The Ribald Tales of Canterbury is a final gasp of the Golden Age’s literary ambition. It assumes the audience has read Chaucer—or at least remembers the Cliff Notes. It trusts its audience to understand the joke of a “revel” gone wrong. This is erotica for the VHS renter who also watched PBS’s The Canterbury Tales (1972) and thought, “This needs more nudity.” For modern collectors, finding a clean copy of The Ribald Tales of Canterbury (1985) is a holy grail quest. The film was originally distributed by VCA Pictures (a major player of the era) on VHS and Betamax. It was briefly transferred to DVD in the early 2000s under the “Collector’s Series” label, though those prints were often pan-and-scan, cropping the lush widescreen framing.
Most adult films treat plot as a necessary annoyance. Ribald Tales treats the plot as the main event. One segment, a direct parody of The Miller’s Tale (the story of the carpenter, his young wife, and the clerk Absolon), plays out as pure farce. The infamous scene involving a “kiss” through a window—which in Chaucer involves a bare backside—is translated to screen with a slapstick timing that Buster Keaton would appreciate. The actors commit to the physical comedy before the physical intimacy, making the explicitness feel like the punchline to a very old joke. The Ribald Tales Of Canterbury -1985- -Classic-
In the vast shadow of Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales , lies a peculiar, forgotten stepchild of the home video era: The Ribald Tales of Canterbury (1985) . For decades, this title has languished in the dusty bins of “adult content” and cult obscurity. Yet, to dismiss it as mere pornography is to miss the point entirely. This film is a time capsule—a loving, hilarious, and surprisingly literary attempt to translate Chaucer’s bawdiest stories into a distinctly 1980s visual language. The Ribald Tales of Canterbury is a final
For collectors of classic adult cinema, scholars of intertextual parody, and fans of pre-internet erotic humor, The Ribald Tales of Canterbury is not just a film; it is a hilarious, costumed, and unapologetically smutty piece of art. Directed by the enigmatic Bud Lee (a prolific figure in the Golden Age of Porn, alongside icons like Radley Metzger), the film strips Chaucer’s framework down to its essential, base components. Gone is the religious pageantry of Thomas à Becket. In its place, we find a group of weary travelers—a Miller, a Wife, a Knight, a Squire, and a Pardoner—sheltering in a tavern during a storm. This is erotica for the VHS renter who
is vulgar, ridiculous, and strangely innocent. It is the Middle Ages filtered through a Foghat record and a bottle of baby oil. For those brave enough to click play, Chaucer never sounded so dirty—nor laughed so hard. Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 - For Cult Enthusiasts) Tagline: “When thou canst not pay the Miller, thou payest the price.”
Current digital archives (legal and otherwise) host murky transfers, but the cult following remains active. Fans argue over the “director’s cut” vs. the “hard cut,” as several versions exist with varying levels of explicitness to bypass local censorship boards in 1985. If you are looking for hardcore efficiency, look elsewhere. The Ribald Tales of Canterbury is slow. The candlelight is dim. The wigs are obvious. The dialogue is delivered with a theatrical hamminess that borders on pantomime.