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#Skin deep movie skin
Certainly, Skin Deep is remarkably free of the self-indulgence that flaws some contemporary films. But then, considering that many of the classics of the cinema were produced by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford within the restrictions of Hollywood at its most commercial, this populist approach can be a positive virtue - aesthetic as well as financial. Like Sleeping Dogs and Solo, Skin Deep is certainly aiming at a wider audience than what might be called the arthouse circuit. Eventually, when something funny is found going on at the Health Club, and an infatuated accountant has a minor nervous breakdown over her, Sandra leaves town just as Carlton is in the throes of organising its television promotion. Sandra proves to be the pivotal point of the film's drama, and her presence makes itself felt in a lot of the townspeople's lives. Another scheme in which Warner has a vested interest is the introduction of a big-city masseuse Sandra Ray (Deryn Cooper) to add a new perspective to Vic Shaw's Spa Health Club and Sauna. At the centre of all this is the small-town Hitler, Bob Warner (played by Ken Blackburn), who virtually runs the town through his Progressive Businessmen's Association. The method which Carlton has chosen is a mammoth cash-raising scheme that will eventually plunge twenty thousand dollars into a fairly vacuous advertising campaign. Skin Deep sketches in dramatic form the problems of Carlton, a small community which is eager to make itself felt in the wider national scheme of things (almost a New Zealand parallel to Randy Newman's song The Beehive State). Phil Barrett (Grant Tilly) destroys the massage parlour Stead's Smith's Dream, and Angel Mine was to some degree a filmic expression of Derek Ward's Ratz Theatrix troupe, Geoff Steven's film had its origins in a video documentary that the director made about the small North Island town of Raetihi for the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1976. Whereas Sleeping Dogs possessed strong literary credentials in C.K. Now, within the last few years, we have had four New Zealand feature films from different directors: Roger Donaldson's Sleeping Dogs (1977), Tony Williams' Solo (1978), David Blyth's Angel Mine (1978) and, last but not least, Geoff Steven's Skin Deep (1978).
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New Zealand's most celebrated director, the late Rudall Hayward, produced To Love a Maori less than a decade ago: but this has had extremely scanty screenings to date. Sandra Ray (Deryn Cooper) gives a massage Don't let it get you had a Joe Musaphia script and both films used Kiri te Kanawa - the later film in a quite amazing scene where she sang Rossini's Una voce poco fa to a circle of appreciative Maori youngsters in a Rotorua pa accompanied by a tape recorder. As I remember, the acting was fairly rudimentary: but Runaway had some visual interest - particularly in the glacier sequences - and it featured a musical score by our expatriate Stockhausen scholar, Robin Maconie. It is difficult to assess O'Shea's films - they have been virtually unviewable for over ten years.
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Again, the New Zealand scenery was almost too obtrusive and, with Carmen Duncan, Tanya Binning and Normie Rowe in the cast, there was obviously an Australian market in mind. O'Shea's second feature Don't let it get you (1966) was a somewhat cautious monochrome follow-up to Lester and Boorman's films with the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. But perhaps it was a film that tried a little too hard, and its hero's journey down through the country had unfortunate Tourist Sales implications. Contemporary publicity stressed John O'Shea's 1964 film Runaway as the first New Zealand feature to be made since Rudall Hayward's Broken Barriers in the early 'fifties. Since the mid-'sixties there have been fleeting glimpses of what could eventuate. And with the special costs involved in film making, New Zealand must aim at an international or at least an Australasian market. To some degree this is understandable, as the geographical position and size of our country would seem to rule against a wholesale commitment in this area. Up until the last few years, New Zealand film making has been a very spasmodic affair. All these featured New Zealand settings as envisaged within the confines of an overseas studio. Four films that spring to mind are Green Dolphin Street (1946), The Seekers (1954) Until they sail (1957) and Quick before it melts (1965). For too long New Zealanders have become used to seeing themselves and their country through the eyes of Hollywood and Ealing Studios.