A Canterbury Tale (1944) User Reviews

An offbeat British wartime drama...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 26 December 2022]

... from writer-producer-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A trio of (then) modern day pilgrims meet at a train station in Kent on their way to Canterbury: Alison (Sheila Sim), a young war widow; Peter (Dennis Price) a British army sergeant; and Bob (John Sweet), an American army sergeant on a 3-day furlough. The trio bond when Alison is attacked by the notorious "Glue Man", a mysterious figure who runs about at night dumping glue on unsuspecting ladies' heads. The townsfolk seem content to let the mystery lie, but the trio of newcomers are determined to find the culprit and bring him or her to justice. Meanwhile, they also take time to learn more about their surroundings in the English countryside, thanks to local historian Colpeper (Eric Portman).

This is an odd movie. The goofy-sounding Glue Man mystery is an unusual pretext to keep the characters together, but it works. The true aim of the film seems to be reconnecting a war-battered audience with its history and bucolic country landscapes. There's a bit of the mystical, with discussions of centuries past and the lingering ghosts of ancestors. The film also serves as a bit of American-British co-operation propaganda, in the form of Sweet's amiable Oregonian Bob. Sweet was an actual U. S. G. I. loaned to the film, an unprofessional actor, and it shows, but in a good way. His voice and personality may strike some the wrong way, but I found him charming. Both Sheila Sim and Dennis Price were also unknowns, and they both went on to fame, but Sweet became a school teacher. Recommended.

'What I wouldn't give to grow old in a place like this'

[jeremy corbett UK · 8/10 · 10 April 2006]

England, 1944: After 5 long years of blitz, black-out, rationing and requisitioning, the World War hit hard on the Home Front. 'A Canterbury Tale' is a British wartime film appealing directly to the newly-arrived American allies to regard the sight of an English Cathedral spire, an old pilgrim road or clear skies over chalky uplands as worth fighting to preserve. A victory for our enemies, it seems to say, would mean an end to this spiritual continuity, and the heavy burden of defending it had fallen to us and our Comrades. Thus the film can be taken on one level as a straight-forward flag-waver.

But it is clearly more than this. The opening of the film, quoting loosely from Geoffrey Chaucer, depicts a medieval pilgrimage, the old Canterbury Pilgrims journeying to receive blessings or do penance. Fast-forward to wartime, and a different kind of pilgrim walks the way. Our boys are massing in the South to embark on the great mechanized Crusade that will determine the future of England and all that it stands for. Their task is an onerous one. But what's this? Girls out with soldiers in rural Kent get glue poured in their hair at night. What can it mean?

Powell and Pressburger take their time in spinning their story, but it's time we don't mind spending in Chillingbourne, wending our way with Alison and the farm cart, blackberrying on the Weald with Peter and Bob, chewing the fat with the locals, getting to know our pilgrims' histories and ultimately solving the Glue Man crimes. There are many meandering diversions along this particular road, and some bits of business are downright peculiar (the silhouetted village idiot scene and the young boys' play-fight spring to mind). But by degrees, the film's narrative themes begin to coalesce, and slowly we are taken somewhere very special indeed.

It's true, Thomas Colpeper - gentleman farmer and magistrate - is something of an oddity, but no small town is complete without its eccentric. There's a magnetic and sympathetic quality about him, too, as we see when Alison bitterly comments on her prospective In-Laws' refusal to accept she's good enough for their son: 'It would take an earthquake' she says, to which Colpeper calmly replies, 'We're having one.' As played by Eric Portman, he is at once coolly beguiling and strangely malevolent. His unmasking by our protagonists as the 'Glue Man' comes as no real surprise, but seemingly his motivation is only about assuring our connection with the land and its history, despite being himself irredeemably misogynistic to our modern eyes.

The final act, as the foursome complete their pilgrimages to Canterbury on the iron road, is a revelation; As they, and we, are propelled closer to the imposing Cathedral, the characters' stories are completed: Colpeper is set to do penance by turning himself in to the Police, Peter is told he was the instrument for this but instead gets a blessing of his own, Bob finally receives his girl's letters, (posted from Australia, "She's joined the WACs!"), and Alison is similarly blessed. Her scene in Mr Portal's Garage is especially moving, as the burden she carries is the hardest - the presumed death of her airman fiancé. Her barely-audible 'Why?' whispered in disbelief when told Master Geoffrey's father has waited with news for her for two weeks delivers a moving emotional payoff. Sheila Sim - now Lady Attenborough - gives a memorably natural performance throughout.

The film's luminous black and white photography is strong as is the location work in and around the recently-bombed Canterbury, and the use of music throughout adds a spiritual element to the visuals. My Favourite scene? The steam-hauled commuter train bearing our pilgrims from Chillingbourne pulls into Canterbury station, and Peter stands in the compartment to adjust his uniform collar. Apparently he's been the unwitting but skeptical instrument of Colpeper's penance, and his line 'I'll believe that when I see a halo around my head,' comes as the carriage window behind him is suddenly bathed in blinding morning sunlight. Brilliant.

