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Cathedral City (1949)
Beautifully-filmed Canterbury travelogue set to sublime choral soundtrack.
Overview
A beautifully-shot portrait of Canterbury centring on the cathedral. It's a sometimes stodgy history lesson that rises to the sublime as the didactic commentary gives way to visual passages set to the rich sound of the cathedral choir. Voiceover and visuals alike constantly invoke the spiritual presence of history in the present though references to God are few and far between... Very Anglican!
Young director Don Chaffey went on to become a feature filmmaker, directing movies like Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C. and Pete's Dragon. Though it may have been offered to cinemas, the main intended outlet of this film was classrooms, for showing to schoolchildren on teachers' 16mm projectors. Producers Gaumont-British Instructional were long-established by this point as by far the UK's leading producers of educational films, with an extensive catalogue serving several parts of the curriculum. Cathedral City is typical of their output: technically impressive, impeccably professional and deeply conservative with a small 'c'.
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