About

After opening on a group of medieval pilgrims gaily making their way to Canterbury, a chilling match-cut takes us to the same road in the war-torn present, invoking a nostalgia for the beauty of “good old England”. In a town near Canterbury, three modern “pilgrims” – Bob (John Sweet), Peter (Dennis Price) and Alison (Sheila Sim) – are disturbed by the act of a notorious “glueman” who attacks girls at night. Their efforts to solve the mystery bring them to perplexing engagements with the eccentric Mr Colpeper (Eric Portman), a champion of rural Britain and its historical legacy, and lead them to mystical epiphanies in Canterbury. Honouring, as Powell put it, invisible personal fights and victories that are often overlooked, this rich tapestry of disappearing England virtues is Powell and Pressburger’s implicit defiance of predominant wartime narratives.