Charm (Scarecrow Staked Here: spoilers herein)

[Piafredux · 8/10 · 5 September 2006]

Although I've heard that Michael Powell chose, over a skirt-slashing Colpeper, to instead have him be The Glueman, his choice is, I think, serendipitous. The Glueman is not just the (superficially, as most post-modern critics mistake about him and about so many other characters in earlier films - about which more later) repressed sexual pervert Glueman, but he's also the Clueman. Yes, he's vaguely sinister, but he provides the glue that diverts the film's younger, war-preoccupied characters from their immediate concerns, and he suggests the clues that connect them to the heritage (some of us Yanks know the words of 'Land Of Hope And Glory' because England/Britain is undeniably, in many respects, our Mother Country) that has shaped them and made them who they are - and to the Civilization for which they're fighting.

Too many of today's critics obsess about the "Lesbian" farm woman whose character, in the 1940's, would have been ordinary and been regarded as being ordinary: a woman raised under the sterner discipline and mores of her day, with no-nonsense, no-b.s. values of virtue, obligation and hard work - and of getting to the point. It's postmodernists' affectation to automatically suspect doughty, matter-of-fact women characters - any eccentric women characters whom their postmodernist Miss Jean Brodie nonsense has bent them to suspect of fitting their screwy postmodernist (i.e., most often Marxisant, but often also Romantic) worldview - in earlier films of being "Lesbians." This woman is, consummately, a farmer who has to consider pragmatically what all farmers have always had to consider: how to smartly, efficiently work their land to its top yield against time and weather, pests and parasites, poachers and market conditions; there's nothing "Lesbian" about any of her singleminded agrarian pragmatism, or about her unremarkable - for her day - country ladies' sartorial choice, or even about her puffing a cigarette.

'A Canterbury Tale' isn't among the best of Powell & Pressburger's efforts; but it doesn't fall far short of their best. In a spot or two the plot plods, but then plodding was the pace of the Kentish countryside, so I think that it's only to our early third millennium sensibilities that it seems to plod. Seldom has black & white cinematography managed, as it manages here, to communicate through chiaroscuro the pilgrims' unease, and through the blessed splendor of sunlit, cloud-garlanded vistas of the Weald of Kent their respite.

As the Glueman strives to communicate the pace, sensibilities, and sensations of Chaucer's pilgrim's time, so too must we latter-day viewers accommodate our viewing of this film to the pace, sensibilities, and sensations of its period and setting: once we've done that - which demands of us no extraordinary effort - the legendary, enduring Powell & Pressburger magic works its spell.

From the outset I found Sergeant Sweet's unaffected acting well-suited to the storytelling. The Yanks whom Wartime Britons recall were probably more like Mike Roczinsky, yet among those "overpaid, overfed, oversexed, and over here" American "invaders," among all those "brown jobs," were young men quite like Sweet's Bob Johnson. Dennis Price's manner is a bit too aristocratic for his portrayal of a sergeant, but on the whole Price's thespian gifts help him to carry off his role very well. Sheila Sim gives a perfectly iconic portrayal of a young woman of her time: bereaved but not crushed; proud yet considerate; tender yet not mawkish; vulnerable yet capable. Eric Portman's Glueman is appropriately mysterious and mildly menacing and yet, in the ending we discover that he's all along been a benign agent of illumination, the neutral but never indifferent catalyst, the benevolent spur to the young people's sleuthing to know their present through their coming to touch their collective past; the Glueman is, if you think about his role in the narrative, rather God-like - or, if your prefer, rather Nature-like.

What's lovely about the dénouement here is that it enchants without indulging in sodden kitschiness, and indeed that it enchants in spite of of its scant kitschy elements. In the end the Glueman vanishes from the pilgrim's and our ken because he's accomplished his task of cluing and gluing the pilgrims to their past, to the mystical dimension of Being in their Own Time as that Being can only have come about by dint of their having touched their Past in their Present, which is the predicate of their harboring good hope for their Future. This message, to people whom wartime exigencies shifted brusquely about en masse as people had hitherto never shifted about, may have rung in 'A Canterbury Tale's' contemporary audiences a chord of sentimental longing and welcome reassurance.

This is a thoroughly English film best appreciated when one knows that Powell grew up in rural Kent and that he loved his home county's loveliness as only a native can and does love eternally his childhood home - and the verities it imparts early to him. In our present age of rapidly successive, plug-in and plug-out residential and professional transience - the first age of nigh-universal human rootlessness - 'A Canterbury Tale's' blessing is its acquainting us with our 1940's forebears' more permanent, more grounded sense of themselves and their place in the world and in time, a sense which they felt the war had put under threat and had hurled them and their world, willy-nilly, into unsettling uncertainty. It seems unlikely that we - our species - shall ever again know the quiet certainties, tranquility, and satisfaction of lifelong residence in, or near, our birthplaces. Until our time urgency meant for people something quite different from what urgency means for us. If people before our hyper-active, attention-deficited, more artificial time were not more "authentic," then they were certainly far less remote than we've become from Nature's cycles and temper.

'A Canterbury Tale's' charm is quiet, subtle, and in the end it's sensual, mystical, illuminating, and eternally dear. Pity that few have nowadays the time or the temper for such charm.

A gentle gem that defies description

[Igenlode Wordsmith · 9/10 · 25 June 2003]

The major disadvantage when recommending this film to someone is that it's practically impossible to describe! It's easy enough to say what it *isn't*: it's not a detective story and it's certainly not a thriller, despite the fact that it nominally revolves around an unsolved crime. It's not a war-story, despite the fact that it is set immediately before D-Day and the main characters are intimately involved in the war effort. It's not a romance, despite the fact that two of the characters have an unhappy love-story. And it's not the Chaucerian epic one might be led to expect by the title and the opening scene - although by the end, the pilgrimage allusions turn out to be rather more strangely apt then they at first appear.

