By KEVIN BROWNLOW (Secker & Warburg; 1968)
The British made alternate history “classic” IT HAPPENED HERE (1964) is not, truth be told, a particularly good movie. An ambitious depiction of Britain under Nazi rule, the film boasts a memorably gritty, newsreel-like look (it marked the feature debut of ace cinematographer Peter Suschitzky) that’s hindered by technical amateurishness and a severely cluttered narrative.
IT HAPPENED HERE (1964) Trailer
This 1968 book about IT HAPPENED HERE’s production, however, is one of the finest movie making-of accounts in existence. It ranks with classics of the form like Robert Rodriguez’s REBEL WITHOUT A CREW about the making of EL MARIACHI (1992), with the major difference being that the filming of IT HAPPENED HERE occurred three decades prior to Rodriguez’s supposedly unprecedented no-budget heroics.
The author was the film’s co-director Kevin Brownlow, currently an authority on silent films and formerly a fledgling filmmaker. He was just 18 when in 1956 he started work on what was to become a grueling eight year odyssey. Brownlow is candid about the many, many mistakes he made, starting with the fact that he didn’t bother to write a script. Matters certainly weren’t helped by the fact that the film, initially shot in 16mm, was shunned by funding agencies, had a volunteer crew (which included future filmmaking genius Peter Watkins) whose members were constantly defecting, and was created with antiquated technical equipment that had a tendency to break down and/or disappear (with the initial camera Brownlow utilized stolen on the second day of filming).
Brownlow eventually completed the film—in 35mm—with the help of Andrew Mollo (just 16 when he signed on), a WWII enthusiast who became the official co-director, along with a generous cash infusion from director Tony Richardson and short ends donated by Stanley Kubrick. Of course, Brownlow’s troubles were far from over, as the finished film, acquired for distribution by United Artists, was denounced by many as anti-Semitic and ended up with a crucial scene excised.
HOW IT HAPPENED HERE stands as a short, fast and incredibly entertaining book that never overstays its welcome. If nothing else, it offers aspiring filmmakers a potent object lesson in what not to do.