Continuing on daily intake of sustenance on the “film” diet (see last post), this one was consumed last night after making epic chord progressions in the studio and bowl of spicy ramen soup. It Happened Here is a very realistic looking filming proposing an alternate scenario where Hitler and the Third Reich successfully invade the United Kingdom and place a puppet government in place made of British Blackshirt Facists. As this film was made in 1966, it avoids the trappings of being hyper-dramatized and comes across as authentic and with a pace that seems in rhythm with civilian life, right down to the propaganda posters on the walls and the informational “films” interspersed throughout the film.
The clip below is a newsreel clip from the film highlighting the benefits of facism in Britain. It’s all slightly unsettling to some degree, especially as the uncut version has scenes of the blackshirts involving real fascists from the mid-60s apparently. This film was a project developed by two men in their teens that took around 7-8 years to complete on a low budget. Apparently Stanley Kubrick donated film stock to the project.
The left-leaning doctor in the film that is an old friend of the protagonist, Pauline, was an instantly recognizable face; that of Sebastian Shaw – the actor who portrayed Darth Vader sans helmet in the film The Return Of The Jedi.
And to slip in something relevant into this email; well, relevant to the purpose of the site – I’ve been putting massively intense blocks of time into get a bunch of new Soft Riot tracks into a completed state. A slight shift in sound informed by the advent of taking the whole thing into the live arena over the last few months. I suspect more information will be shared soon with more of a bang than piecemeal bits, with exception of these titles:
ANOTHER DRONE IN YOUR HEAD » THERE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH TIME » YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE » READ YOU LIKE AN ELECTRONIC BOOK » YOU’VE GOT TO USE IT » TERMINAL LOVE SONG