The only word I can find to give a flavour of this story is that it is above all English - as English as Ealing comedy (without the comedy), as Miss Marple (without the murder), as Elizabeth Goudge (without the magic)... and yet again I find myself defining it by what it *isn't*! It's English in a way that is quietly, deeply antithetical to the frenetic posturing of 'Cool Britannia'. It is as English as the haze over the long grass beneath the trees of a summer meadow; as polished brass and a whiff of steam as the express pulls up at a country halt; as church bells drifting in snatches on a lazy breeze, and the taste of blackberries in the sun.

It's almost impossible now to comprehend that the 1940s countryside in which this film is set was *really there*; that it was not the Second World War but its crippling aftermath that industrialised farms, banished the horse-drawn vehicles from the wheelwright's, and exchanged towering hay-wains for silage towers. Britain was determined never to starve again - and so the world that had once differed so little from that of Chaucer's time was swept away beyond recall. When it was made, this film was no more a rustic period piece than 'Passport to Pimlico', a few years later, was an urban social documentary. Subsequent events have preserved both in mute evidence of contemporary communities that are almost unbelievable today.

It is perhaps fair, therefore, to assume that the type of viewer who will watch 'Battlefield Earth' is unlikely to find this film anything other than silly, parochial and ultimately dull! Very little actually happens. The story is on occasion both humorous and poignant, but what we at first assume to be the central plot turns out not to be the point at all. The triple denouement is set up so gently and skilfully that we, too, are taken by miraculous surprise, with the true shape of the film only evident in retrospect.

It is, ultimately, a story about faith, and miracles, and pilgrimages, even in the then-modern world of shopgirls, lumbermen and cinema organists - and if that idea in itself sounds enough to put you off, as I confess it would have done for me before I watched it myself, then I will gladly add that it is a film about beauty, and hope, and unexpected friendship and laughter; and technically very accomplished to boot. The use of black and white is glorious, ranging from the glimmer in the obscurest of shadows to sun-drenched hillside, and the totally unselfconscious reference to Chaucer in the opening sequence is in these days worth the price of admission alone.

If you like gentle films - sweet-natured films - films with a deep affection for their subject - films that make you laugh and cry, but always smile - then I urge you not on any account to miss this one. If, for the moment, you require thrills, spills, forbidden passions and last-minute rescues, then pass it by and let it go on its tranquil way. When you are old and grey and full of sleep, this unassuming classic will still be there, waiting...

"Happy The Man ..." is me after watching this

[Spondonman · 9/10 · 30 May 2004]

After a dozen viewings or so I still rate this as one of my Top 20 favourites, the passing of time doesn't seem to lessen its brilliance, if anything it improves with age. The Carlton budget DVD out at the moment makes the black and white photography gleam even more now, so I wonder why the BBC have always shown such an inferior copy.

ACT is a pleasant inconsequential masterpiece, with no heavy points to labour, no axes to grind and for wartime not too many flags to wave. But it leaves you wishing that Olde England could've been better preserved from the elected savages in charge of us since, and that perhaps it wasn't so surprising that people were ready to defend such a country and its lifestyles to the death. The only thing Chaucer inspired in me in all of his tales was the desire to reach the end of the journey.

The story? Mysterious fetishist keeps pouring glue onto unsuspecting girls heads at night - 3 intrepid souls determine to find and unmask the weirdo, but vacillate when their moment comes. The four main characters weave in and out of the tale, moving it forward gently to the rather grand climax. But what about the Glueman himself - did he go back home to his reprehensible pastime or did he meet a sticky end? Did Bob get his marijuana? Did they manage to get the moths out of Allison's caravan? Did Peter ever stop playing on his organ?

Refreshing: 1/ A platonic relationship between three handsome men and one beautiful woman. 2/ The most violent scene is where the troops burst out clapping the Sgt. who repaired the slide projector. 3/ A basic plot premise so flimsy and yet so captivating.

A most profitable way of spending two hours.

A deep & entertaining study

[Tipu · 14 October 1999]

This is a multilayered, erudite, passionate exploration of England's national character. The route Powell and Pressburger take for this rather difficult task is to follow John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress'. During the second war a group of disparate people are thrown together one night at a deserted railway platform in Kent. Using a plot device of a mysterious, though harmless, assailant who preys upon women, P & P examines English country life, the Englishman's love for nature, the idisyncracies, the distrust of foreigners, the 'pubbing', the resilience, the faith in institutions (the church, the gentry), etc.

The scope of the movie is amazing, and in 2 hours it covers enormous ground. The entire thing is so skillfully and assuredly done that in spite of the absence of any stars and (almost) of a story, and the fact that John Bull is never my companion of choice in any desert island, I was riveted to this movie. Besides the acting, this effect was achieved also by Alfred Junge's brilliant art direction (I couldn't believe the Canterbury church was just a set) and William Hillier's black and white photography. Two scenes stand out - a bird 'turning into' an airplane signifying time going on ahead by a few centuries, and an armoured car breaking through bushes and undergrowth (a very 'Predator'-ish shot).

This is a must see.

A study of a way of life that no longer exists...

