STREAM ANYTIME with Prime Video from $9.99

FREE Returns

FREE delivery Wednesday, January 4

Arrives after Christmas. Need a gift sooner? Send an Amazon Gift Card instantly by email or SMS.

Only 10 left in stock - order soon.

[{"displayPrice":"$27.04","priceAmount":27.04,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"27","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"04","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"afjY0DwufQIeqqoXrOZaZIK4xGcRDv8U7TTvmDhLWgPqHvGs1gqwEEnpv5MmKyypmJRAROkqYeWAjI1PXJ7TjdhELCoyaFyQrfRI2kxXJMQw%2B7jLjaUaF6zd%2FsMvYI5Tq3hxfb%2BBv1X87znz63gTO%2By3%2FcPjb3Q4QVAswXX9xsUQBnowZuNQ2Q%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$17.99","priceAmount":17.99,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"17","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"kSv%2BR%2F5SMDFYK9IV0FX3JbzcEohKOr1tF4WIF1ZjTkV%2FB%2FVrIN12OMpHARh0CVmI7ggBIfc3idCczwD8s4T2ptuXkNN7sR9Az5fBPtNK0i%2B6jK8KKjm49MBohbj6AexEWFCxjiljjFxPrlE55nSxPuFbO6QxGE6VNpmIXCoa5ofBjAEt7HYep1LJTv8aVayi","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$27.04 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon

Sold by

westcoastmedia

Details

Ships from

Amazon

Sold by

westcoastmedia

Return policy: Returnable until Jan 31, 2023

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Original case and disk is included. Disk is in good condition and functional. We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24/7 customer service. Free 2-Day shipping with Amazon Prime!

FREE delivery Thursday, January 5 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Arrives after Christmas. Need a gift sooner? Send an Amazon Gift Card instantly by email or SMS.

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$27.04 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Enhancements you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Sold by Zoom Books Company and Fulfilled by Amazon.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$24.95
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: spinship

Added

Not added

$24.98
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: WonderBook

Added

Not added

$29.99
& FREE Shipping. Details

Sold by: Amazon.com

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available
To view this video download Flash Player

A Canterbury Tale (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Eric Portman (Actor), Sheila Sim (Actor), David Thompson (Director), Rated:

Unrated

Format: DVD

266 ratings

IMDb6.7/10.0

-32% $27.04

List Price: $39.95

FREE Returns

Additional DVD options

Edition

Discs

Price

New from

Used from

DVD
September 13, 2016

"Please retry"

—

$9.99

$10.97

DVD
July 25, 2006

"Please retry"

The Criterion Collection

$27.04

$24.95

$12.37

DVD

"Please retry"

—

$10.50

$14.03

Watch Instantly with

Rent

Buy

A Canterbury Tale

$3.99

$9.99

Enhance your purchase

Genre	Drama
Format	Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Multiple Formats, Dolby
Contributor	Betty Jardine, Eliot Makeham, David Thompson, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, John Sweet, George Merritt, Edward Rigby, Eric Portman, Freda Jackson, Esmond Knight, Dennis Price, Sheila Sim, Hay Petrie, Charles Hawtrey See more
Language	English
Runtime	2 hours and 4 minutes

Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.

Frequently bought together

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

by Eric Portman DVD
$27.04
Only 10 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by westcoastmedia and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Jan 4
by Wendy Hiller DVD
$18.90
Only 5 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by megahitrecords and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 5
by Leslie Howard DVD
$29.99
Only 9 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Jan 4

Customers also search

Page 1 of 1Page 1 of 1

Product Description

Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price. Inspired by it's medieval namesake, this unusual British film from the writing/directing team of Powell and Pressburger depicts the unexpected journey of a justice of the peace, a shop girl-turned-farmer and two soldiers during the war. 2 DVDs. 1944/b&w/124 min/NR/fullscreen.

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 6.4 Ounces
Item model number ‏ : ‎ CRRN1639DVD
Director ‏ : ‎ David Thompson, Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Media Format ‏ : ‎ Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Multiple Formats, Dolby
Run time ‏ : ‎ 2 hours and 4 minutes
Release date ‏ : ‎ July 25, 2006
Actors ‏ : ‎ Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price, John Sweet, Esmond Knight
Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 1.0), Unqualified
Studio ‏ : ‎ Criterion Collection
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FILVNM
Writers ‏ : ‎ Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2

Best Sellers Rank: #26,785 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #4,779 in Drama DVDs

Customer Reviews:
266 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		63%
4 star		13%
3 star		11%
2 star		10%
1 star		3%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

"Do You Believe In The Soul?"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2006

Verified Purchase

It doesn't have the instant charm of I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, and Sheils Sim, the ingenue whose first film role this was, doesn't have the swanky, leading lady adorableness that Wendy Hiller radiates in IKWIG, and yet when all is said and done it may be A CANTERBURY TALE that you'll remember longer.

