A Canterbury Tale

This is an obscure Powell and Pressburger film from the 1940's, via my LoveFilm subscription. A G.I. Sergent, his British counterpart and a Land Army girl try to solve the mysterious attacks of the "Glueman" in a Kent village.

The film is less about the mystery of who is attacking young women by pouring glue on their hair and more about the effect the war is having on the individuals and the country at the time (Canterbury was bombed in 1943 as part of the so-called Baedeker raids). It's also a big slice of nostalgia, showing a world that was fast disappearing even before the war.

The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp

If I'm a bit lax prioritising my LoveFilm subscription, it occasionally throws up a DVD I'm not expecting. This time it was a Powell & Pressburger classic.

It tells the story of a old general harking back to a bygone age, while trying to fight a new kind of war. The film is meant to be sentimental, melancholy and nostalgic, but sometimes I think it's just sad. Blimp has illusions about war that are not shared even by his friends and is clearly out of his depth. Apparently, Churchill didn't like it (possibly because he thought Blimp was a caracature of himself) and tried to have it banned.