GB 1964 1hr 37mins Dirs: Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo Starring: Sebastian Shaw and Pauline Murray
A film portraying possible events had Germany successfully invaded Britain
It Happened Here is set in an alternate history and the film’s largely amateur production took some eight years to complete. It is sometimes referred to by its tagline It Happened Here: The Story of Hitler’s England and it includes a number of railway snapshots. An early scene depicts a steam-hauled train passing through a flooded landscape but it is too far off to identify. Later there is a close up three-quarter shot of the cab of an ex-LNER 4-6-0 pulling away from a stand and a shot of the old London Euston just prior to the station’s rebuilding, but no trains are visible. There is a shot of the entrance to the old Holborn Viaduct station and a scene filmed on the London Underground at Edgware station with German soldiers boarding a 1938-built tube stock train. There is a good shot of the entrance to Hatch End station and a final scene with Pauline Murray travelling in the compartment of a Mk1 coach. Interestingly, the close up three-quarter shot of the LNER cab also appeared in the film Night Train to Paris (qv), released in the same year, but was in fact stock footage from the 1956 BTF film Link Span. Also, look out for the LNER goods lorry seen in one shot filmed apparently filmed at a bus depot!!
This is the first railway shot in the film and shows a train framed by the turret of a tank. The water is a little deceiving. This is in fact the River Frome flood meadows alongside the A352 near Wool in Dorset.
I’d like to be the driver of the engine…..this shot of the cab of an ex LNER 4-6-0 also appeared in Night Train to Paris, but originated in the British Transport Films production Linkspan. It appears in this film alongside a darkened shot of a guard giving the right away from the verandah of his brake van, again footage taken from the Link Span film.
This is a 1930 AEC Renown. More of interest is the vintage LNER delivery lorry parked alongside. This was filmed in Triangle Place at the rear of the old Museum of British Transport in Clapham, which had formerly been a bus garage and is now a Sainsbury’s car park.
Three stations appear in the film and this is the first. The old London Euston, redeveloped beyond all recognition today thus making a comparable shot impossible
This is the second station, a brief glimpse on newsreel footage of the now closed and demolished Holborn Viaduct
This third station, however, is much clearer. This is Hatch End on the Watford DC Lines out of Euston. Whereas Euston has been redeveloped and Holborn Viaduct gone altogether, it is pleasing to report that Hatch End remains open and is practically unchanged
Pauline Murray boards a London Underground train of 1938-built stock at Edgware station
This is the scene towards the end that shows Pauline Murray being escorted by a German officer, having failed to report the harbouring of a partisan. The interior is that of a Mk.1, possibly the interior of an SR EMU. Pauline Murray was in fact a nurse and not an actress at all. She played the part of a nurse in this film but never acted again.
