What a shelf life. It still sounds as honorable as the first time.

Timeless! Olivier's son now teaches leadership courses, the spine of the curriculum being the text of this speech.

That said, I've got Branagh's take on it forever imprinted in the cortex. Less famous, but equally moving is the set-up for the St. Crispian's speech: King Harry's "Upon the king..." soliloquy, uttered in prayer the night before...

Shakespeare was a penny-a-word hack who would never use one word where he could find a dozen to do the same job. He is not to be emulated.

Even Sir Larry had the wisdom to cut ten lines out of the speech, although he was reciting the lines to the glorification of Olivier, not to the inspiration of his troops.

Anyone feel like raising his battle-axe and crying, "Yaaaar!" at the shrieking finale of that speech? I didn't. I kept wondering whether his armor wasn't perhaps pinching him in a sensitive spot.

Interesting how different Kenneth Branagh's version is. To me it is a more rousing version, probably because it follows more film convention than theater (music, tracking shots, etc).