Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Palm Beach (1979)

play
clip Everybody's looking for something

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Paul (Bryan Brown) looks for work in a surfboard factory, as Nick (Nat Young) and his friend Joe (Ken Brown) are there trying to score some LSD. Private investigator Larry (John Flaus) asks policeman Eric (John Clayton) if he has any leads on a missing girl.

Curator’s notes

The overlapping sound design marks the film’s stylistic ambition, to create a sense of restless energy, where stories interconnect and overlap — perhaps influenced by Robert Altman’s Nashville, which came out in 1975 – although the film was in planning from as early as 1973. Low-budget origins are apparent in the ragged sync-sound.