It Happened Here

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It Happened Here
DVD cover for the film
Directed by	Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo
Produced by	Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo
Written by	Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo
Starring	Pauline Murray Sebastian Shaw Bart Allison Reginald Marsh
Music by	Anton Bruckner
Cinematography	Kevin Brownlow Peter Suschitzky
Editing by	Kevin Brownlow
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	May 1966 August 8 January 9, 1967 May 25 August 18
Running time	97 min.
Country	UK
Language	English/German
Budget	$20,000 (estimate)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

It Happened Here is a 1966 British film, set in an alternate history in which Nazi Germany successfully invades and occupies the United Kingdom during World War II. The film was directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo.

1 Production and staff
2 Film content
3 Release and criticism
4 Trivia
- 4.1 Errors
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Production and staff

The film was directed by Kevin Brownlow, who later became a prominent film historian, and Andrew Mollo, who was to become a leading military historian. Brownlow developed the concept of the film when he was eighteen, in 1956. He turned to Mollo, a sixteen-year-old history buff, to help him with the design of costumes and sets. Mollo was intrigued by the project, and became his collaborator.

The film was in the making for the next eight years, which the Guinness Book of World Records (as of 2003) calls the longest ever production schedule. It was shot in black and white on 16mm film, giving it a grainy, newsreel feel. The audio quality on the opening reel is rather poor, which makes the dialogue difficult to follow for the first few minutes. It had a cast of hundreds, all volunteers, with only two professional actors among them (Sebastian Shaw, Reginald Marsh).

The key role of Pauline, a nurse evacuated from Salisbury to London, was played by Pauline Murray, the Irish wife of a doctor in Wales. According to the IMDb website she was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 30 August 1922 and died on 31 December 1994 in Kington, England. Her only other film credit is, according to the IMDb, playing the part of "Marion", an Englishwoman, in the award winning 1948 Danish war film Støt står den danske sømand (Perilous Expedition) - about Danish sailors in the service of the Allies, which was directed by pioneer Danish film-maker Bodil Ipsen and by Lau Lauritzen. This movie won the award for "best Danish film" at the 1949 Danish film critics event - Bodil Festen, the Danish "Oscars", held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

According to DVD Times, Murray worked as a doctor's receptionist. DVD Times says that it is "...interesting to compare her to other British leading ladies of the time", in that the 1960s "‘Free Cinema’ movement spill[ed] over into features and a British New Wave...[led to]...films such as A Taste of Honey and Poor Cow." DVD Times points out that "...Tony Richardson’s Woodfall Film Productions (central to the new wave) stumped up the money to allow It Happened Here to be completed on a less amateur level, yet the results are quite different. Murray may share the resilience of a Rita Tushingham or Carol White, but she’s a tougher breed, altogether more human."

In a contemporary review of a showing of the movie at the Little Carnegie theatre at 146 West 57th Street in New York City, published in the New York Times on August 9, 1966, titled "If the Finest Hour Had Failed: Little Carnegie Offers 'It Happened Here' Occupation of England by Nazis Depicted", Bosley Crowther wrote "The acting by unfamiliar people is beautifully natural and restrained, particularly that of Pauline Murray in the principal role. Through her human and subtle generation of an ungrudging sympathy, one becomes involved in her dilemma and is caught up all the way in the despair, uncertainty and terror of her experiences."

Stanley Kubrick, who was intrigued by the project, donated film stock from Dr. Strangelove to Brownlow to help him finish the film. Most of the equipment used in the production was borrowed. Director Tony Richardson helped to pay for the final production. Though the cast was almost entirely amateur, It Happened Here helped to launch the career of its cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky, who went on to work on such films as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Empire Strikes Back.

[edit] Film content

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with the statement: "The German invasion of England took place in 1940 after the retreat from Dunkirk". Due to pressure from the eastern front, German troops are removed from England, and the garrisoning of England is largely carried out by British volunteers to the German army.

Meanwhile the US stations its seventh naval fleet off Ireland and begins bombing raids on the South West Coast of England as well as supplying men and equipment to a resurgent partisan movement. Whether Ireland itself is occupied by the Americans or Germans or manages to remain neutral is not made clear.

The story focuses on a young apolitical Irish nurse, Pauline. Following an upsurge in partisan activity in her town, she is forcibly evacuated from her village by the Nazis and their collaborators, and witnesses an attack on the fascist forces by a group of British partisans. During the attack a number of her friends from the village are killed. The attack, and more particularly the deaths, later influences her views and the decisions.

She escapes to London, where she reluctantly becomes a collaborator, joining the "Immediate Action Organisation" (IAO) a kind of quasi-paramilitary medical corps of the ruling fascist party of England. She is re-trained as an ambulance attendant of the IAO. As in Germany's NASDAP, the IAO is a highly paramilitary organization intent on standardisation and discipline. Although at first reluctant and intent on remaining apolitical, Pauline begins to show the effects of indoctrination in her behaviour. It is a reunion with old friends (an antifascist doctor and his wife) that gives Pauline pause. Gradually she learns more about about the impacts of the Nazi occupation. She sees her friends imprisoned for harboring an injured partisan and sees racist treatment of the Jews under German rule.

In the end of the film, Pauline discovers that she has unwittingly taken part in a euthanasia program and killed a group of foreign slave laborers who have contracted tuberculosis (portrayed by real patients with tuberculosis). The film ends with Pauline being captured and forced to work for the partisans as they retake England.