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 19 September 2007]

This is probably a film that could only really have come from the minds of the endlessly inventive duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in that it is like no other that comes to mind. The very premise itself – a loose adaptation of a Chaucer tale set in Wartime England – is one that few filmmakers, contemporaneous or since, would dared have attempted. Whether the Archers are successful in pulling it off is another matter. A Canterbury Tale is full of some fine moments and captures the quintessence of what it meant to be British in 1945. Of course, that was another world, the survivors of which are beginning to slowly disappear, and it is one that will never be recaptured. In that respect there is a wistful quality about the film that maybe didn't exist upon its initial release. But while it reaches these highs, the slow pace and lack of plot left me feeling as if the writers were sometimes straying dangerously close to self-indulgence. There's nothing wrong with a slow pace but, when the story begins to meander and perhaps lose sight of its purpose or intentions (or, at least, appears to) then audience goodwill can suffer.

Overall, though, this is a film worth watching, even if only to get an understanding of what it meant to be British back then, and as a reminder of a way of life that is no more.

Perhaps the best "war" film ever made.

[Petemcg · 10/10 · 14 March 2002]

My first amazed viewing of this spiritually uplifting film was on a wet Sunday afternoon about fifteen years ago. I was thoroughly depressed for various reasons, but by the end of this movie, the entire world had subtly transformed itself. The delivery of the "message" of this film may seem, to modern audiences, naively done, but its power to move surely remains as robustly valid today as it must have been to audiences in war-torn Britain. (I have not seen the American version.)This is a feel-good film of the very first order.

The photography is geared towards presenting the glory of the English countryside, and beautifully conveys an England which was fast disappearing by the time war broke out. Watch especially for the shots of Alison on the downs just after looking towards Canterbury. Gorgeous!

You will either love or hate this film, but you MUST see it if you have not already done so. I've just bought it on DVD, and am ditching various copies taped from TV over the years.

PS: If anyone with any influence at Carlton reads this, please urgently consider transcribing "I Know Where I'm Going" - another fine Powell/Pressburger movie - onto DVD.

Quirky and charming, a grower, from a special film-making partnership

[LouE15 · 7/10 · 21 January 2007]

First off, don't even bother with this one if you have no patience for black & white films, and if the quirkier side of auteur film-making doesn't do it for you. I'll take a guess that if you liked "The Station Agent", you might just go for "A Canterbury Tale", recently released as part of a Powell & Pressburger DVD box set.

At first glance the various parts of this highly unusual film seem shoehorned in together, but "A Canterbury Tale" can be seen as a sort of genie in a bottle, where the more you watch, the more you see to love and admire. But it takes more than a cursory glance to see something more than just eccentricity in this sample of 1940's life in a small Kentish village. This film is about something more than forgotten village life, or Home Front life, or a Land Girl, or a subtle romance, or soldiers in wartime. It's about something more than a connection to the land, or the past, or religion. It's a complete bubble in time, but which has meaning, and which transcends 'period' clothing and black and white photography, and stiff accents.

The small pleasures of the film build progressively with the charm of the locale to invite you in, to make you care what happens to the lead characters. Some wonderful cinematic moments, no less than you'd expect from a Powell & Pressburger film: the Kent countryside, shimmering even in black and white; the GI greeted from his hotel window by a boy on top of a hay cart; the intensity of Colpeper as he talks about the Pilgrim's Way, and the way the light falls on the girl's face as she is drawn into his story; the marvellous Kentish accents – largely lost today; the moving shots of the majestic Canterbury cathedral, standing strong in the background of the empty, bomb-destroyed lots, with signs indicating what the businesses were – a town still alive despite the desolation. Ultimately I'm not quite sure I completely understood all of the message of the film; but there's enough that's unique and lovely to make this worth seeking out.

A Delightful Gem

[Rich-99 · 10/10 · 2 April 1999]

Whatever the subject of their films one always knows that the results will be special when Powell and Pressburger are involved. Set in war time England the story follows 4 characters (2 soldiers, a woman and a local magistrate) as they eventually make a modern day pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each has their own personal problem and worry mostly brought on by the war. Their stories intertwine with each other as they become acquainted on their journey. The end results are quite special. The end results were probably dictated by the need for an uplifting movie during the War but the results are neither maudlin or contrived and hold up very well after 50 years. One is tempted to single out individual cast members but this is really an ensemble effort and all, from major to minor roles, are quite simply superb. A real gem.

Bizarre, flawed but captivating

[rob.sutherland · 7/10 · 31 August 2006]

This is a patriotic war film shot at a time of National Emergency, so don't expect any complexity in the characters of the GI, the Sergeant and the Land Girl. All are fine citizens - as of course one would expect that pillar of the community the local magistrate to be...

The plot, such as it is, is bizarre. A small village in Kent is being terrorised by a madman who puts glue in women's hair during the blackout. The GI, the Sergeant and the Land Girl resolve to find the culprit.

All roads lead to Canterbury, where the Cathedral oversees the resolution of the mystery and of the disappointments in the characters' lives, before the soldiers set off on a more dangerous pilgrimage.

In the end, the plot is unbelievable, the character of Culpepper the magistrate unfathomable, the symbolism of the Cathedral laid on with a trowel - yet, why is this such a satisfying film? I think that there is a spirit which shines through this film - an optimism, a determination. The Land Girl has lost her Pilot fiancée, she grieves yet she is not downhearted. The GI loves and misses his homeland but can compare timber preparation techniques with the local blacksmith and find commonality. The English Countryside is ravishing throughout.

