It Happened Here (1965)

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Director: Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo
Producer:  Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo
Runtime:  97 minutes

In the back of our minds the question starting with those words “What if” is often asked.  What if that engine broke down in the middle of nowhere?  What if I made a different choice at that part of my life?  Well this is one of three movies that I know of where the question is asked What if Hitler won WW2?   The other two I know of is the 1994 Fatherland starring Rutger Hauer and the UK 2010 film Resistance (I am excluding the Amazon TV series Man in the High Castle and BBC production SS-GB).

To give a brief description of the film I will quote a portion of the back of the DVD cover.
“The German invasion of England took place in July 1940 after the British retreat from Dunkirk. Strongly resisted at first, the German army took many months to restore order. But the resistance movement, lacking outside support, was finally crushed. Then, in 1944, the resistance movement reappeared...”

The movie was released in 1965 however it was filmed over eight years between 1956 and 1964 by two teens Kevin Brownlow 18 and Andrew Mollo at the age of 16.  It was filmed using mostly borrowed equipment, however to complete the project Stanley Kubrick donated left over stock film after he finished filming “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”.  Considering the experience these guys had, the film is very life like and seems quite accurate as to how one would think it would work out should such a horrible thing have occoured.  

The movie has a documentary feel to it which also gives it a great realism.  In a way it reminded me of the 1948 film Berlin Express, the first Hollywood film to be made in Germany after the war, which was a mystery/thriller partly based on a train and almost like a small documentary as it revealed the bombed out ruins of Frankfurt and parts of Berlin.  In this film however we view the film itself about the German forces in London and also what London looked like some years after the war.  

The attention to detail is great and whilst the actors were pretty much volunteers they do a decent job especially as the film progresses.  In fact, some of the SS and Wehrmacht officers were actually ex-servicemen!  Even some of the music used in the film was actual music played in Germany during the war and the majority of the rest of it has a similar feel to it which makes this film even more believable.  I could only imagine how hard it would have been for the locals to see this movie being made.

The DVD reviewed here is a remastered version of the film and at the time of writing will cost about $30-$45 for a legit copy on Ebay, Amazon UK or USA which has already gone up from when I purchased it in August 2015.  The video quality is dark at the start but the video brightens up a bit in its 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  The audio however, remains a bit uneven throughout the movie but is generally fine with a few tweaks of the volume control.  The DVD comes with the following extras:

• Original cut of newsreel footage
• Trailer
• Galleries of Occupied Paris and Production Stills
• Introduction by Kevin Brownlow

Overall the movie is a stunning imagination of what it could have been like if the outcome of WW2 was different.  It comes recommended as it is scary in its realism as to what could have happened.  It makes me feel so blessed and thankful to God that the Nazi’s did not win the war.

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