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Story: Country towns

Reaction to a massage parlour

Video file

In Geoff Steven’s 1978 film Skin deep, a masseuse arrives in a small North Island town and establishes the Spa Health Clinic. As this clip suggests, some people in the community were not pleased by this invasion of urban values. The conformism and social repression of small-town New Zealand became a common stereotype of life in country towns.

Using this item

New Zealand Film Commission

Reference: Skin deep. Producer, John Maynard; director, Geoff Steven. Phase Three Films, 1978.

Courtesy of Geoff Steven

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Country towns – A tight society, 1920–1950, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/19420/reaction-to-a-massage-parlour (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 1 March 2009.