Pallet on the Floor (1986)

Directed by

Lynton Butler

Genre

comedy horror

Country

New Zealand

Runtime

1h 28m

Rated

R

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In a bleak small New Zealand town in the 1960s, a worker at a local abattoir gets involved with an eccentric British newcomer. The story shows the town's rough edges including racism and class divisions.

quirkydarkly comicbleakearthysomberoffbeatslow-burnsmall-town

What happens

Pallet on the Floor is a 1986 New Zealand made comedy-drama film, based on the final novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Shot in 1983 at Pātea, partly in a closed-down abattoir, the film was given limited release in New Zealand three years later. The main role of abattoir worker Sam Jamieson is played by veteran actor Peter McCauley. Pallet on the Floor is the only feature film directed by Lynton Butler, who earlier made One of those Blighters, a television production which fictionalised Morrieson's life. Actor and musician Bruno Lawrence contributed to the jazz score, and has a small cameo role playing Morrieson as a bass player at a wedding. The focus of the plot was shifted to the character of the British remittance man in the hope that Peter O’Toole would take the role. This did not occur. While billed as comedy, the film depicts 1960s racism and class divisions, and maintains Morrieson's trademark preoccupations .... of sex, death, mateship, voyeurism, violence, booze and mayhem in bleak small town New Zealand. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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