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, Plex Player, Plex Channel, Amazon Video, The Roku Channel, Shout! Factory TV
Streaming in:🇺🇸 United States
This Movie Is About.
Cast & Crew.
Eric Portman
Thomas Colpeper, JP
Sheila Sim
Alison Smith
Dennis Price
Sergeant Peter Gibbs
John Sweet
Bob Johnson
Esmond Knight
Narrator (non-US versions)
Charles Hawtrey
Thomas Duckett
Hay Petrie
Woodcock
George Merritt
Ned Horton
Betty Jardine
Fee Baker
Edward Rigby
Jim Horton
Eliot Makeham
Organist
Parry Jones Jr.
Arthur / Third Assistant Director
Freda Jackson
Prudence Honeywood
Michael Powell
Director
Beresford Egan
P. C. Ovenden
Esma Cannon
Agnes
Emeric Pressburger
Director
Anthony Holles
Sergt. Bassett
Maude Lambert
Miss Grainger
Wallace Bosco
A. R. P. Worker
Charles Paton
Ernie Brooks
Allan Gray
Composer
Jane Millican
Susanna Foster
Erwin Hillier
Cinematographer
Michael Golden
Sergt. Smale
John Seabourne Sr.
Editor
John Slater
Sergt. Len
Graham Moffatt
Sergt. Stuffy
Alfred Junge
ProductionDesigner
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
Elliot Scott
Draughtsman
W. Percy Day
Modeling
George Maynard
Production Manager
George Blackler
Makeup Artist
C. C. Stevens
Sound Recordist
Ernest Gasser
Assistant Makeup Artist
Desmond Dew
Sound Recordist
George Paternoster
Boom Operator
Jim Body
Clapper Loader
Harold Hurdell
Draughtsman
Hilda Sheardown-Course
Hairstylist
Dorothy Edwards
Wardrobe Designer
Miss Johnstone
Set Dresser
Alan Whatley
Sound Recordist
J.H. Kay
Sound Recordist
Alan Thorne
Sound Assistant
Arthur Breton
Wardrobe Designer
Media.
Details.
Release DateAugust 21, 1944
StatusReleased
Running Time2h 4m
Genres
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.