Rent It Happened Here (1964)

An uncut diamond - It Happened Here review by BF

OK so it's quite uneven, with a thin storyline, but it is precisely because these film makers had little money that some of the scenes are so powerful, strangely. For example in one scene - that UA insisted on being cut - they brought in UK fascists to talk about their view of what they see as the 'Jewish problem', it is horrifying all the more so because it doesn't feel scripted, but real. These fascists condemn themselves simply by opening their mouths.

Particularly relevant for these current times.

The other theme is how easy it can be for good people to collaborate all in the name of keeping the peace, and before they know it becoming embroiled in crimes that sent Nazis to the gallows.

Worth watching.

Refreshingly basic film-making - It Happened Here review by TE

This is really one for the film student, though the sheer energy of its amateurism is appealing.

The theme of Nazi / Far Right extremism is very apt for today and the film is a bracing reminder that it could have happened here in the UK, with at least as much collaboration as in France.

The same director later made the excellent 'Winstanley' and there are similarities with the films of Peter Watkins.

Excellent low-budget Nazis-in-Britain Alternative Reality student film - It Happened Here review by PV

Not the first time a Nazi invasion had been imagines - that honour goes to WENT THE DAY WELL from 1942, the much better film, to be honest.

However, one has to admire the 2 students who spent 8 years getting this together, albeit with a plot thin as parachute silk and possibly the worst sound I have heard in any film - ever.

The SILLY remarks, offensive and ignorant, that somehow this film has 'relevance to today' in an age of Brexit shame those who speak such drivel. No Brexit was not Nazi - IN FACT the UNITED EUROPE the Nazis praise is rather like the EU who grew of course from the Franco-German Vichy-Nazi pact. Shameful lies and fake news from Remainiacs fabricating racism when none exists (JUST like the media during the run-up to the Brexit referendum). The EU is the United Europe Hitler dreamed of actually.

I enjoyed this especially some scenes - the social realism when people give their views is rather talky and probably improvised but utterly believable. These days one would expect a more diverse ethnic mix and maybe then anti-semitism from those groups (after all the Grand Mufti and Hitler got on like a house on fie and shared views on the Jews and what to do with them). Though interesting, one SS officer shown here is non-white.

Good to remember too that Hitler and Nazi-ism were both especially popular with women who adored Adolf - something that needs to be flagged as does the connection of the Nazis to the green movement. The views of Himmler are almost identical to modern green activists. Yes, they are. Read them.

A must-see for any film student BUT watch WENT THE DAY WELL first and then FATHERLAND from 1994 and SS_GB miniseries and all the other alternative reality Nazis in Britain stories.