If you are new to Michael Powell's work you might want to watch THE RED SHOES or PEEPING TOM right away, maybe BLACK NARCISSUS. His other movies take a little getting used to, as most of them are genuinely odd. And perhaps nothing is as odd as the storyline of A CANTERBURY TALE, in which eleven young women have been molested at night by a fleeting stranger in Home Guard uniform pouring glue in their hair during the blackout. Okay, that's weird, but what's even stranger is that right away we find out who the culprit is, and the suspense is going to be, will the three pilgrims let him off the hook or not?

On the commentary track, Sheila Sim, now 80 something and still very sharp and lovely, recalls an earlier version of the script in which the "Glueman" didn't use glue at all, but rather ran around ripping girls' skirts with a pair of scissors, and in her recollection this aspect was changed because of its sexual connotations. Interesting that Powell thought of the glue-on-hair scheme since he was the film world's greatest hair fetishist, just as Cecil B. DeMille had a thing for feet. Sim relates that it wasn't until she read Powell's memoirs A LIFE IN MOVIES did she realize he was bitterly disappointed that Deborah Kerr had ankled the part, and that she (Sim) was not even a close second. But I think by the end of the film her performance is so beautiful it makes you happy Kerr stayed home and did something else instead. All of them are good, but of course the jewel in the crown is the performance of John Sweet as the American sergeant Bob Johnson, with his little slits for eyes and his mountain of fried hair and his incomparable aura of sincerity, as though America was both the youngest and the oldest nation in the world. There's nobody like him in the movies, not even Henry Fonda in YOUNG MR LINCOLN or James Stewart in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN or Burl Ives in FROSTY THE SNOWMAN is anywhere near as folksy as the amazing Mr. Sweet.

Eric Portman could be a killer, he's so cold and grim. When he and Sheila Sim share a "secret understanding," the movie seems to be all about carnal love and the way it flip flops into the spiritual. Their scene, hiding in the heather on top of a hill, is the centerpiece of a modern morality tale. The film opens windows in the soul. It has a little knock in it, like a motor car. A CANTERBURY TALE has been beautifully restored; you can see every drop of glue in Sheils Sim's side-parted hair. Haven't seen them all, but I'd say this might be the best DVD of summer 2006.

22 people found this helpful

Helpful

Tim Lukeman

A blessing for all perceptive viewers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 1, 2013

Verified Purchase

As time goes by, this increasingly becomes my favorite film by the Archers -- all of whose films are glorious works of art. But the subtle, multi-layered beauty & spirit of this paean to England & the spirit of place it captures becomes more moving each time I see it. The fact that it's leavened with humor & a deceptively light touch makes it all the more serious in the end, as we follow our contemporary Canterbury pilgrims to their individual blessings & inner realizations.

The plot is simplicity itself, really just a loose connecting thread to bind together deeply felt & realized moments: historical, emotional, spiritual. As our American & British sergeants, accompanied by their Land Girl companion, attempt to solve the secret of the (not so) mysterious Glue Man who's been frightening local women, we're gradually initiated into a sense of time & tradition that stretches back centuries, and still permeates the present for those with the sensitivity to glimpse it. This is made quietly, powerfully clear by the key scene for me, with Colpepper (essentially the semi-mystical guardian of the mysteries) & Alison alone on the downs, where the presence of the past is palpable, and both achieve a personal illumination & a mutual rapport.

There's so much at work here, yet it's never overt or heavy-handed -- in fact, it's the last thing you'd expect from a film that began as WWII propaganda, promoting understanding between Britain & America. But the fierce intelligence & artistic imagination of its creators wrought a cinematic miracle, one that was little understood at the time, but has since gained in stature. The film is many things, but the one that strikes closest to my own heart is its evocation of a truly meaningful life, one informed by the earth, its history, its traditions, its life. It asks the viewer to consider that contemporary life may well be superficial, moving at too fast a pace for contemplation & genuine human feeling. In this it's all the more relevant today!

I've used words like "mystical" & "spiritual" in this review. I don't mean them in any strictly denominational sense, but as poetic terms, a means of hinting at something that can't entirely be put into words. Fair warning to some viewers: this is not your typical film, certainly not a summer blockbuster, driven by plot & action & a flashy surface. Instead, it's a meditation, perhaps even a prayer of praise, that invites you in & offers something better & far more authentic than frenetic, fleeting sensation. I know, all this sounds a bit vague ... but it's tone, atmosphere, fineness of feeling, that truly matter here. If I did have to choose just one word to describe it, that word would be "visionary" -- it's a film with the pastoral, magical sensibility of William Morris. Most highly recommended!

