L'attentat (France, 1966)

L'attentat  (France, 1966). Director: Jean-François Davy. Starring: Roger Sweig, Marie-Hélène Broca, Dominique Erlanger...

Thanks for Mark Loeser for mentioning this film to me whilst I was trying to amateurishly fix a bug with his pinball machine....

It’s a French “New Wave” film about a disillusioned pinball repair man who can barely make ends meet and is frustrated with society.

Wanting to get things happening with the Leftist movement, he eventually plants a bomb in a train station and rigs up a pinball machine to trigger it from a distance when it scores 500 points.

First up on his rounds, a Ship-Mates (Gottlieb, 1964)...

A pinball player says to him whilst he’s repairing a machine, “That must be a cool job”, but he replies “Yeah, it seems so in the beginning.” Then he goes on to say that “Pinball is like politics. You need reflexes and to be alert.”...

When he makes his rounds, a bartender calls him “Mr. Gottlieb”, yet at this other place, there are a couple of Williams machines... Big Chief (Williams, 1965) and a Merry Widow (Williams, 1963)...

Merry Widow (Williams, 1963)...

At yet another job, there’s a Band Wagon (Bally, 1965), with a sign saying "EN PANNE" (Out of order)...

Sitting with a friend, behind him is a pinball cabinet... I think it’s a Thoro-Bred (Gottlieb, 1965)...

Here he is installing the bomb trigger transmitter in a Liberty Belle (Gottlieb, 1962)...

An unsuspecting person playing the rigged Liberty Belle  (Gottlieb, 1962)... will he score the fateful 500 points?!

Instead of “The End”, the last frame is TILT, with the sounds of pinball...

TILT.