3/5 Great Alternative History
  by Lev A. Shmukler (Dallas, TX, USA)
Alternative history is a very challenging exercise.
Contemprorary filmmaking han easily handle it then it was when the "It Happened Here: History of Hitler's England" was made.
This movie does not tell full background itself but it is definetly great for those who know British history well.
Whoever, though, put the movie into VHS format did not "modernize" it--there are NO close-captions, or color. Re-creators of this movie probably could not emagine the DVD "extras" that tell the full background of the story.


5/5 It Happened Somewhere
  by Martin Asiner (Jersey City, NJ)
IT HAPPENED HERE is one of the most chilling and controversial films never to hit the public consciousness. It is the brainchild of Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo who spent eight years on the tightest of budgets to shoot an alternate history of the second world war. The Germans invaded England in 1940 and occupied it shortly. The viewer sees the action under a grainy style of camera work that might have been dictated by financial necessity but disturbingly original for that. Much of the film is a series of vignettes that portray life in England under Nazi rule. We see women and children machine gunned by grinning SS guards. We see the dirty grind of life under the jackboot. As I got involved in the story, I soon realized that these vignettes were to form a subtext that would become clear as the plot began to revolve slowly around an unemployed nurse (Pauline Murray) who needed to overcome her apolitical stance to join a nursing organization that was run by British traitors wearing SS style black uniforms. At first she tells herself that Britain has somehow to regroup itself and her being able to practice her profession must be a part of that. She even tells herself that it is morally acceptable to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the very atrocities that the viewer encounters. And it is precisely here that Brownlow and Mollo make their telling point that to acquiece to evil is to join that evil. Pauline now wears the black uniform of her nursing regiment. Still, she cannot so easily shed her morality. What we find astonishing and ultimately depressing are the numbers of fellow Brits who have no such difficulty. The numbers of German speaking soldiers are in the minority. Far more ubiquitous are the native English who can mouth phrases and philosophy that might have flowed from the vilest of anti-semitic propaganda films. Brownlow and Mello allow these English ample screen time to spout their obscenities all the while slowly pointing toward the moral regeneration of nurse Pauline. There is another subtext that is equally disturbing. While Pauline is discussing how close she came to being shot by British rebels fighting the Nazis, the man to whom she is speaking startles her by replying that to fight fascists one must fight like them. This second subtext reappears during the closing scenes which suggest that the easier it is for one to do that, the closer one is to the fascist himself and hence the less human one truly is. It is impossible to view IT HAPPENED HERE without the sobering realization that the events of this movie happened more than a few times in more than a few countries. This then is the inner lesson of what happens to the easily malleable who find that the act of putting on a uniform changes more than one's appearance.

4/5 What the
  by Mr. P. Slater (Adelaide, South Australia)
I had heard about this movie before, but had never seen it as to my knowladge it had not been showed on tv in australia for some years if at all.

I must admit the movie was not what I was expecting, but I still found it to be a chilling what if movie about the German occupation of Britian. The film is very clever and very belivable.

The most chilling sequences are the newsreel and how nurses are used in the final solution program by the nazis.

the only problem I had with the movie is its quick ending, but its something you can live with. If you have an intrest in Alternative history or science fiction, check this movie out.

5/5 Bloody Brilliant
  by M. G Watson (Los Angeles)
In 1945, George Orwell wrote defiantly: "Few things in this war have been more morally disgusting than the present hunt after traitors and quislings. It best it is largely a punishment of the guilty by the guilty."

In the same humanistic yet brutally honest vein comes IT HAPPENED HERE, a 1965 "documentary-style" movie which speculates with terrifying frankness what a Nazi occupation of Britain might have been like. No film I've ever seen have addressed the subject of "collaboration" with such unflinching honesty, and I suggest this film is a must-see for those who still glorify the "resistance fighters" of Europe and view with contempt and hatred the everyday people who "volunteered" their services to their conquerers during the Second World War.

IT HAPPENED HERE speculates that the Germans invaded Britain in 1940, conquered the Islands, and set up a puppet government. Sapped by the ravenous demands of the Eastern Front, the Germans leave only a small garrison in Britain and depend largely on British "collaborators" to police the country, run the government, operate the social services, and so on. The film is told from the POV of Pauline, a widowed country nurse who is simply trying to get by in a country where half the buildings are in ruins, partisan warfare rages in the country, and just getting a decent job requires moral compromise.

