, the greatest...But ''Henry V'' is a major achievement—this perfect marriage of great dramatic poetry with the greatest contemporary medium for expressing it." <ref>Agee, James - ''Agee on Film Vol.1'' © 1958 by The James Agee Trust</ref> British critic [[Leslie Halliwell]] gave it four of four stars: "Immensely stirring, experimental and almost wholly successful production of Shakespeare on film, sturdy both in its stylization and its command of more conventional cinematic resources for the battle."<ref>Halliwell's Film Guide, 7th Edition 1987 ISBN 0-06-016322-4</ref> [[Pauline Kael]], writing of Olivier: "His production—it was his first time out as a film director—is a triumph of color, music, spectacle, and soaring heroic poetry, and, as an actor, he brings lungs, exultation, and a guileful wit to the role. The film has true charm."<ref>Kael, Pauline - ''5001 Nights at the Movies'' 1991 ISBN 0-8050-1366-0</ref>

===Box office===
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 (film)|Frenchman's Creek]]'', ''[[Mrs. Parkington]]'', ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace (film)|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 (film)|Hollywood Canteen]]'', ''[[They Were Sisters]]'', ''[[The Princess and the Pirate]]'', ''[[The Affairs of Susan|The Adventures of Susan]]'', ''[[National Velvet (film)|National Velvet]]'', ''[[Mr. Skeffington]]'', ''[[I Live in Grosvenor Square]]'', ''[[Nob Hill (film)|Nob Hill]]'', ''[[Perfect Strangers (1945 film)|Perfect Strangers]]'', ''[[The Valley of Decision]]'', ''[[Conflict (1945 film)|Conflict]]'' and ''[[Duffy's Tavern (film)|Duffy's Tavern]]''. British "runners up" were ''They Were Sisters'', ''I Live in Grosvenor Square'', ''Perfect Strangers'', ''Madonna of the Seven Moons'', ''[[Waterloo Road (film)|Waterloo Road]]'', ''[[Blithe Spirit (1945 film)|Blithe Spirit]]'', ''[[The Way to the Stars]]'', ''[[I'll Be Your Sweetheart]]'', ''[[Dead of Night]]'', ''[[Waltz Time (1945 film)|Waltz Time]]'' and ''Henry V''.<ref>{{cite book|page=232|title=Blackout: reinventing women for wartime British cinema|last=Lant|first= Antonia|year=1991 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref>

Previous efforts to put Shakespeare on the screen included [[Douglas Fairbanks]] and [[Mary Pickford]]'s 1929 ''[[The Taming of the Shrew (1929 film)|The Taming of the Shrew]];'' [[Max Reinhardt]]'s 1935 ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935 film)|A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' for Warner Bros; a British film adaptation of ''[[As You Like It (1936 film)|As You Like It]]'' starring Olivier and [[Elisabeth Bergner]] and scored by [[William Walton]]; and MGM's 1936 ''[[Romeo and Juliet (1936 film)|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".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/77778/henry-v#articles-reviews |title=Henry V (1944) |publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |access-date=2019-10-12}}</ref>

The film earned over $1 million in rentals in the US.<ref name=Variety>{{cite web |title=$8,500,000 in British B.O. in U.S.; That's 4 Times Last Year's Take |url=https://archive.org/stream/variety164-1946-11#page/n122/mode/1up/search/8%2C500%2C000 |work=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=20 November 1946 |pages=3 |access-date=19 January 2021}}</ref> However, due to its high production cost and Entertainment Tax it did not go into profit for Rank until 1949.<ref name="Macnab 1993 191">{{cite book|first=Geoffrey|last=Macnab|title=J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry|publisher=Routledge|location=Abingdon, England|date=1993|isbn= 978-0415072724|page=191}}</ref> It earned United Artists a profit of $1.62 million.<ref name="sheldon"/> In 2007, ''Military History'' magazine listed this production 75th among "The 100 Greatest War Movies".<ref>"The 100 Greatest War Movies" special issue, page 31.</ref>

===Awards and nominations===
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| rowspan="5"| [[19th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]]
| [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Motion Picture]]
| [[United Artists]]
| {{nom}}
| align="center" rowspan="5"| <ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1947 |title=The 19th Academy Awards (1947) Nominees and Winners |publisher=[[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] |access-date=August 19, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706093757/http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/ceremony/19th-winners.html |archive-date=July 6, 2011 |url-status=live}}</ref> <br> <ref name="NY Times">{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/22161/Henry-V/details |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081205125812/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/22161/Henry-V/details |url-status=dead |archive-date=5 December 2008 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2008 |title=Henry V |access-date=20 December 2008}}</ref>
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| [[Laurence Olivier]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Production Design|Best Art Direction – Color]]
| [[Paul Sheriff]] and [[Carmen Dillon]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Original Score|Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture]]
| [[William Walton]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Honorary Award]]
| rowspan="3"| Laurence Olivier
| {{won}}
|-
| [[Kinema Junpo|Kinema Junpo Awards]]
| Best Foreign Language Film
| {{won}}
| align="center"| 
|-
| [[Nastro d'Argento]]
| Best Foreign Director
| {{won}}
| align="center"| 
|-
| rowspan="3"| [[National Board of Review Awards 1946|National Board of Review Awards]]
| colspan="2"| [[National Board of Review Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| {{won}}
| align="center" rowspan="3"| <ref>{{cite web |url=https://nationalboardofreview.org/award-years/1946/ |title=1946 Award Winners |publisher=[[National Board of Review]] |access-date=November 11, 2024}}</ref>
|-
| colspan="2"| [[National Board of Review: Top Ten Films|Top Ten Films]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[National Board of Review Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| Laurence Olivier
| {{won}}
|-
| rowspan="3"| [[1946 New York Film Critics Circle Awards|New York Film Critics Circle Awards]]
| colspan="2"| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| {{nom}}
| align="center" rowspan="3"| 
|-
| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
| rowspan="4"| Laurence Olivier
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[Picturegoer|Picturegoer Awards]]
| Best Actor
| {{won}}
| align="center"| 
|-
| [[7th Venice International Film Festival|Venice International Film Festival]]
| International Critics Award (Special Mention)
| {{won}}
| align="center"|
|}