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It Couldn't Happen Here is a 1988 musical film starring the British synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys and based on the music from their first two studio albums Please and Actually. It w…
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It Couldn't Happen Here is a 1988 musical film starring the British synth-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 evolved into a surreal, full-scale feature film directed by Jack Bond and co-starring Barbara Windsor, Joss Ackland, Neil Dickson, and Gareth Hunt.
It Couldn't Happen Here is a 1988 musical film starring the British synth-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 evolved 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 writes his postcards.
Meanwhile, Chris Lowe is at a bed and breakfast, throwing the contents of his room into a seemingly bottomless trunk. He runs downstairs and sits waiting for the landlady (Barbara Windsor) to serve breakfast. In the breakfast room, Uncle Dredge (Gareth Hunt) is making bad jokes with a repetitive catch-phrase, bothering other guests, but is submissive to the landlady, who seems to disapprove of everyone except Chris, still sitting dispassionately. When the ridiculously over-size Full English fried breakfast arrives, Chris empties it over the landlady's head and runs out into the street. He runs along the promenade being chased by a group of bikers on motorcycles.
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 (filmed in the West Cliff Theatre bar). 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) (filmed at the West Cliff Theatre). 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 12 fishermen to haul a huge cross out of the sea and onto their ship.
Source: It Couldn't Happen Here (CC BY-SA)
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They arrive at a transport café, where they are sat next to a traveller (Gareth Hunt). Whilst "Love Comes Quickly" plays on the jukebox, they order an inappropriate gourmet meal, but the waitress does not flinch. At another table, a pilot (Neil Dickson, more or less reprising his lead role in Biggles), fiddles frustratedly with a hand-held computer game that says "divided by... divided by... zero" (taking lyrics from "Two Divided by Zero"). A voice from the traveller's briefcase asks to be let out and the traveller does so, revealing a ventriloquist's dummy. The dummy starts philosophising about the concept of time. He asks whether time can be likened to a teacup in that a teacup is no longer a teacup if no one has the intention to use it as such. To shut him up, Neil puts a record on the jukebox ("Rent") and the wall of the café rises to reveal some dancers.
Meanwhile, the pilot is seen back in his office reading W. H. Newton-Smith's book The Structure of Time. After a while, he reaches a conclusion that "the dummy's a blasted existentialist". He boards his plane, determined to put an end to such daftness. Neil and Chris are driving along a country lane when the pilot attacks. "Two Divided by Zero" is playing. The car is covered with bullet holes, but the Pet Shop Boys drive on, again unharmed. The pilot's monologue piece is known to be extracted from Newton-Smith's book.
They stop by a telephone box, which is being vandalised by a group of youths. Instead of attacking Neil, they politely open the door for him and he phones his mother (Barbara Windsor). The two of them exchange the lines to "What Have I Done to Deserve This?". At the end, Neil puts his head against the broken glass on the door and blood appears.
In a suburban street, a commuter leaves home and there is a scantily clad woman in his upstairs window. He is covered in flames, but does not seem to notice. At the railway station, a zebra is led by two zebra-faced men into a goods van. Neil and Chris sit on the platform watching, then get into another van where a large snake coils itself around them. The van takes them to Paddington station.
At Paddington station, soldiers stand guard and there is a limousine waiting for Neil and Chris. They get in and drive through a tunnel as the chauffeur (Neil Dickson) quotes passages from Milton's Paradise Lost at them. They are driven through a batt
