Olivier, doing his bit for the war effort (ca. 1944-45), marshals this Shakespeare history into a patriotic pep rally, with all due pomp and swagger. The backstage-at-the-Globe introduction is clever (and more than that: devotional, spiritual). And if the production never quite loses sight of the stage and becomes a full-bloom movie, the inhibiting sense of artifice is appropriate both to the original material and to the present occasion. With Robert Newton, Leslie Banks, Renee Asherton, and in the title role, Olivier. (1944) — Duncan Shepherd
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