It Happened Here (1966) on Netflix
Germany invades and occupies Britain in 1940. In 1944, Pauline, an apolitical Irish district nurse, is forcibly evacuated from her village to London and joins a collaborationist medical corps.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The German invasion of Britain follows the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940, and after months of resistance and reprisals the occupying forces restore order. With Soviet and German troops still fighting in the Ural Mountains, most German soldiers are withdrawn to the Eastern Front, and the garrisoning of Britain falls largely to local collaborationist volunteers and auxiliaries. The United States bases its Seventh Fleet off Ireland, bombs the southwest coast and supplies a resurgent partisan movement. Pauline, an apolitical Irish district nurse, works in a village where partisan activity is growing. The Germans and their collaborators force her out, and she sees British partisans attack German troops, with villagers she knows killed in the crossfire. In London she reluctantly joins the Immediate Action Organisation's medical wing and retrains as an ambulance attendant.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about It Happened Here (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jewish groups protested seven minutes of footage in which a British fascist speaks against Jews and for euthanasia, calling it a platform for unapologetic neo-Nazis. The footage was cut from the release and restored thirty years later after Kevin Brownlow regained the rights.
- Stanley Kubrick, intrigued by the project, donated film stock from Dr. Strangelove to Kevin Brownlow so he could finish the film.
- Kevin Brownlow, 18, developed the film's concept in 1956 and brought in Andrew Mollo, a 16-year-old history buff, to design costumes and sets. The two teenagers then spent the next eight years making it.
- Although the cast was almost entirely amateur, the film helped launch the career of cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, who went on to work on The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Empire Strikes Back.