This film subtly highlights the values being fought for, the personal values, the village way of life, the spirit exemplified by the history of the Canterbury Pilgrims and of the Cathedral itself. And it is by tapping into the British psyche so deeply that even today it resonates which makes it a great film.

One of the best, from two of the best filmmakers, ever.

[talltale-1 · 10/10 · 30 July 2006]

Here's another rich and wonderful piece of movie-making from the Powell/Pressburger team--as well as a lovely little time capsule of WWII Britain: the land girls, small town England, and what real patriotism is all about (unlike the sleazy variety much of America and some of Britain are currently experiencing). Made in 1944, while the war still raged, A CANTERBURY TALE is a discovery as good as anything I've seen from this amazing film-making team. Beginning with a lovely link to Chaucer's tales, it uses a marvelous quick cut between like objects that may remind you of something Stanley Kubrick is now heralded for doing (nearly a quarter-century later!), it then moves ahead to tell the story of four people whose paths cross to a purpose.

Full of quiet surprise and a lead character (Colpeper) who is enormously problematic, the film makes you look, listen, think and feel intently. (For me, cinema can't provide much more.) As the movie seems to meander along, it is actually picking up an enormous head of steam which will--at the end--let loose a blast of patriotism, pride, beauty, sound, architecture and spirituality. Regarding the latter, I do not refer to the fact that the finale is set in a cathedral--as beautiful and symbolic as this one may be. This film rises above any stricture of creed because of the honest humanism of its creators.

This is a "war film," as it appears from the view of civilians who remain at home. Among other things, it shows that, while a civilian population in wartime must give up a great deal, the rewards can be commensurate. (Concerning Iraq, this is something Americans at home have not yet begun to learn or do.) This astonishing film stands, after more than sixty years, as one of those rewards.

A Tale With Lots of Quiet Charm.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 24 February 2011]

After the first half hour or so I was ready to turn the movie off and get back to my book. The acting and story both seemed patched together out of nothing much.

Three people are stranded temporarily in a small English village during wartime, all planning for one or another reason to visit the cathedral in Canterbury, to which the pilgrims of 600 years earlier had traveled for blessing or to do penance. Eric Portman is the equivalent of the mayor. He's a fourth figure who seems to preside over everything. He's a mystical presence who is friendly enough, eager to impart his knowledge of Canterbury and its pilgrims to anyone willing to listen to him, but he keeps coming up with these portentous yet elliptical sayings that seem pregnant with some sort of deeper significance. "A caravan is temporary. All things with wheels are meant to move." It's not as silly as it sounds when taken out of context like this, and Portman does a good job in its delivery.

The three travelers who provide the focus for the film are John Sweet, a talkative sergeant in the US Army, who looks goofy, sounds like Red Skelton, and moons over the girl back home who hasn't written him in seven weeks. His adventitious companions are Shiela Sim, a chirpy and no-nonsense young lady who believes her fiancé to have been shot down and killed over Europe; and Dennis Price, younger and more ridden with momentum that you've ever seen him before, a disillusioned sergeant from the big city who gave up a career as an organist. They are drawn together by their status as guests in the little village and by their joint desire to find out who dumped glue into Shiela Sim's hair during the blackout. (They never do find out.) Well -- they bump into each other from time to time, and into other village residents, until they decide to coordinate their efforts to find the miscreant. After the first half hour I took up my book several times but couldn't concentrate on it because I was continually drawn back into the movie.

Things happen, little events, that you don't expect to see or hear. I'll give an example of what I mean. Here's Sergeant Sweet, from Oregon, USA -- timber country. He's a figure of some ridicule. He speaks like a hick and smokes a corn cob pipe and says things like, "Say, Pop, is there a hotel in this town?" People make gentle fun of the fact that his sergeant's chevrons are upside down. But then the script gives him a quiet scene in a large carpenter's shop in which he displays dignity, generosity, and a shared knowledge of lumber with the proprietor. As a comic figure, he's a failure. As a more fleshed out character, he succeeds.

The same thing happens to a greater or lesser extent with the other characters. All three of them achieve some sort of satisfaction by the end: Sweet finally gets a fist full of letters from his girl friend back home; she'd joined the WAACs and been transferred to Australia. Sims learns her fiancé is alive and in Gibraltar. Price meets the organist at Canterbury Cathedral, rediscovers his calling, and runs through Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, a thrilling piece, while the camera slides into a long shot of the cathedral's immense nave and its magnificent vaulting. It's a hair-raising image that reminded me of Kenneth Clark's series, "Civilization."

There's more to it than meets the eye during that first half hour. There's even some impish humor. During an argument with Eric Portman on the train to Canterbury, Price makes some scoffing remark about, "When that happens, I'll be wearing a halo round my head," and at that moment the trains lurches into the sunshine, the compartment floods with light, and Price's head is backlighted with the glow.

If we want to be banal, it's a message movie. It's 1944. The Yanks have invaded England preparatory to invading France on D Day. We must all pull together and hope for the best. And let's not forget that, though England may change, the nation is a monument to itself and its own past, just as the cathedral is. God's in His heaven; all's right with the world -- or will be, just as soon as we can figure out how to operate these danged English phones and reckon the translations from quarters and dollars to shillings and quid.

