It Happened Here 1964 DvdRip Avi lee1001

It Happened Here 1964 DvdRip Avi lee1001



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055024/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/it-happened-here1965/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_Here

August 9, 1966

Screen: If the Finest Hour Had Failed: Little Carnegie Offers 'It Happened Here' Occupation of England by Nazis Depicted

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: August 9, 1966

AN arresting supposition of the sort of thing that might have occurred had England been invaded by the Nazis and subjected to their military control in World War II is graphically and grippingly enacted in the British film "It Happened Here," a real switch on the practice of make-believe, which came to the Little Carnegie yesterday.



Mindful, no doubt, of what happened to the people in the Netherlands and in France when their countries were taken over and oppressed by Nazi power, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo have imagined how an Englishwoman might have behaved if her country had been occupied after Dunkirk and if she had been subjected to the enemy's control.



She would, in their estimation, have become a collaborator, a tired and regretful member of one of those English black-shirt groups that would have been organized by the Nazis to help them maintain control and this is the unexpected and horrifying thing about this film.



No dashing resistance fighter is the heroine here, no stout-hearted, ever-loyal worker in a finely tuned underground. She is a weary country widow who has seen her village neighbors mowed down by the Nazis in retaliation for a wild audacity by an isolated member of the underground. She is a helpless bystander who has been evacuated to London to get her away from an area of potential resistance, and she has to do something to get a job.



What she does is enroll as a nurse in the English Volunteer Legion, a paramilitary organization that is compelled to undergo and endure all the heel-clicking, hand-saluting rituals of its Nazi overlords, to listen to and become, as a consequence, a sodden, acquiescent Nazi tool.



And that she stays, until she has the grim experience of seeing two of her oldest and dearest friends, a doctor and his wife who had endeavored to show her the error of her ways, apprehended for aiding the underground. Then she has an even worse experience as a nurse in a country hospital. Presumably, she is enlightened when the liberators arrive.



The eye-popping thing about this picture and the reason, no doubt, that it has been a cause of much resentment in Britain is the literalness with which it has been made, the feel of complete authenticity that pervades its every scene. There is not a single shot that lacks the texture and the aura of their brainwashing lectures, attend their fiery funerals accuracy, the firm photographic illusion of documented truth.



Such things as the detailed operation of a minor bureaucracy under the domineering direction of British bosses, parades of Nazi garrison troops through the actual streets of London and a lecture by a British officer on the glories of National Socialism (including the hatred of Jews) are made to appear literal happenings by Peter Suschitzky's camera and through the austere and terse direction of the two men who conceived and made the film.



Especially notable ”indeed, its striking and awesome little triumph all by itself”is a simulated propaganda newsreel that's inserted at one point to show how the Nazis might have brainwashed the British into acceptance of an illusion of traditional Anglo-German accord.



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.



The evident intent of this picture—and it is starkly and shiveringly achieved—is to remind the victorious British that there, but for the grace of God, went theY



It Happened Here'' is a masterpiece of independent cinema that will chill audiences to the bone. Released in England in 1964, it's an undiscovered classic that has languished for almost 36 years without American distribution. Finally, today, it begins its first- ever San Francisco run.

``It Happened Here'' presents history as it might have happened had England lost the Battle of Britain. The year is 1944, and the Nazis occupy England, but the film is hardly about bad Germans and virtuous Brits. Here, the Germans control England through the help of well-organized legions of British collaborators.



Made on a shoestring by co- directors Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, the film is meticulously crafted. The Germans look German. The uniforms are authentic. Thus, the sight of Nazi soldiers cavorting beside British landmarks becomes genuinely creepy. Shot in black-and-white, the film blends a gritty '60s style with a '40s newsreel look. Every frame seems real.



Pauline Murray, who never made another film, gives a strong perfor mance as Pauline, a nurse who has lost her husband in the war. An apolitical woman of kindly impulses, she becomes confused in her loyalties when her closest friends are killed in the cross fire of a partisan attack on Nazis. Wanting to practice her calling -- and unable to do that outside the political structure -- she joins the Nazi movement.



The film's details give the texture of life in an occupied country. Little kids practice goose-stepping on the sidewalk. Popular magazines feature nothing but war on their covers. Movies and radio are used as nonstop tools of propaganda. Authenticity is aided by the filmmakers' use of real-life British Nazis in the roles of Nazi ideologues.



The tone is low-key. There is not a single scene of a Nazi being overtly cruel. ``It Happened Here'' is about the insidiousness of evil, about how an evil government makes everyone complicit. It is mesmerizing and sneaks up on the viewer, leading to a powerful finish.



Brownlow is the world's premier film historian, who has made a slew of documentaries, including the 13- part ``Hollywood'' and ``The Silent Chaplin.'' Those documentaries suggest what ``It Happened Here'' confirms: Brownlow is not just a brilliant historian. He's a brilliant filmmaker.



Advisory: This film contains violence. ..



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