[citation needed] The adaptation covers eight of the 24 tales and contains abundant nudity, sex, and slapstick humour.

After men are caught having sex at a local inn, one is able to bribe his way out of trouble, but the other, poorer man is less fortunate: he is convicted of sodomy and sentenced to death.

Likewise, "The Cook's Tale" which is 58 lines is turned into a slapstick farce to give Ninetto Davoli a starring role.

Set in England in the Middle Ages, stories of peasants, noblemen, clergy and demons are interwoven with brief scenes from Chaucer's home life and experiences implied to be the basis for the Canterbury Tales.

All the stories are linked to the arrival of a group of pilgrims at Canterbury, among whom is the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, played by Pasolini himself.

Chaucer (played by Pasolini himself) enters through the gate and bumps into a heavy man covered in woad tattooing, injuring his nose.

The wife of Bath delivers long-winded monologues to disinterested listeners about her weaving skills and sexual prowess.

The Pardoner unsuccessfully attempts to sell what he claims are pieces of cloth from the sail of St. Peter's boat and the Virgin's veil.

After they are married, the merchant suddenly becomes blind, and insists on constantly holding on to his wife's wrist as consolation for the fact that he cannot see her.

Taking advantage of her husband's blindness, she meets with Damian inside of the tree, but is thwarted when the god Pluto, who has been watching over the couple in the garden, suddenly restores January's sight.

Fortunately for May, the goddess Persephone who also happens to be in the same garden fills her head with decent excuses to calm her husband's wrath.

When they meet the old woman, the summoner levies false charges against her and tells her that she must appear before the ecclesiastical court but says that if she pays him a bribe in the amount she owes, she will be excused.

Perkin, a Chaplin-esque fool who carries a cane and wears a hat resembling a bowler, steals food from bystanders and causes havoc.

Perkin is arrested and put in the stocks where he drunkenly sings The Ould Piper while bystanders and minstrels cheer and shout.

He notices that John has left for Osney so he goes next door to seduce his much younger wife Alison, who secretly detests him.

He and his homosexual friend Martin go to Alison later and serenade her with the ballad The Gower Wassail much to her and her now returned husband's chagrin.

Absolon is offended and runs to a blacksmith's shop where he borrows a hot poker, and then returns to the carpenter's house and asks for another kiss.

On their wedding night, the wife of Bath's fifth husband reads to her from a book denouncing the evils of historical women such as Eve and Xanthippe.

In Flanders, four young men spend their time carousing in a brothel that is full of prostitutes who specialize in BDSM and cleaning smegma.

While two of the youths wait by the treasure, a third (Dick the Sparrow) leaves for town, returning later with three casks of wine, two of which he has poisoned.

[3] Pier Paolo Pasolini was very unhappy during the production of this film as Ninetto Davoli was in the process of leaving him to marry a woman.

The background here is changed from open spaces and rolling hills to large bookcases and small windows showing only empty white.

[5] Atypical of a Pasolini film, he chose some of the finest British actors such as Hugh Griffith and Josephine Chaplin.

According to Mimmo Cattarnich who worked as the scenery photographer on the film, fights would often break out among the non-professional actors on set with knives and clubs.

[7] Pasolini chose actors from the outskirts on the edge of Bergamo because he considered the pure Lombard accent tainted by writers such as Giovanni Testori.

Molly in the Reeve's Tale and the naked women in Perkin's dream also have very noticeable tan lines from bikinis.

Pasolini shot, edited and dubbed a version of the Tale of Sir Thopas that was later removed from the film and lost.

In the deleted scene, the Host of the Tabard berates Chaucer for not being more lively and telling a tale of his own to the other guests.

In the story, Thopas is a gallant knight from Flanders who one day gets an erection after being visited in his dream by the Queen of Fairies.

For example, the Irish ballad Oxford City about a love triangle between a woman and two men that results in the spurned man getting revenge by poisoning the others parallels very closely the Miller's Tale.