It Couldn't Happen Here
| It Couldn't Happen Here | |
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It Couldn't Happen Here poster
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| Directed by | Jack Bond |
| Produced by | Jack Bond Martin Haxby |
| Written by | Jack Bond James Dillon Neil Tennant Chris Lowe |
| Starring |
Neil Tennant Chris Lowe Joss Ackland Neil Dickson Gareth Hunt Barbara Windsor |
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Production
company |
EMI Films
PMI |
| Distributed by |
EMI Films/PMI (UK) Liberty Films (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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87 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
It Couldn't Happen Here is a 1988 musical film starring the British pop duo Pet Shop Boys and based on the music from their first two studio albums Please and Actually. It was originally conceived as an hour-long video based on Actually, but it turned into a surreal full-scale feature film directed by Jack Bond and co-starring Barbara Windsor, Joss Ackland, Neil Dickson and Gareth Hunt.
In the early morning, dancers are warming up on an English beach (Clacton-On-Sea.Essex), and Neil Tennant appears on a bicycle. The song "It couldn't happen here" is being played. He cycles up to a kiosk, where he buys some postcards from the shopkeeper (Gareth Hunt). The shopkeeper complains about the political faults of the modern world, but Neil ignores him and fills out his postcards.
Meanwhile, Chris Lowe is at a bed & breakfast. He is in his room packing everything into a seemingly bottomless trunk. He runs downstairs and waits for the landlady (Barbara Windsor) to bring him breakfast. In the breakfast room, an Uncle Dredge (Gareth Hunt) is making bad jokes. When the huge fried breakfast arrives, Chris empties the contents of the tray over the landlady and runs out onto the street. He runs along the promenade being chased by a group of Hells Angels on bikes.
Back at the beach, Neil continues to cycle along the beach. He passes a priest (Joss Ackland) who is reciting verses whilst leading a party of school children. Two of the boys are the Pet Shop Boys at a younger age and they run to the pier (Clacton Pier). In a building on the pier, the adult Neil is seeing an exotically dressed female fortune teller; as he leaves she uncovers her face to reveal that "she" is Chris Lowe. The young Neil and Chris (Nicholas and Jonathan Haley) look in a Victorian era Mutoscope and see a short bedroom farce: a slapstick performance featuring a squire (Chris Lowe) and a butler (Neil Tennant) making advances to a French maid (Barbara Windsor). The priest catches up with the boys and shouts more verses at them. The boys escape into the amusement arcade where they see a rock star (Neil Tennant) in a gold tasselled suit. Then they pass into a theatre, where they see a group of nuns perform a risqué dance routine to "It's a Sin". The priest catches up with them again and he takes them outside where it is now evening. On the pier, he commands twelve fishermen to haul a huge cross out of the sea and onto their ship.
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Wikipedia