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

T. G. Evans

Brings a Lump to your Throat

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

A moving Powell and Pressburger wartime propaganda film that shows a Britain that has long vanished. Excellent acting, direction and editing. The cinematography is superb - framing, panning and close-ups. I wondered why Dennis Price's character spoke with a plummy accent but the story reveals why towards the end. The casting is excellent bearing in mind wartime conditions; many actors away on active service or unavailable with other commitments. The location is a real village out of a picture postcard. Eric Portman excels as the local Squire. Sheila Sim refreshes the all-male principal cast with her cheery portrayal of a shop-girl with a country background. I liked John Sweet as the American GI; the script allowed him to portray the Anglo-American culture-clash effectively. The English accents are impeccably RP - standard for the period and incongruous for some characters - except for the Kentish accent of the locals. The link with Chaucer's pilgrims of the medieval period and the modern ones in uniform gives an historical perspective to this modern tale that ends at Canterbury Cathedral. The combination of emotions created in the final scene, as the modern pilgrims reach the goal of their pilgimage, brought a lump to my throat - the hallmark of a superb production.

16 people found this helpful

schumann_bg

past and present touch and dissolve the divide

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

Films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger can start out a shade confusingly, and A Canterbury Tale certainly does, with very low lighting which makes the arrival of a train at a station in Kent seem more like a radio play. The voices initially seem indistinct and it takes a quarter of an hour to settle into a rhythm ... but once it does, what a marvellous experience it is: full of humanity, feeling for the English landscape, some quality of Englishness hard to define but unmistakable. Most remarkable of all is the periodic opening out into spiritual epiphanies that are so unexpected they give a surge of joy to the viewer. These directors are always on the cusp of strangeness, and right from the opening the film, set in 1943, is concerned with someone in an army uniform who is pouring glue on girls' heads. The four main actors are all fantastic - an English sergeant who has been drafted into the army, who had been a cinema organist; a girl who has come to work on the land (in the Women's Land Army) while reliving a time spent in the same village with her boyfriend, now lost in action; a magistrate; and an American Army sergeant, played by the real-life Sergeant John Sweet, who is the most memorable of all, perhaps. He isn't even an actor, yet he lights up the screen with his natural, disarming presence and warmth. Sheila Sim is also remarkable, showing a feistiness that is quite common in young women in Powell and Pressburger films. In many ways it is quite similar to I Know Where I'm Going, where a young woman also in a situation of some emotional strain takes the bull by the horns and lands herself in a rural - but wilder - terrain, and some kind of spiritual renewal takes place almost imperceptibly. Towards the end the film moves to Canterbury and in effect the door opens and we see the bigger picture, amounting more or less to miraculous turns of events centring on the cathedral. A grace is achieved such as you find in Robert Bresson, but via different, far less austere means. It is quite something to feel this mystery still intact, but see the evidence so tangibly in the lives of these characters you have grown to care about.

10 people found this helpful

Lawrence Freiesleben

Their wishes and dreams become ours

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 13, 2010

Verified Purchase

(This review was originally written for Moviemail some years ago...but my view hasn't changed):

After the notorious reception that greeted Michael Powell's Peeping Tom in 1960, one reviewer asserting it should be flushed down the nearest available sewer, Powell's storm-tossed reputation seemed finally wrecked. For the rest of his life Powell (1905-1990), though valued by younger filmmakers, notably Martin Scorsese, was unable to get any major film projects off the ground. But films as distinctive and once so celebrated as Powell and Pressburger's couldn't stay obscure for long; their colours are just too vivid! By the time of the British Film Institute's list of 360 world film classics in the 90s, Powell was represented by six and a third films (a third for 1940's The Thief of Bagdad), including Peeping Tom. Unfortunately, perhaps because of its comparative black and white subtlety, A Canterbury Tale is not one of them.

In England, Powell and Pressburger were always regarded with a degree of suspicion. They were too brash, too Romantic, too European. When their reputation was reborn in the 80s it's not surprising that their most valued films would be those most obviously, colourfully, brilliant. A Canterbury Tale is a quiet, mystically tranquil symphony to the land, a rural accompaniment to the predominately urban film songs of Humphrey Jennings.