It's a tranquil and good-natured fairy tale, though still a fairy tale. During Chaucer's time the cathedral was used as a dormitory for travelers, pilgrims, and the poor. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the nominal head of the Anglican Church but four Archbishops were murdered. Yet the fact that it's uplifting in its own way adds to its charm, rather than detracts from it. I don't believe that "There's no place like home," either, but I almost choke up when Dorothy clicks the heels of her ruby slippers together at the end of "The Wizard of Oz." What WOULD we do without our myths?

Strange but true...

[JohnBoyRoy · 5/10 · 6 April 2004]

I can't really claim to enjoy this film for its face value. What I mean by that is, it is not (narratively) a film that I would bother with ordinarily.

However, there are some good points and reasons worth thinking about, if you're deciding to watch it.

The cinematography is really quite lovely; the landscapes are shot in romantic fasion, almost poetically and the locations are a great tribute to the traditional notions of what England should be. In that sense also, the film holds much nostalgic value for me.

When I first viewed the film I wrote it off, that is not to say I love it now, but on the other ocasions I have viewed it I've looked out for things that might inform me as a practitioner of film: it is great for lighting (the nightime scenes are expertly illuminated) and also for sub-textual reasons.

I reckon that the glue is meant to be a sexual thing - its also quite funny if Culpepper combines perversion with his moral crusade really. Its a film ahead of its time in this way - a film made when inhibitions and denial in society let P&P get away with a hell of a lot that people would have chosen to deliberately not see.

I will never like this film, but I enjoy watching visuals and if taken as a series of visuals instead of a film, I can cope with it and enjoy it. That's probably only because I wasn't born in the 30s anyway.

Not bad, 5/10 for nostalgia and respect.

Magical wartime fable

[Bz-3 · 7 June 1999]

This magical wartime fable creates a fairytale as an antidote for war. Plot and narrative drive is foregone- the quest for the 'glueman' is simply a device to bring the characters together- and instead is created an ode to the spritual in man, as necessary in wartime as at any other time. Three young and diverse persons arrive by train in Kent when, about to go their separate midnight ways, the female in their company has glue poured in her hair by an unseen assailant. For the rest of the film they pool resources to discover the wrongdoer while finding themselves sucked in by the countryside of England and the lure of Canterbury. The film is flawed, but only with the flaws of one you love- the casting, notably the American soldier, is frequently untrained, and the dialogue doesn't always hit the poetic heights of the visuals, but these are asides and nothing more than asides, because away from being the greatest essay in visual poetry Britain has ever produced, the film whispers also profound things about modern day life, about our links with the past, about the essential oneness of all life. In the Canterbury showdown all wishes come true and all hearts are filled, and that's as it should be for a film which is at heart a children's story for grown-ups, but there was never a necessity for the film's ends to be tied; it's a beautiful dream rather than a drama. One has to remind oneself at the end that no, actually this isn't how people always are, that life isn't always like this, and that is a measure of the film's success.

Very good!

[zetes · 10/10 · 12 October 2002]

A wonderful film, as you might expect, from the cinema's greatest directorial duo. It's unique in mood and pace amongst the many Archers films that I've seen. The others move at a brisk pace, going from one plot element to the next. No harm in that, of course. It works very well for films like One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death and the others. A Canterbury Tale, on the other hand, stops and smells the roses as it leisurely - and semi-plotlessly - strolls through the English countryside on the trail to Canterbury Cathedral. Three young people, an American G.I. named Bob Johnson (Seargant John Sweet), a British soldier, Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), and a young woman from London, Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), moving to the countryside for work. The all arrive in the small town of Kent on the same train, and they walk together trying to find the hotel. An assailant pops out of nowhere in the impenetrable dark and throws glue all over Alison's hair. Over the next few days they look for "the Glueman." The film doesn't always work, especially concerning the Glueman subplot, which almost seems like it is the plot for most of the movie. The investigation and solution are the weakest scenes in the film. But there are dozens of gorgeous sequences within the film. I especially love the sequence with the children playing war. The film gets especially good during its extended finale, where the three (actually four) main characters go to Canterbury, and their pilgrimages pay off. The three leads are excellent. The fourth main character, the magistrate of Kent, Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), is the weakest and I'd just rather forget his role in the film myself. Perhaps he will work better in subsequent viewings. The best aspect of the film is its top shelf cinematography, maybe the best black and white that I've seen from the Archers. A lot of the scenes take place, ingeniously, in total darkness. These work so much better than imaginable! 9/10.

I recant.

[Spleen · 10/10 · 22 January 2001]

Just a brief note to say that I was wrong. Subsequent viewings have revealed to me that John Sweet's character doesn't ruin the film; I don't know why he seemed at first to dominate, but he actually moves on and off centre stage with remarkable grace. I certainly can't claim that he takes up too much screen time in Canterbury. His acting, and the character portrayed, have grown on me; I now find both charming. (The key is to realise that he's more modest and unassuming than his accent may lead you to suppose - although, judging from some comments, some people were never led to be mistaken on this point; perhaps it was just me.)

The scenes before Canterbury, entrancing enough the first time around, also reveal more of their magic on second and third acquaintance. Could this turn out to be Powell and Pressburger's best work...? On reflection, certainly not, but that's only because of the extremely strong competition.

It's interesting that so many quality elements do NOT make an especially good film.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 March 2011]

I was a bit surprised by "A Canterbury Tale", as it obviously was well made (after all, it was a Powell/Pressburger Production--having both written and directed it as well)--and this team made marvelous films. Yet, despite all its good parts, the whole picture just didn't work for me--mostly because it lacked a good story and some of the acting was downright embarrassing.

