OK, so, Thursday night, and I’m looking for something to watch on one of my streaming services. I’m looking through The Criterion Channel’s catalog when I come across A Canterbury Tale. The title sounds vaguely familiar, so it might be on the Fill-in Filmography. But then I read the plot summary, it says something about a trio of folks on their way to Canterbury, just like Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous work, and for the life of me, I just decided right then and there that I was going with this one.
I am incredibly glad I did.
Late at night at the village train station for the village of Chillingbourne, three strangers disembark. It’s World War II, so there’s a blackout order in effect, but stepping out into the dark are British Sergeant Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), who is looking to join up with his unit at a base outside the village; former shop girl Allison Smith (Shelia Sim), who was sent there by the government to work off the land for a local farmer; and American Sergeant Bob Johnson (actual US Army Sergeant John Sweet), who got off the train by mistake because he doesn’t understand English customs. The local Justice of the Peace Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman) pretty much runs the town, so the three are told to go see him at the city hall. En route, someone hits Allison’s hair with some glue. It’s the infamous “glue man,” a man who has been doing this to young women for the past few weeks.
And that’s the mystery of the movie. Peter, Allison, and Bob all decide to look into the mystery of the glue man. No one has been murdered or anything. It’s at worst a nuisance that the local authorities, possibly because the constables are generally a bit intimidated by Colpeper, a man who isn’t all that cruel or anything. He just really wants to impress on people the importance of the local history in this small village that sat on the road that goes to Canterbury, the very place the three provisional detectives will eventually end up, all while trying to maintain some moral discipline since he initially tries to send Alicia away. Can these three find the glue man? And what should they do with him?
This one was a nice change of pace. It’s a low key story, often humorous, many times when the locals either make assumptions about Bob or city girl Allison or Bob just plain doesn’t know how things work, but it never feels cruel. Each of the three brings a different skill to the table, and quite frankly, it isn’t much of a mystery. In fact, one of my general concerns with movies is why do people always seem to form couples. Well, despite the fact that Allison could probably end up with either Peter or Bob rather easily, the movie never goes that route. Both Bob and Allison have something they are smitten with elsewhere. In fact, Allison’s desire to go to Canterbury is because her soldier boyfriend might be there. There’s no love or romance to be found here. I actually found that kind of refreshing.
Likewise, the movie actually doesn’t end with the glue man’s identity unmasked. Instead, the last half-hour has Peter, Allison, and Bob arriving in Canterbury where their experiences in Chillingbourne and their respective pasts all seem to come together where each gets something special and good. Made in the middle of the second World War, and even with soldiers and military men on display, there’s little talk of the war itself, no real violence, and something of, if not a happy ending, then something that might even be considered some degree of spiritual fulfillment. You know, I wasn’t sure what I was going to expect when I found this one, but I can safely say it wasn’t this, and I am really glad it was.
Grade: A
0 Comments