DVD details for
A Canterbury Tale (1944) More at IMDbPro »

(1944) Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger re-imagine Chaucer's medieval pilgrims as World War II-era travelers in his delicate drama of three strangers -- a melancholy but determined "land girl" from the city (Sheila Sim), an abrasive British sergeant (Dennis Price), and a plainspoken American GI (Sergeant John Sweet, in his only film appearance ever) -- who are waylaid in picaresque English village and band together to solve a mystery. Set in 1943, in the lead-up to D-Day, there is an elemental sense of magic in place of the usual wartime drama as the three pilgrims find what they want, or what they need, at the end of their journey to Canterbury. Eric Portman lords over the village in his most genial performance as a troubled squire with old-fashioned ideas of propriety and duty -- he, too, learns something on the road to Canterbury. Lovely and loving, even through its darker moments, it's an understated love letter to Powell's birthplace of Kent.