It Happened Here (1965)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Directors:

Kevin Brownlow
Andrew Mollo

Writers:

Kevin Brownlow (story) and
Andrew Mollo (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

8 August 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

What would have happened if the German army had crossed the English channel

Plot:

It is the Second World War. The Nazis have invaded Britain. There is a split between the resistance...

Plot Keywords:

Resistance | Nazi | Nurse | Adolf Hitler | Friend

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

Pauline Murray	...	Pauline
Sebastian Shaw	...	Doctor Richard Fletcher
Bart Allison	...	Skipworth
Reginald Marsh	...	IA Medical Officer
Frank Bennett	...	IA Political Leader
Derek Milburn
Nicolette Bernard	...	IA Woman Commandant
Nicholas Moore	...	IA Group Leader Moorfield
Rex Collett	...	IA NCO
Michael Passmore
Peter Dineley	...	German Officer
Barrie Pattison
Honor Fearson	...	Honor Hutton
Ronald Phillips
Frank Gardner
Bertha Russell	...	Matron
Miles Halliwell	...	IA Political Lecturer
Chris Slaughter
Carole James	...	IA Girl (as Carol James)
Pat Sullivan
Pat Kearney
Bill Thomas	...	IA Group Leader
Stella Kemball	...	Nurse Drayton
Ralph Wilson	...	Dr. Walton
Fiona Leland	...	Helen Fletcher
Alfred Ziemen	...	German Officer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Graham Adam	...	S.S. Officer (uncredited)
Claire Allen	...	1-A Girl (uncredited)
Christopher Bell	...	(uncredited)
Percy Binns	...	Immediate Action Commandant (uncredited)
Bruce Burn	...	(uncredited)
Brewster Cross	...	American Officer (uncredited)
Jeremy Dacon	...	British Medical Officer (uncredited)
Norbert Dingeldein	...	(uncredited)
Peter Elkins	...	(uncredited)
Richard Golding	...	(uncredited)
Jefferson Grieves	...	Partisan, German Trooper (uncredited)
John Herrington	...	Dr. Westerman (uncredited)
Jim Joslyn	...	(uncredited)
Karl Heinz Kreiseler	...	German Soldier (uncredited)
Fritz Kule	...	German Sargeant (uncredited)
Alvar Liddell	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Jim Linwood	...	(uncredited)
Susan Lionnel	...	(uncredited)
Werner Mallé	...	German Officer (uncredited)
Gustav Mekke	...	German Soldier (uncredited)
Michael Mellinger	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Andrew Mollo	...	(uncredited)
Anthony L. Oliver	...	(uncredited)
Rose Paddon	...	(uncredited)
Bob Parker	...	(uncredited)
George Parker	...	(uncredited)
Frank Phillips	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Colonel Pickering	...	British Partisan Officer (uncredited)
Hans Joachim Schmidl	...	(uncredited)
John Snagge	...	Announcer (uncredited)
Klaus Umjo	...	(uncredited)
Peter Urbe	...	S.S. Officer (uncredited)
Peter Watkins	...	(uncredited)
H.G. White	...	(uncredited)
Rae Wills	...	(uncredited)

Directed by
Kevin Brownlow
Andrew Mollo

Writing credits
Kevin Brownlow		story and screenplay and
Andrew Mollo		screenplay
Dinah Brooke		(treatment collaborator) &
Jonathan Ingrams		(treatment collaborator)

Produced by
Kevin Brownlow	....	producer
Andrew Mollo	....	producer

Cinematography by
Kevin Brownlow
Peter Suschitzky

Film Editing by
Kevin Brownlow

Art Direction by
Andrew Mollo		(uncredited)
Jim Nicolson		(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Andrew Mollo

Sound Department
George Fisher	....	sound editor

Camera and Electrical Department
Kevin Brownlow	....	additional photographer: 16 mm
Don Long	....	camera equipment
Leslie Marr	....	camera equipment

Music Department
Leighton Lucas	....	music arranger: Bruckner excerpts (uncredited)

Other crew
Alice Brooke-Howard	....	production assistant
Rosemary Claxton	....	production assistant
Prince Marshall	....	production assistant
Andrew Mollo	....	military consultant
Joanna Roeber	....	production assistant
Graham Samuels	....	production assistant
Pat Sullivan	....	production assistant

Production Companies

• Rath Films

Distributors

• Lopert Pictures Corporation (1966) (USA) (theatrical)
• Image Entertainment (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Milestone Film & Video (2001) (USA) (VHS)
• United Artists Films (1967) (Finland) (theatrical)

Runtime:

USA:93 min | USA:97 min (director's cut)

Country:

UK

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Belsize Square, Hampstead, London, England, UK

Company:

Rath Films

Trivia:

Kevin Brownlow was 19 years old and Andrew Mollo was 16 when they began work on this film.

Quotes:

Doctor Richard Fletcher: The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in It Happened Here Again (1976)

A masterpiece

'It Happened Here' is the only British war film which gives a true and accurate idea of what war is about: it is about civilians.

All war films, with the exception of this one and a tiny handful of others, deal with boys in their uniforms shooting at each other in glorious Technicolour. The army obey codes of engagement and the goodies win. We identify with the heroes and frown at the villains, we feel sad when the second-stringer dies and exhilarated when the actor with the comic role survives, and so on.

Civilians have no such luxury under occupation. This film deals with the dilemmas of surviving. with having to collaborate to a varying extent in order to earn a living, in fact with the real dilemmas which only those who lived through the Nazi occupation can truly understand. Collaboration is a slippery slope, well handled in the film as it is too in the French film 'Lacombe Lucien', where a feckless young man, rebuffed by the resistance, slips almost accidentally into collaboration for a bit of an adventure and some status.

A recent article in the London press explained that the lengthy disquisition on the necessity of fascism in occupied Britain, as voiced by an English militiaman in the film, was in fact a pro-fascist argument put forward by a real leading British fascist, who made use of the film to expound his views. Within the context of the film, the views are seductively subversive and dangerously convincing. Think Goebbels when he presented the war against Russia as a European effort to eliminate the Bolshevist menace. This argument appealed to many 'right-thinking' people in occupied Europe as, barely a couple of years after the war, many right-thinking people thought that the communist menace should be eliminated.

As a result of the filmed fascist diatribe, United Artists ordered Brownlow to remove this section (6 minutes, I think) and the film was originally screened without it.

When the resistance to foreign occupation in Iraq is labelled terrorism, well, that is exactly what the German occupiers said about all resistance movements in Europe. Resistance movements included brigands, double-agents and ruthless operators as well as heroes. At the end of the war, these movements settled scores with collaborators and presumed collaborators, with unofficial executions running into the tens of thousands.

Nothing wrong then, in having the British resistance in this film shown as behaving mercilessly. That is what real war is about and if we can't identify with it, then so much the better for those of us who never had to identify with an armed occupation either.