The plot may sound absurd, hinging as it does on the unmasking of the enigmatic `Glueman', but it is the depth of the film that counts. In A Canterbury Tale, depth is as far in the foreground as it's ever likely to be in what is a very accessible film. It's not, as has often been said, a reactionary retreat to nature or a nostalgic withdrawal into the past. Nature and rural crafts are clearly celebrated, but as historical facts, as the depth of where we come from. Time and memory and tradition are the indicators and gateway to a sense of timelessness. Personal associations of depth, such as in the lecture given by Colpeper, the messianic magistrate astonishingly lived by Eric Portman, "isn't the house you were born in the most interesting house in the world for you?", are likewise the gateways to a common universal depth. Far from being reactionary it is actually the most traditionalist aspects of some characters in A Canterbury Tale that are gently condemned. Colpeper's deepest instincts may be sincere, but at a social level his familiarity with the villagers he unconsciously considers his subjects, and the soldiers he wishes to convert, isn't real enough to prevent his aloofness from isolating him. Only when he begins to love personally does he have a chance to emerge from the harvest evening of his own making.

On our meandering journey, flowing as a slow river through the landscape, there is talk of medieval pilgrims, and of the traditions that unite U.S. soldier Bob Johnson with his English forbears. There are many stories and surfaces: the celebration of England past and present serves as war propaganda leavened with many authentic comic contrasts between yank and limey. There is a retrospective love story (beautifully conveyed by Sheila Sim) and the gradual enlightenment of Colpeper as well as a brief tale of cynical adaptation to artistic disillusionment in the modern world. All these strands are resolved at the end: the modern day pilgrims receive their blessings or as penance must return to twilit isolation. But the real story is in the depth. The real `story' is in the view of the vale looking across breezy sunny trees to the cathedral, is in the woods, grasses and clouds and how all these are envisioned in the minds of the characters. Their wishes and dreams become ours.

All our most valuable art works in ways such as this - by their quality of depth being able to chime with our own depth, our own personal memories and hopes. It is never escapism - quite the contrary, it is our normal daily way of life, of existing without sufficient attention to depth, that is the escape. In the escapist reality of modern society, dependant on apparent precise explanations, it isn't surprising that depth is undervalued or overlooked, or in the case of Powell and Pressburger's films, that the bolder Technicolor fantasies take precedence over A Canterbury Tale's ambience of unassuming depth. Despite being resistant to clear understanding, this depth remains always present in life or in art for anyone open enough to feel it and not be distracted too much by surfaces, or by beginning, middle, and end.

15 people found this helpful

C. JONES

A classic of its time that rewards perseverance

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 27, 2011

Verified Purchase

Powell and Pressburger's films have a unique style, and this is no exception. For me it's a film that rewards repeat viewing, as there are quite a lot of strands to follow that come together in the last sequence in Canterbury itself. You have to watch and listen quite closely to appreciate the film's philosophy, but to the patient viewer this makes for an enduring experience. The black and white photography makes very good use of light and shade, and the scenes of war-torn Canterbury, presumably very familiar to the film's original audience, now make an interesting snapshot of that moment in history.

If you're on the third glass and at the end of a long week, I would suggest putting this by for a quiet Sunday afternoon. It's a subtle story, and one with a spiritual dimension that can touch everyone.

2 people found this helpful

R. Wright

A Powell and Pressburger gem

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 5, 2011

Verified Purchase

During the Second World War, there were two forces competing for the hearts and minds of the British people, in seeking to motivate them to fight for victory against the Nazi threat. One was that of political radicalism, from the left, which offered a fairer world in the future, once the was was over. This was emplified by the Beveridge Report of 1942. The other was conservatism, from the right, which sought to remins people of the great traditions of the country (its great buildings and literature, for instance) which were under threat.
Films reflected these two forces, and one of Powell and Pressburger's gems, A Canterbury Tale, represents the conservative tradition. The plot, located in Kent, ostensibly centres around the mystery of a man who pours glue over the hair of village girls at night (for reasons that only become clear towards the end), and the efforts of two men (played by Dennis Price and John Sweet) and a landgirl (played by Sheila Sim) to find the culprit. Another major figure in the drama is the village 'bigwig' and magistrate, played by Eric Portman.
However, at a deeper level, there are hints and suggestions, and occasionally explicit celebrations (as in Portman's lecture to American troops) of the great artistic and literary heritage of this country . Chaucer;s Canterbury Tales, one of the oldest great works of English literature, and the great cathedral of Canterbury itself are both alluded to. The impression given in the film is that these are of eternal value, transcend temporal matters, and must at all costs be protected, a point underscored by the 'heavenly' music and sense of awe accompanying the first glimpse of Canterbury cathedral from a distance, and by Price's playing of the great organ of the cathedral towards the end of the film.
A highly fascinatinmg and unusual fim.

4 people found this helpful

See all reviews

Other Sellers on Amazon

A Canterbury Tale (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Enhance your purchase

Frequently bought together

Customers also search

Product Description

Product details

Videos

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries