Smash Palace (1981) on Netflix
Al Shaw runs Smash Palace, the wrecking yard he took over from his late father on the North Island Volcanic Plateau. His French wife Jacqui wants him to sell it.
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- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.0/101,337 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Al Shaw gave up international racing and came home to run Smash Palace, the wrecking yard his late father left on the North Island Volcanic Plateau. He lives there with Jacqui, his French-born wife, and Georgie, their seven-year-old daughter. Jacqui has grown tired of how much of him the cars take and of his unwillingness to sell the yard, and she worries about the future Georgie will have. Al spends his days drinking with Ray Foley, a policeman whose vintage green Ford he is restoring, and fixing cars beside Tiny, his assistant for many years. He is a father who dotes on Georgie. Jacqui and Ray grow closer after she goes to a party with him, and she looks to him for advice about her marriage.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Smash Palace (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Roger Donaldson was inspired to write Smash Palace by a newspaper article about a five-year-old boy kidnapped by his police officer father in a custody dispute, which ended in an armed standoff.
- Donaldson admitted he exaggerated the film's cost to foreign distributors, inflating the budget to $1,000,000 because he feared it would not be taken seriously.
- Smash Palace was turned down twice for funding by the New Zealand Film Commission, and only got backing after veteran filmmaker John O'Shea pointed out that Donaldson's earlier film Sleeping Dogs was the reason the commission was founded.
- One condition of the New Zealand Film Commission's funding was that Smash Palace be finished in time for the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. That left the production team only four months between the start of shooting and the premiere.
- Much of Smash Palace was shot at Horopito Motors, a car dismantling business that has stood on the same site since the 1940s. A scene from Goodbye Pork Pie (1981) and the finale of Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) were shot there too.
- Smash Palace launched Roger Donaldson's international career. Enthusiasm from American critics won him interest from Hollywood and the chance to direct The Bounty, the first of several films he made that were financed outside New Zealand.