IT HAPPENED HERE does not have a plot, per se; true to its documentary style it merely follows Pauline as she travels England, looking for work and trying with pathetic dignity to avoid taking a "side" either for the puppet government or the ruthless and ham-fisted partisan movement that opposes it. Every frame of the film hammers home the impossibility of living under occupation: Forced to join a collaborationist organization just to work, Pauline is ostracized by her friends (one of the movie's best scenes is an argument between Pauline and her doctor friend about the morality of fascism, collaboration and resistance), and yet her own sense of personal decency makes her a pariah among her new comrades. This ultimately leads to her being banished to the country, where what seems like an idyllic nursing-home job turns out to be a macabre nightmare. After spending most of the movie on the moral fence, Pauline must now make a consciously political act, but even this gives her no peace. And
in the end, however, the impending "liberation" (accompanied by frenzied radio broadcasts no less chilling than their Nazi counterparts) promises a classic British recipe: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

IT HAPPENED HERE is brutally frank in its examination of what happens to ordinary people in impossible circumstances, and how war and occupation are machines for debasing human nature. The people we meet are a mix of fanatics, time-servers, patriots, cynics, and fair-weather sailors -- in other words, everyday folks who discover in extremis what kind of people they really are, and what they will (or won't) do for a soft bed, hot food and chance to live another day. The film's climactic scene, which features a vicious massacre of British SS volunteers (in the "Black Prince" volunteer SS division -- nice touch!) at the hands of the partisans while their German SS officers are allowed to honorably surrender, well demonstrates the doctor's schizoid (but possibly correct) view that "the horrible thing about fascism is you have to use fascist methods to destroy it."

I should say that IT HAPPENED HERE is frought with the problems which plague low-budget films. There is liberal, if skillful, use of stock footage; the acting is extremely inconsistent, the sound quality (especially at the beginning) is bloody hideous, and there is a clumsy amateurishness to some of the production. Getting through the first half-hour of the film isn't easy. But if you do, you will discover a b*llsy and brilliant little gem of a movie, one which has the moral courage to ask the most difficult possible question: "OK, but under those circumstances, what would YOU do?"













3/5 What if...
  by Steven Hellerstedt
The Germans invaded England after the English evacuation from Dunkirk in World War II? What if they conquered England and installed a wartime puppet government? What if... IT HAPPENED HERE? Or there, as the case may be. I sit an ocean and half a continent away from London as I write this, and estranged by nearly half a century from when this was made. Estranged less by time and space than by the fact that IT HAPPENED HERE simply isn't very entertaining.

The movie follows Pauline (Pauline Murray) from rural England, where she's amongst a group of citizens become combed out a partisan infested area and herded toward London. Upon reaching London she applies for work as a nurse. Which mean she has to join the Party. And wear the collaborating-with-the-enemy armband and uniform. And creep out some of her pre-war friends in the process.

IT HAPPENED HERE doesn't really make drama of the promising premise. The actors are amateurs, there's no rhythm to the story, the sound is so bad that at times it hard to understand what anyone is saying. A cool idea shot down by poor execution.

Of course, IT HAPPENED HERE'S story isn't all on the screen. Filmmakers Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo began this film in the mid-50s, when both were still in their teens. The lads seem to have been profoundly affected by Roberto Rossellini's Italian Neo-realist films like `Paisà' and `Open City,' two other low budget, amateur acted movies about World War II. One source says the budget for this movie was a meager $20,000, which, even accounting for inflation, makes IT HAPPENED HERE an amazing accomplishment. Although the story could have been more compelling - for instance, the sequence with real-life fascist Colin Jordan spouting his particular brand of garbage is more ridiculous than chilling - Brownlow and Mollo do some things remarkably well. Most notably incorporating German-uniformed actors in London, imparting a strong sense of characters in a real location. Also, there are some montage sequences and fake newsreels that work very well. Although I didn't much enjoy this one, I was mightily impressed with what the young filmmakers were able to do with enough money only for equipment and film stock.