Legend has it that Winston Churchill asked Laurence Olivier to make a film version of Shakespeare’s Henry V to help raise British morale during the worst days of World War II. It was not an entirely ...

The question used to be: Can Shakespeare’s plays be made into successful movies? With his film production of Henry V (TIME, April 8, 1946), Sir Laurence Olivier settled that question once & for all.

Great Expectations (Rank; Universal-International) is one more proof that the movies can make a fine, thoroughly intelligent translation of a literary classic. In Henry V, Laurence Olivier and his ...