It happened here
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | It happened here |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language |
English German |
| Publishing year | 1964 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo |
| script | Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo |
| production | Kevin Brownlow Andrew Mollo |
| camera |
Peter Suschitzky Kevin Brownlow |
| cut | Kevin Brownlow |
| occupation | |
| |
It Happened Here is in black and white twisted British film directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo from the year 1964 . The film, which works with documentary stylistic devices, portrays a Great Britain that was occupied by German troops during the Second World War . Because of the theme of alternative world history, It Happened Here is part of the science fiction film genre .
action
After the British withdrawal from Dunkirk , the troops of National Socialist Germany , which were rapidly expanding across Europe, also advance to Great Britain and occupy the island empire. Because of the war on two fronts with the Soviet Union and the resulting personnel shortages, the German occupiers soon put together auxiliary troops from British fascists and other volunteers to establish the new order.
In 1944, the nurse Pauline, who witnessed both attacks by occupation forces and their opponents, joined the pro-German Immediate Action Organization (IAO) in London . Although she did not share the Nazis' hatred of Jews , she soon adopted the doctrine of the new rulers. Only when she met again with an old friend, Doctor Fletcher, who was hiding a resistance fighter and agitating against the occupiers , did she begin to doubt her own attitude. Fletcher is arrested and Pauline is transferred to a rural hospital because of her connection to him. There she witnessed a euthanasia program . When she protested against this, she was arrested, but escaped trial thanks to being liberated by partisans supported by the US Army . Although the British SS members surrendered to the attackers, they were shot without trial.
background
It Happened Here was made as 16mm film over a period of several years (filming began in 1957) and was eventually finalized on 35mm stock with the help of Tony Richardson and Stanley Kubrick . Like the leading actress Pauline Murray , the cast consisted mostly of amateur actors , but also of experienced actors such as Sebastian Shaw and Reginald Marsh . According to Brownlow, the total budget was 7,000 British pounds , according to Variety the equivalent of 20,000 US dollars . Depending on the conversion method chosen, this corresponds to a total of around 125,000 British pounds in 2016
It Happened Here was first shown at the Cork Film Festival in September 1964 . In October 1964 the film was shown in the competition of the Mannheim International Film Week and in May 1965 in the "section parallèle" of the Cannes International Film Festival . It Happened Here was released in British cinemas in May 1966 and in US cinemas in August of the same year , on loan from United Artists . Other countries followed in the course of 1967. In the FRG , the film was not shown, with the exception of its festival screening in Mannheim.
The film aroused controversy not only because of the collaboration between the British population and the war enemy , but above all because of a scene in which the (authentic) British fascists involved openly articulate their hatred of Jews. Frank Bennett, an active neo-Nazi , admits that if he found out that he had “Jewish blood” in him, he would “cut his throat” “to let it out”. This scene was cut during the theatrical release and only reinserted when the DVD was released in 2000.
According to United Artists, the film was in the red at the box office. As Kevin Brownlow explains in his book How It Happened Here , the lender did not present accounts for all venues and calculated income in foreign currencies at the most unfavorable exchange rate . In the 1990s, Brownlow bought back the rights to his film with the help of then UA President Lindsay Doran .
Kevin Brownlow later worked as a film, Andrew Mollo as a military historian. Peter Suschitzky , who shot his first feature-length film here, later made a career as a cameraman for large-scale productions such as The Empire Strikes Back and the films of David Cronenberg . Leading actress Pauline Murray died in 1994.
criticism
After a special screening at the London Film Festival , the Daily Telegraph wrote that the film was “implausible”, “often naive, lacking in depth and technically inadequate”, but that the “heroism and ambition” of such a low-budget venture always deserves encouragement. Alexander Walker of the Evening Standard , on the other hand, discovered "engaging entertainment" and "highly professional execution". The Jewish Chronicle attacked the film because of the anti-Semitic remarks it showed as “fragmentary, bungled, unbalanced and crooked” and sparked a debate that resulted in the shortened scene.
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times praised the "sober and concise direction" and the "wonderfully natural and reserved" play of the unknown actors at the American cinema release.
Awards
- 1964: Prize of the Adult Education Jury, Mannheim International Film Week
- 1966: Ten Best Films of the Year on the National Board of Review
literature
- Kevin Brownlow: How It Happened Here. EA: Doubleday & Co., 1968. WA: UKA Press, London / Amsterdam / Shizuoka 2007, ISBN 978-1-905796-10-6
Web links
- It Happened Here in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- People at the gun . Article in Der Spiegel No. 40/1964
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Kevin Brownlow: How It Happened Here. UKA Press, London / Amsterdam / Shizuoka 2007, ISBN 978-1-905796-10-6 .
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated May 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Review ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Variety, 1964 (no further date), accessed November 25, 2012.
- ↑ It Happened Here ( Memento of the original from November 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the archive of the Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, accessed on November 25, 2012.
- ↑ It Happened Here in the Archives of the Cannes Film Festival, accessed on November 25, 2012.
- ^ It Happened Here in the Internet Movie Database .
- ↑ Hahn / Jansen mention in their lexicon of science fiction films a broadcast on German television, but this is nowhere else documented. The Lexicon of International Films does not list the film in its directory. - Source: Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen: Lexikon des Science Fiction Films , 5th edition, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1992.
- ↑ Information on the UK DVD release 2006, the US edition was published six years earlier.
- ↑ "[...] austere and terse direction [...] The acting by unfamiliar people is beautifully natural and restrained [...]" - Review in The New York Times on August 9, 1966, accessed on November 25, 2012.