In the finale, Pauline witnesses the execution of a large group of Germans and collaborators, reminiscent of the Nazi massacre of a group of English villagers who failed to follow orders to evacuate their village. Particularly in this final scene the film shows its neutrality. The Allies are not glorified, nor are the Fascists particularly vilified.

[edit] Release and criticism

After eight years of production, the film's initial release was stormy. Many people were upset by the idea that the villains in the story were not normally Nazis but their British collaborators. The film seemed to be saying that fascism can rise anywhere under the right circumstances, and that people everywhere could fall under its spell.

Research prior to the film from various Nazi-occupied territories including the Channel Islands suggested that this was indeed the case. Jewish groups protested the inclusion of seven minutes of footage of British postwar fascist leader Colin Jordan, speaking against the Jews and for euthanasia. In response, seven minutes of the film were cut from the original release, though these were restored thirty years later, after Brownlow regained the rights to the film. Critics claim the inclusion of this material gives a platform to unapolegetic neo-nazis despite the films strongly anti-nazi theme.

Bibliography of works referring to "It Happened Here"^[1])

Amateur Cine World vol.20 no.4 [August 1956] p.359 [UK] illustrated production notes [Swastika over London]
Amateur Cine World vol.8 no.18 [29 October 1964] p.577 [UK] review
Amateur Film Maker vol.2 no.9 [April 1961] p.8 [UK] article
American Cinematographer vol.38 no.7 [July 1957] p.454 [USA] article
American Cinematographer vol.47 no.3 [March 1966] p.190 [USA] production notes
American Cinematographer vol.80 no.9 [September 1999] pp.20, 22, 24 [USA] illustrated article [Revisiting a fictional past by David E. Williams]
L'Avant-Scène du Cinéma no.66 [January 1967] pp.59-62 [France] credits, synopsis
Cahiers du Cinéma no.168 [July 1965] p.62 [France] review
Cahiers du Cinéma no.188 [March 1967] p.64 [France] review
Cinéaste vol.6 no.4 [January 1975] pp.36-37 [USA] review
Cinéma no.91 [December 1964] p.32 [France] review
Cinéma no.113 [February 1967] pp.98-101; 120-122 [France] article; review
Classic Images no.300 [June 2000] pp.43-44 [USA] video review [Video Views by John Nangle]
Classic Images no.302 [August 2000] pp.30-31 [USA] video review [Sam Rubin's Classic Clinic by Sam Rubin]
Eyepiece vol.17 no.5 [October 1996] p.31 [UK] note
Film vol.15 no.51 [18 December 1960] p.3 [Poland] article
Film (BFFS) no.32 [July 1962] p.26 [UK] note
Film (BFFS) no.41 [January 1965] p.28 [UK] review
Film Daily vol.128 no.152 [8 August 1966] p.15 [USA] review
Films and Filming vol.11 no.4 [January 1965] p.52 [UK] review
Films and Filming vol.12 no.10 [July 1966] p.8 [UK] review
Films and Filming vol.22 [August 1976] pp.38-39 [UK] review [by Derek Elley]
Films in Review vol.17 no.9 [November 1966] p.592 [USA] review
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television vol.20 no.2 [June 2000] pp.227-251 [USA] illustrated article [Kevin Brownlow's historical films: It Happened Here [1965] and Winstanley [1975] by John C. Tibbetts]
The Hollywood Reporter vol.191 no.47 [8 August 1966] p.3 [USA] review
Jeune Cinéma no.19 [December 1966] p.39 [France] review
Kine Weekly no.3058 [12 May 1966] pp.7; 15 [UK] note; review
Monthly Film Bulletin vol.33 no.389 [June 1966] p.88 [UK] credits, synopsis, review
Monthly Film Bulletin vol.43 [June 1976] p.127 [UK] review [by Geoff Brown]
Motion Picture Herald vol.236 no.7 [17 August 1966] p.579 [USA] review
The Nation vol.268 [25 January 1999] pp.43-44 [USA] review [Parades gone by by Stuart Klawans]
Positif no.81 [February 1967] p.63 [France] review
Sight and Sound vol.34 no.1 [December 1964] p.38 [UK] review
Sight and Sound vol.34 no.3 [July 1965] p.138 [UK] article
Sight and Sound vol.4 no.9 [September 1994] p.60 [UK] video review
Video Watchdog no.64 [2000] pp.49-50 [USA] review [by Rebecca Umland and Sam Umland]
The Village Voice vol.44 [12 January 1999] p.98 [USA] review [by J. Hoberman]
British National Film Catalogue vol.4 [June 1967] credits

[edit] Trivia

Near the end of the film a partisan general is seen reading a newspaper which carries the headline "peace and liberation". The newspaper in this scene is actually a copy of the real-life Guernsey Evening Press published on liberation day.
A number of the extras in the film were members of British science fiction fandom, and a portion was previewed at a science fiction convention in Peterborough. [1]

[edit] Errors

In one scene during a rest-break while working at "immediate action organisation" Pauline is seen flicking through magazines vainly looking for any article not related to military campaigns when the background music on the radio is suddenly interrupted for a political speech. She gets up and turns the radio dial only to find all the other radio stations are either playing military music or carrying similar speeches in other languages eventually she gives up and switches off the radio and goes back to reading as one of her superiors walks over to the radio and (casting a disapproving glance towards Pauline) switches back on the radio which somehow is instantly back on the original station carrying the political speech.