29 Dec 2016

Convoy (USA,1978)

Convoy (USA,1978).  Director: Sam Peckinpah. Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, Burt Young...

Even though I was in my formative years in the 70s and too young for bars, my vision of the period is that one could walk into just about any old bar or diner and there would be a pinball table or two in the corner. Well, perhaps that’s a romantic, pinball-nostalgic notion, but it’s certainly the case in this movie.

This movie was made during the time people were nuts about C.B. radios and truckers (e.g. Smokey and the Bandit and White Line Fever). It was based on a country & western song, and mythologizes truckers as the new heroes & outlaws of the day.

Early in the film, a big fight breaks out in a diner where the hero and his trucker buddies hang out, essentially kick-starting the plot, such as it is. In the background, we can spot several machines.

Here's the hero's girl, who works at the diner, walking by a few machines. On the extreme left is a Zodiac (Williams, 1971), next to a Casanova (Williams, 1966) and the one behind the guy on the extreme right is Hayburners II...


Next to some guys hanging out at the counter there’s the Hayburners II (Williams, 1968)...

It seems pool is the preferred game of skill in these parts, despite the presence of six machines in the place...

During the fight, a couple of guys get thrown across a pool table (including one of the pool player above), and we can spot, from left to right: MIBS (Gottlieb, 1969), Spin-A-Card (Gottlieb, 1969)  and Jive Time (Williams, 1970)...


Luckily, despite all the chaos and smashing of chairs and bottles and people, it appears that no pinball machines were harmed during the brawl!

Game over.

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