Canterbury Tale (A)
- Director: Michael Powell; Emeric Pressburger
- Writer: Michael Powell; Emeric Pressburger
- Producer: Jock Laurence; Michael Powell
CGiii Comment
Wow...this is a weird one.
We here at CGiii adore Powell & Pressburger.
But...this is difficult.
Terribly English, terribly moral, terribly rural...and, with a madman who throws glue all over the heads of unsuspecting girls in the mix...it all becomes terribly surreal.
There must be a message hidden amid all the subtext and innuendo...
There is a character who can't wait to get his hands on a big organ...!
Whatever that message is...we couldn't find it.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
A 'Land Girl', an American GI, and a British soldier find themselves together in a small Kent town on the road to Canterbury. The town is being plagued by a mysterious "glue-man", who pours glue on the hair of girls dating soldiers after dark. The three attempt to track him down, and begin to have suspicions of the local magistrate, an eccentric figure with a strange, mystical vision of the history of England in general and Canterbury in particular.
Cast & Characters
Eric Portman as Thomas Colpeper, JP;
Sheila Sim as Alison Smith;
Dennis Price as Peter Gibbs;
John Sweet as Bob Johnson;
Esmond Knight as Narrator / Seven-Sisters Soldier / Village Idiot;
Charles Hawtrey as Thomas Duckett;
Hay Petrie as Woodcock;
George Merritt as Ned Horton;
Edward Rigby as Jim Horton;
Freda Jackson as Prudence Honeywood;
Betty Jardine as Fee Baker;
Eliot Makeham as Organist;
Harvey Golden as Sergt. Roczinsky;
Leonard Smith as Leslie;
James Tamsitt as Terry