The film is set in the English countryside during WWII. An occasionally dim-witted American bumpkin (sort of like a slightly smarter version of Gomer Pyle--terribly overplayed by an amateur American actor in his only film) gets off the train bound for Canterbury at the wrong stop. As a result, he's stuck in a country town until he's able to find his way to his destination. In addition, an English soldier and young lady also get off the train there. Soon they are embroiled in a rather irrelevant plot involving a weirdo who runs around throwing glue in ladies' hair in the darkness of the blackout! Talk about a stupid plot. But, as the plot really was seemingly unnecessary for the film and it's all just an excuse to make a film about the war effort, the wonderfulness of country life, camaraderie with the Americans and the similarities of all good people. Frankly, this was VERY frustrating as the film was wonderfully made in so many ways--great direction, lovely music, terrific camera work and a nice feel for the heartland of England...but no real story...none. So, I guess for a film with no real plot, a score of 6 is actually very good!

I see that most reviewers really liked this film and some even adored it. Because of that, I felt pretty awkward about not liking the film, though Bob the Moo's usually thought-provoking review gave me some consolation--at least Bob saw some of the same problems I saw with the film! And, considering his excellent reviews, that puts me in pretty good company.

Gentle, sweet-natured, beautiful

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 11 January 2011]

I love Powell and Pressburger's films, especially Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and The Thief of Baghdad. A Canterbury Tale is no exception, in fact it is every bit as wonderful as those films. Essentially it is gentle, it is sweet-natured and it is beautiful, but it is also thought-provoking and atmospheric with eerie tone shifts. As to be expected, the production values in this film is absolutely exquisite, as skilled as the photography is, it is the scenery that really delights, while Allan Gray's music is very nice. The script is good on the whole, and the story(a re-think of Chaucer?) may be peculiar on paper but actually it is nothing of the kind. Instead it is well-structured, beautiful and most importantly it impresses as a study of a community resistance to change, and I admit I was moved by this film. The direction is great, and the acting I had little problem with- excepting Dennis Price from Kind Hearts and Coronets and Charles Hawtrey from the Carry on franchise there was nobody I recognised straight away but the actors all played their parts well. The pace is perhaps meditative, but purposefully so to reflect the film's gentle tone. All in all, a lovely, thoughtful film and one of Powell and Pressburger's best. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Unusual and lyrical

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 20 March 2020]

An interesting and unusual updating of the Chaucer story, brought to the screens by Powell & Pressburger whose direction is top quality here. The film has a dream-like quality to the visuals that reminded me a little of Bergman, while the episodic nature of the storyline works. It's quirky and unrealistic throughout, but the WW2 backdrop is an effective one and the performances generally strong across the board, particularly from the likes of a youthful Dennis Price.

"I sure am surprised how much I like it here"

[Steffi_P · 9/10 · 28 October 2006]

When Stanley Kubrick cut from a flying bone to a spaceship in 2001: A Space Oddysey it would be widely credited as the best cut in cinema history. What isn't so well known is that it is an almost direct steal from this much earlier Powell and Pressburger picture. Granted, in A Canterbury Tale the cut does not take in the whole sweep of human history – it cuts from a medieval hunter's hawk to a Second World War fighter plane – but in my opinion it achieves the same affect much more smoothly than in the later film.

A Canterbury Tale cannot easily be slotted into one genre. It is unusual in that it was a contemporary set film made during the war, but it does not have a war theme – it records normal life during wartime. It's ironic perhaps that a section in which two gangs of boys play act a battle with toy guns is staged exactly like a proper action scene with rousing musical underscoring. There is a rather bizarre central storyline concerning the hunt for a man who pours glue over the heads of women who date soldiers, but this is just a red herring. The real story is about the journey of self-discovery undertaken by the central characters – a land girl, a GI, a tank commander and a village historian – and the people they meet along the way.

In some ways the film can also be regarded as a look at English ways of life (from the point of view of a foreigner – screenwriter Pressburger was Hungarian). Dozens of bit part characters – each uniquely interesting and many of them funny – walk on and off. It shows quirkiness, resilience, a sense of history, differences and similarities between city people and country folk, and also the differences and similarities between the English residents and US soldiers. As such it can be considered a kind of propaganda piece, albeit a very unconventional one.

The best acting performances in the film also belong to the actors in smaller parts. Particularly memorable is Esmond Knight in duel roles as a deadpan cockney soldier and a stuttering village idiot. As for the lead roles, (non-professional) John Sweet is good as the good natured American soldier Bob Johnson, but I find leading lady Sheila Sim's ultra posh voice a little grating.

Despite what is apparently a fairly mundane setting, there is no shortage of spectacular images in A Canterbury Tale. Creating such images was Powell's greatest strength. There is the opening close-up of the Canterbury cathedral bells which pans to a shot of the city through a fleur-de-lis shaped aperture. There is the shot of Culpepper silhouetted against a spotlight as he delivers his lecture. Throughout the cinematography is excellent, with lots of light and shadow making the most of the black and white photography.

A Canterbury Tale has to be one of the most unique and difficult to describe pictures of its era, but it is a good one. It is endlessly entertaining and often heartwarming. It is brilliantly directed – I'd say the best of Michael Powell's monochrome pictures. Well worth seeking out, especially if you've already seen and enjoyed a few Powell and Pressburger flicks.

