The Masters  
The Powell & Pressburger Pages

Dedicated to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and all the other people, both actors and technicians who helped them make those wonderful films.

A lot of the documents have been sent to me or have come from other web sites. The name of the web site is given where known. If I have unintentionally included an image or document that is copyrighted or that I shouldn't have done then please email me and I'll remove it.

I make no money from this site, it's purely for the love of the films.

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Reviews of A Canterbury Tale (1944)



Hit the target for
the prelude music.

Or try listening to the start of
the Toccata and Fugue

Discovering the magic
"I saw A Canterbury Tale again this morning for the third time, and I was astonished. It never was my favorite. I think the second time I saw it, I found parts slow and sometimes boring. Blimp and AMOLAD have always been my all-time favorites. But something changed this morning. It manages to balance a loving evocation of a bucolic life while hinting at the small-mindedness of such worlds. It presents a gripping mystery which, on the surface, seems to be about nothing more than a nutter pouring glue onto women's hair, yet that mystery grows into something much larger and grander. It tells the history of a single, newly excavated turn in the old pilgrim's road and manages to relate that to Britain and how it has changed over 600 years. It has that wonderful battle scene of the children in the boat. And it has that extraordinary closing sequence in Canterbury, about which no doubt books could be written. And throughout all this, nothing really happens. There is no on-screen romance, no one fights, no one gets killed, no one gets arrested, no great battles happens, there's not even an air-raid! The movie takes place over a couple of accidental days in the lives of a few people where minor rivers converge, and somehow, the sum of their parts is so much greater. No doubt in the lives these people live from here on out, they will always look back to this odd and unexpected excursion as something special but will not quite know why. That's what's so moving about this picture. It takes a few unheralded lives, over a few seemingly insignificant days, and shows us what is really grand in them. It really does defy catergorization."

Ranbir Sidhu, July, 2010

Reviews:-

Pictures from the PaPAS Gallery


Canterbury trips reports and pictures.


Other P&P reviews