A Canterbury Tale (1944)
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
Plot.
Where to Watch.
Currently A Canterbury Tale is available for streaming online, rent, buy or watch for free on: Apple TV, Criterion Channel, Tubi TV, Plex, Amazon Video, TCM, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, Shout! Factory TV, Plex Channel
Streaming in:🇺🇸 United States
Cast & Crew.
Eric Portman
Thomas Colpeper, JP
Sheila Sim
Alison Smith
Dennis Price
Peter Gibbs
John Sweet
Bob Johnson
Charles Hawtrey
Thomas Duckett
Esmond Knight
Narrator / Seven-Sisters Soldier / Village Idiot
Hay Petrie
Woodcock
George Merritt
Ned Horton
Edward Rigby
Jim Horton
Freda Jackson
Prudence Honeywood
Betty Jardine
Fee Baker
Eliot Makeham
Organist
Parry Jones Jr.
Arthur / Third Assistant Director
Beresford Egan
P. C. Ovenden
Esma Cannon
Agnes
Anthony Holles
Sergt. Bassett
Maude Lambert
Miss Grainger
Wallace Bosco
A. R. P. Worker
Charles Paton
Ernie Brooks
Jane Millican
Susanna Foster
Michael Golden
Sergt. Smale
John Slater
Sergt. Len
Graham Moffatt
Sergt. Stuffy
Judith Furse
Dorothy Bird
Barbara Waring
Polly Finn
Jean Shepeard
Gwladys Swinton
Margaret Scudamore
Mrs Colpeper
Joss Ambler
Police Inspector
H.F. Maltby
Mr. Portal
Eric Maturin
Geoffrey's Father
Michael Powell
Director / Writer / Producer
Emeric Pressburger
Writer / Director / Producer
Erwin Hillier
Director of Photography
John Seabourne Sr.
Editor
Allan Gray
Original Music Composer
Alfred Junge
Production Design
George Paternoster
Boom Operator
Elliot Scott
Draughtsman
Harold Hurdell
Draughtsman
Jim Body
Clapper Loader
George Blackler
Makeup Artist
Ernest Gasser
Assistant Makeup Artist
Hilda Sheardown-Course
Hairstylist
George Maynard
Production Manager
Miss Johnstone
Set Dresser
Desmond Dew
Sound Recordist
C. C. Stevens
Sound Recordist
Alan Whatley
Sound Recordist
J.H. Kay
Sound Recordist
Alan Thorne
Sound Assistant
W. Percy Day
Modeling
Arthur Breton
Wardrobe Designer
Dorothy Edwards
Wardrobe Designer
Media.
Details.
Release DateAugust 21, 1944
StatusReleased
Running Time2h 5m
Content RatingNR
Genres
Last updated:
This Movie Is About.
Wiki.
A Canterbury Tale is a 1944 British film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger starring Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price and Sgt. John Sweet; Esmond Knight provided narration and played two small roles. For the post-war American release, Raymond Massey narrated and Kim Hunter was added to the film. The film was made in black and white, and was the first of two collaborations between Powell and Pressburger and cinematographer Erwin Hillier.
Much of the film's visual style is a mixture of British realism and Hillier's German Expressionist style that is harnessed through a neo-romantic sense of the English landscape. The concept that 'the past always haunts the present' in the English landscape was already part of English literary culture, e.g. in works by Rudyard Kipling such as Puck of Pook's Hill, and would become a notable trope for British novelists and film-makers from the 1960s. A Canterbury Tale takes its title from the 14th-century The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer and loosely uses Chaucer's theme of "eccentric characters on a religious pilgrimage" to highlight the wartime experiences of the citizens of Kent and encourage wartime Anglo-American friendship and understanding. Anglo-American relations were also explored in Powell and Pressburger's previous film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and in more detail in their subsequent film A Matter of Life and Death.