Quiet and spiritual

[Polaris_DiB · 6/10 · 17 January 2007]

This movie is an earlier Archers work made in 1944 and set during the war, and is not a "war movie" so much as a "movie that deals with war", though to say it deals with only that is also a bit off. It's the story of three people who make a pilgrimmage (intentional or not) to Canterbury a la Chaucer's epic, stopping accidentally at a small town where they solve a sort of Scooby Doo-ish crime, and then following up with a spiritual change once they arrive.

It's definitely earlier Powell and Pressburger, but it does show the direction they're heading in terms of cinematography, directing, and motion picture art. It had some very strong moments, though I can't help but think it was a bit uneven... However scenes like the woman walking along the bombed street looking past the damage at the Cathedral were quite impactful.

I don't know if I really liked it very much. I don't really understand why we got the characters we did. Two of them are soldiers, they're all in their own way integrated into the war, they definitely have different personalities and backgrounds, but I don't know why they were ultimately drawn together.

Possibly such answers are engaged more subtly, and I missed them.

I wish life were like this! Damn!

[rooprect · 8/10 · 16 March 2007]

This movie is absolutely charming, fun, cute and inspiring. But I wouldn't call it breezy, because it's actually very philosophical and thought provoking at times. It's rare that a director can make you think with a smile on your face.

I'm a young whippersnapper, raised on the cynicism & sarcasm of the times--the fear & paranoia of a world where I can't take a tube of toothpaste on an airplane without being dragged into the back room and beaten senseless by a bunch of overzealous airport security workers. Sigh. But this film is the antithesis of all that. There is no malice, no menace, no caustic or sarcastic lines. Everything is sweet and rustic; yet it manages to be clever just the same.

The villain in this film is a mysterious assailant who pours glue in young girls' hair. Although there's currently a 3-page thread in the discussion board debating the creepiness, symbolism & moral ambiguity of this, I think the point is to understand that this is a 70-year-old film, and it's intended to be silly, not disturbing. So just have fun with it.

Just prepare yourself for the harsh reality of waking up into the brutal, vulgar 21st century after the movie finishes. I think I'm going to f**ing cry.

EE Bah Gum

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 22 June 2008]

Whichever way you slice it this was a strange movie to make in 1944 and one that Powell and Pressburger chose to make enigmatic aiming it squarely between more like two and twenty than a mere two stools. The title gives the first clue that something more than two hours escapism is on offer and this is immediately followed up when four people en route to Canterbury come together a few miles short and eventually journey there together. There's also some low-key 'hands across the sea' propaganda when the yank from Oregon and the lumber mill workers in Kent discover they do things the same way, woodenly speaking. Some okay performances but ultimately less than meets the eye.

Dennis Price in His First Starring Role

[drednm · 10 June 2013]

This superb allegory by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger follows the pilgrimages of three disparate people during WW II as they make their way to Canterbury along the 600-year-old Pilgrims Path. Each is seeking a miracle or consolation from their journey.

Alison (Sheila Sim) is a London shop girl who ventures to the English countryside to work on a farm as a "land girl" and to revisit the spot where she vacationed with her now dead soldier boyfriend. Bob (John Sweet) is a naive American GI who's girlfriend back in Oregon has stopped writing to him. He told his mother he'd visit Canterbury. Peter (Dennis Price) is a disillusioned organist whose career has been limited to playing in movie theaters and who is soon to ship out overseas.

The three disembark a train together and venture toward the great cathedral city when Alison is attacked in the dark by a strange offender known locally as the "glue man." He's poured nasty glue all over her head. As the three find lodgings and talk to locals they learn that the glue man has struck many other times.

Alison settles into her farm job while Bob discovers the countryside still (in 1944) very much tied to 19th-century ways. Peter tries to find out more about the glue man. They all meet a local eccentric (Eric Portman) who may be the glue man. He lectures locally on the rewards of country life and works as a magistrate in Canterbury. They all meet at the cathedral as they meet their fates.

Absolutely gorgeous B&W photography lovingly displays the beautiful countryside with ample shots of wide sky and billowing fields, rustic farms and buildings, and always Canterbury in the background.

The simple story lines are set against the complex allegory of a journey of discovery. Each of the pilgrims finds something in Canterbury, but what happens to them afterwards is left to our imagination. Both Alison and Bob find answers to their private sorrows, and Peter attains a cherished dream. All three are changed in deep and moving ways.

John Sweet was an amateur actor stationed with the US Army in England when he was discovered for this role. His plainspoken American is both naive and deeply wise. His growing love of the countryside and the old ways is infectious. Sheila Sim plays a sturdy and practical girl who deals with her loss while loving her new life in the country. Dennis Price plays the most complicated character, since his loss is more a loss of ambition and opportunity than a loss of human love. His discovery at the cathedral is very moving. Portman is a lonely and aging man who may be attracted to Alison as a kindred spirit, but all paths do not lead to the same destination.

Many notable actors in small parts include Edward Rigby, Charles Hawtrey, Hay Petrie, Freda Jackson, Esma Cannon, Graham Moffatt, Eliot Makeham, Esmond Knight, and Judith Furse.

Powell and Pressburger scored a major success with this moving and seemingly simple story. But the characters will stay with you long after watching this glorious masterpiece.