It Couldn't Happen Here (1988)
I'd watched my brother's VHS copy of this eccentric
Pet Shop Boys musical film sometime in the 90s. In recent years (and being a longtime PSB fan) I was really intrigued to see it again and was almost contemplating acquiring and digitising a pan&scan VHS tape, or even better, a Widescreen Japanese Laserdisc. Luckily the lovely people at the BFI decided to do a 4K restoration and release it for the first time on blu-ray and DVD this week. The hardback book packaging and richly colourful transfer are both gorgeous. I might be biased towards the film but I loved every minute of this surrealist fantasy. The last audible line of the opening number as it fades away is
"I don't expect to talk in terms of sense..." which is good guide for the plot-free adventure ahead.
It's an absurd, grotesque, kinky, surreal, bizarre, kitsch, melancholy and oddly glamorous vision. A completely mad saucy postcard, full of ridiculous characters but if you've ever spent time in one Britain's faded seaside towns, or off-season tourist spots, it actually feels very real. Fragments of Britain past, where music-hall cabaret never went out of style. Rain lashed beaches, greasy-spoon cafes, dilapidated B&Bs, branch-line stations and gaudy nightclubs. For PSB making a straight up jukebox musical would be too easy, too obvious, so their music is mostly heard coming out of radios, being spoken over the telephone, or read out as poetry.
Barbara Windsor,
Joss Ackland,
Neil Dickson and
Gareth Hunt play multiple loony people that Tennant and Lowe encounter. Gareth Hunt in particular is so, so funny. The cinematography is spectacular, outside of the few people who caught this at the cinema in 1988, nobody has seen how good it looks in 30-years.
Salvador Dali would be proud.
^ The theatrical trailer was recreated in HD for the blu-ray but sadly the pop video for 'Always on my Mind' was not and it wasn't even in the right frame rate. So I set about re-making it myself using the blu-ray as a source. Here's the video for PSB's 1987 UK Christmas Number 1 single in HD for the first time:
and here it is in 4K because why not
:
The 24fps film was sped up to 25fps and matched frame-by-frame to the 'Always on my Mind' video on the PopArt DVD compilation (audio also sourced from that DVD, in Dolby Digital Stereo). Added vignette and frame-accurate flicker to "silent" footage, crossfades, jumps and freeze-frames. One closeup shot at 01.17 of the rubber-chicken being waved was not in the film, so a wide shot of the same action was used instead (rather than use the original shot in jarring standard definition).
Unfortunately the youtube bots blocked it
. I was hoping PSB and general pop fans would've got a kick out of seeing it.