A Canterbury Tale [2 Discs] [Criterion Collection]

One of the most puzzling and offbeat movies to come out of World War II was A Canterbury Tale, a bizarre adaptation of the famous long poem by 14th century English author Geoffrey Chaucer. Made in 1944 and set in the Nazi-threatened Britain of those years, the film centers on a British soldier, an American soldier, and a female shopkeeper in wartime Britain who journey to the Canterbury Cathedral and find their lives changed by the trip. Extremely unusual cinematic techniques and plotting are the mark of the directorial-screenwriting team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A Canterbury Tale was one of their many collaborative efforts, which included The Forty-Ninth Parallel, The Red Shoes, and such wry World War II comedy-dramas as Stairway To Heaven. A Canterbury Tale skewers British authorities and uses a real American GI (Bob Johnson) in one of its lead roles. It met with criticism in Britain but was hailed in the United States, though most American audiences saw an inferior, shortened version.