Slideshow
IT HAPPENED HERE
Recorded introduction by KEVIN BROWNLOW, filmed especially for this series on October 20, 2025 at BFI Southbank, London.
U.K., 1964
Directed, Written, and Produced by Kevin Brownlow, Andrew Mollo
Starring Pauline Murray, Sebastian Shaw, Bart Allison, Reginald Marsh
Approx. 101 min. DCP.
1944: as partisans and Yanks make inroads in a German-occupied Britain, nurse Pauline Murray is evacuated to a London sans jobs—unless, of course, she joins the Immediate Action Organization. This chilling “what if?” flip-side to “their finest hour” (Nazi shutterbugs crawling over London sites, Brit medicos collaborating in euthanasia, etc.) was entirely shot—amazingly without stock footage—by the original teenaged Brownlow and Mollo over an eight-year period in a gritty semi-documentary style (total budget $21,000), using vintage uniforms, trucks and buses; fake newsreels narrated by WWII BBC announcers; with a Trafalgar square rally that prompted the Ministry pronouncement “Never again.” The mostly no-pro cast includes then current National Socialist party members ranting spontaneously in a discussion scene—cut when protesters objected they “might be taken literally,” but here restored.
Reviews
“Grips the imagination and makes the blood run cold.”
– The New York Times