Henry V film
What version of Henry V were the commanders watching?
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I think it was the Laurence Olivier one. Not really sure if it would have been available back then (filmed in the summer?). It sure sounded like it, though.
Olivier left the Royal Navy to make that film to boost the morale of the British troops. I found that the UK release date for it was November of 1944. Too late to have been a short subject for Ike to watch.....I enjoyed the Ike movie but Patton was badly protrayed by a nearly unrecognizablely over weight Gerald McRainey. And that damned June 6th visit to the (very few) 101st Airborne troops..I hate it when the screw up the simplist things.
shareFirst, I think it's quite possible that the film might have been shown to a select few before it was in general release. Maybe not - but I know Churchill routinely saw movies before they made it to the theaters - and since Olivier was an awe-struck admirer of Churchill (who attended some of Olivier's theatrical performances) it wouuld fit that Churchill might have been given it and urged the top officers in the Allied Army to see it.
Second, I thought that Eisenhower's visit to the paratroops was one of the most famous photographs of the War, no? It occurred just before they took off - at around 10:00 p.m. (but still daylight in Britain's summertime) on June 5. Any book that has photos from World War II shows Eisenhower near the plane talking in a casual pose to the paratroops who've blackened their faces.
That's exactly the point. The visit happened on June 5th, the day before the invasion, and the movie portrays it as happening on June 6th, DURING the invasion. And yes, that's a significant error.
shareOlivier's Henry V was filmed in colour yet the version the servicemen and women were watching was clearly monochrome.
The movie Henry V was released in 1945. Besides an enormous budget for that time (and made during the war!)plus a few 1000's extras it was also shot fully in color. In "Ike" we strangely enough get a black-and-white version. I do not understand is, or again making the point that only US could make color pictures in 1944 ?
I wouldn't worry about the black-and-white part (yes, it was all in Technicolor), but you're not quite right on the year, though the London release was indeed long after D-day, on November 22, 1944.
More importantly, the film was shot from 9 June 1943–12 July 1944, so NONE of it would have been available to view at the time. http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Go-Hi/Henry-V.html
Frankly, though, it meshed well thematically. More than that, it was both 'in the works' during D-Day planning, and pushed and partly funded by the British government, precisely as an encouragement to Britons during the campaign begun on D-Day. So there is certainly an appropriateness to making a connection.
For what it's worth, the film in the very next scene, viz., "Covergirl" (with Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelley), was indeed out at the time (released in March 1944), and was by then a huge hit.
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