Trivia / A Canterbury Tale

• Acting for Two: Esmond Knight as The Narrator, the Seven-Sisters Soldier and the Village Idiot.
• Cast the Expert: John Sweet was not a professional actor, but a real-life army sergeant stationed with the American forces in wartime England. He donated his salary from the film to the NAACP. This was his only feature film role; he died in 2011, at age 95.
• Darkhorse Casting: All three leads were unknowns.
• Executive Meddling: With the war over Michael Powell was forced by the studio to completely re-edit the film for the U.S. release, cutting over 20 minutes to make the film shorter and faster moving, adding narration by Raymond Massey, and filming "bookends" which introduced Kim Hunter as Sergeant Johnson's girlfriend to make the film more contemporary.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: James Tamsitt had a haircut to make him look tidy before he went to London with Leonard Smith and David Todd to do some scenes at Denham Studio. Unfortunately, his new haircut didn't match the unruly mop he had in scenes filmed on location, so he had to wear a wig.
• What Could Have Been: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had originally planned to use Burgess Meredith in the role of Sgt. Bob Johnson, but changed their minds in favor of an unknown. Meredith acted as a script editor for Johnson's character.

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