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dcFopp, as I was saying in a comment on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
progmeister’s LJ, is a wonderful shop. It reminds me of the record shops I used to frequent when I was at school and the University. What is even better, it has absolute shitloads of CDs at prices like £5, and DVDs at £8-10. Many of the CDs around the back wall are absolute classics, and some of the DVDs are ones you won’t find prominently placed anywhere else (such as Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box or The Testament of Dr. Mabuse).
It is so difficult to go in there and not come out much poorer; the only sure-fire technique I have ever found is to go in there with no money (having previously shifted money out of the account you can use the plastic with!).
I had a close call today, though. I had money in the wallet and in the bank account and it took all the strength I could muster to reach into the back of my skull and throw the big switch marked
So I did not come out laden with CDs, and I did not even succumb when I saw that, at last, It Happened Here has been released.
It Happened Here, if you haven’t seen it — which is, frankly, highly likely since its reception on its release in 1966 was (euphemistically) stormy and it did not get a wide release; it has been shown twice on TV (on BBC2, I think), and once that I know of at the GFT — is a film about Britain under the Nazis. Hitler’s armies crossed the Channel, and England at least is firmly under Nazi control (Allied troops have landed in the West, but it is by no means certain that they shall prevail). This is not, though, a film where jackbooted Germans lord it over the subjugated British. The Germans are in Russia, invading the USSR: Nazi Britain is run by British Nazis.
The film took 8 years to make; it is filmed in grainy black-&-white; most of the actors are amateurs (in fact, as far as I can tell, there are only two professional actors in the whole thing: Sebastian Shaw, who was Annakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, and Reginald Marsh, who cropped up in a lot of British TV in the 60s and 70s), which strangely works to the film’s benefit; it was made on a shoestring, yet it is utterly convincing. The story follows an Irish nurse who is simply trying to do her job. Events unfold remorselessly until this chilling film ends, devoid of hope.
On its release, it was very badly received because of its portrayal of Britons readily collaborating with the Nazi regime; Jewish groups apparently were so incensed that it incorporated footage of a real British Nazi leader spouting anti-semitic bile that seven minutes were cut from the film. I have never seen that footage, it was not in the cut I saw on TV years ago, but apparently it has been restored to this DVD release.
And yet, I did not succumb. Which, for a cinephile like me, is saying something.
progmeister’s LJ, is a wonderful shop. It reminds me of the record shops I used to frequent when I was at school and the University. What is even better, it has absolute shitloads of CDs at prices like £5, and DVDs at £8-10. Many of the CDs around the back wall are absolute classics, and some of the DVDs are ones you won’t find prominently placed anywhere else (such as Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box or The Testament of Dr. Mabuse).It is so difficult to go in there and not come out much poorer; the only sure-fire technique I have ever found is to go in there with no money (having previously shifted money out of the account you can use the plastic with!).
I had a close call today, though. I had money in the wallet and in the bank account and it took all the strength I could muster to reach into the back of my skull and throw the big switch marked
Self-Control.
So I did not come out laden with CDs, and I did not even succumb when I saw that, at last, It Happened Here has been released.
It Happened Here, if you haven’t seen it — which is, frankly, highly likely since its reception on its release in 1966 was (euphemistically) stormy and it did not get a wide release; it has been shown twice on TV (on BBC2, I think), and once that I know of at the GFT — is a film about Britain under the Nazis. Hitler’s armies crossed the Channel, and England at least is firmly under Nazi control (Allied troops have landed in the West, but it is by no means certain that they shall prevail). This is not, though, a film where jackbooted Germans lord it over the subjugated British. The Germans are in Russia, invading the USSR: Nazi Britain is run by British Nazis.
The film took 8 years to make; it is filmed in grainy black-&-white; most of the actors are amateurs (in fact, as far as I can tell, there are only two professional actors in the whole thing: Sebastian Shaw, who was Annakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, and Reginald Marsh, who cropped up in a lot of British TV in the 60s and 70s), which strangely works to the film’s benefit; it was made on a shoestring, yet it is utterly convincing. The story follows an Irish nurse who is simply trying to do her job. Events unfold remorselessly until this chilling film ends, devoid of hope.
On its release, it was very badly received because of its portrayal of Britons readily collaborating with the Nazi regime; Jewish groups apparently were so incensed that it incorporated footage of a real British Nazi leader spouting anti-semitic bile that seven minutes were cut from the film. I have never seen that footage, it was not in the cut I saw on TV years ago, but apparently it has been restored to this DVD release.
And yet, I did not succumb. Which, for a cinephile like me, is saying something.
