The Germanâs defeated England in 1940. In 1944, a majority of the German troops were removed to bulk up the Russian front, leaving SS members and British collaborators in control of the country at a time when the resistance movement was becoming more active. Paulina (Pauline Murray), an Irish war-widowed nurse, is evacuated from her village, during which her acquaintances are killed in the crossfire between Germans and partisans. In London, she wishes to avoid politics of any kind, but joins the Immediate Action Organization (the civilian wing of the British Union of Fascists) as it is the only way she can work. While she is indoctrinated at work, in the evenings she reconnects with old friends who have not given up.
A 1965 alt-history film! Damn. Tales of âWhat if the Naziâs had done this instead of what they didâ may be familiar now, but not so in the â60s, or late â50s when production began. Nor was it common to present evil without heroes launching into soliloquies on how it is, indeed, evil. People were upset upon first viewings of It Happened Here, some claiming it was pro-Nazi because there wasnât some clean cut hero ready with a cutting remark whenever a fascist spoke. Itâs inconceivable to me how anyone could watch this and not find it a powerful anti-fascist statement.
What really bothered Brits in 1965 was that it claimed that the English werenât special and that some could have been collaborators in different circumstances. Instead It Happened Here suggests that people are weak, and that a disease like fascism can take root anywhere. Distributors got cold feet and what distribution it got was in a cut form, though thankfully itâs whole now.
Director Andrew Mollo was 18 when he started work on the film; co-director Kevin Brownlow was 16. With an ultralow budget supposedly around 20,000 pounds, they worked on it for 8 years, mostly with amateur volunteers. Stanley Kubrick gave them extra film stock from Dr. Strangelove so they could finish it. The movieâs sound is a bit dodgy early on, and Mollo and Brownlow improved their filmmaking skills over the long course of production, so that later scenes are filmed with more finesse.
Iâm not sure more experienced filmmakers could have made this film. They wouldnât have tried. Shot with a newsreel/documentary feel (that confused some viewers into thinking that there was reused war footage), it has an uncomfortable sense of realism. Thereâs no âwhat ifâ distance, but instead it is easy to get lost in it, and the easy slide into the horrors of The 3rd Reich that it depicts.
The film is filled with chilling moments: the propaganda short at a theater pointing out the evils of Jew and Bolsheviks, a group discussion over tea that includes the importance of genocide, a torchlight rally, and the hidden murders. The background moments have as strong a kick as the foreground ones: children practicing goose-stepping, English women flirting with Nazis, SS members riding a double-decker bus with a British march playing. Itâs fantastic world building.
Pauline is a sympathetic and exasperating main character. She opposed to the Nazis and all they stand for. But she sees no difference between them and those fighting them. She just wants to do her job, helping people as a nurse. âWe did lose the war,â she says, and now she wants things to get back to normal, or as close as can be. She thinks she can ignore the rest. Of course it doesnât work that way. Which makes the movie not only about how things might have been, but about how things are now, and how everything can go horribly wrong so easily.
Mollo went on to become a technical consultant on bigger films, and costume designer for Star Wars. Brownlow became a film historian and documentary filmmaker. And cinematographer Peter Suschitzkyâs multiple credits include The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Empire Strikes Back.