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.

Masculin-féminin (France, 1966)

Masculin-féminin (France, 1966). Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Chantal Goya, Marlène Jobert...

Ooops, I forgot about this one for the Godard special of the last post, but then again, unlike the other 60s Godard pinballspottings, Anna Karina is not in it.

Sure, Chantal Goya is cute, but she can’t hold a candle to Anna K. She was also a singer of yé-yé pop songs. There are plenty of snippets of Goya’s songs and references to pop culture. An intertitle in the film states “This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola”.

In a café, there’s a Ship-Mates (Gottlieb, 1964)...

Later we see a game room with a bowling machine, a driving game and an Aloha (Gottlieb, 1961)...

Chantal Goya had a song called “Si tu gagnes au flipper” [if you win at pinball]. The song is typical of that pop style, with pretty vapid lyrics, but it starts out with some pinball sounds.

Si tu gagnes au flipper, tu as perdu mon cœur
Car je sais que tu es sorti, avec ma meilleure amie

Translation:
If you win at pinball, you’ve lost my heart
Because I know that you’ve gone out with my best friend

We hear a bit of the song whilst Léaud plays a game, but we don’t see enough of the table to be able to identify it, except that it is most likely a Gottlieb, because they were definitely king of pinball in France...

Jean-Luc Godard (France) Part 1: The 60s

Jean-Luc Godard is an influential French filmmaker notably associated with the Nouvelle Vague film movement (“New Wave” in English). Hi films were variously experimental, genre-deconstructing, intellectual, political and funny. He was married to actress Anna Karina, who graced many of his 1960s films with her beauty and charm.

Vivre sa vie (France, 1962) [A.K.A. My Life To Live]
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André S. Labarthe...

A couple of scenes where the main characters play pinball. In the first scene, Anna plays a Sea Belles (Gottlieb, 1956)...

In the second scene, Anna’s friends play a Sweet Sioux (Gottlieb, 1959). This was a 4-player game, which normally had wood side rails, but metal ones also existed, as pictured here...

Bande à part (France, 1964) [A.K.A. Band of Outsiders].
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Stars: Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur, Sami Frey...

Just a brief glimpse of a Sunset (Gottlieb, 1962) as the gang walks into a café…

Pierrot le fou (France, 1965)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina...

A very brief glimpse of two machines in a bowling alley.
The one on the left is a Sky·Line (Gottlieb, 1965), which was pretty much brand new when the film was shot.

The other we don’t see enough of to identify...

Made In U.S.A. (France, 1966)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Starring: Anna Karina, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Léaud...

Godard’s last feature film with Karina… they had divorced in 1965. I don’t remember much of the plot, but it was a sort of mish-mash film noir with gangsters and politics and deconstructed.

Some of the gang Anna’s with hang out in a garage where there’s a Sea-Shore (Gottlieb, 1964)...

Bonus:
Godard’s 1965 film Alphaville (which also starred Anna Karina) inspired Jerry Kelley for the artwork for Capersville (Bally, 1966)...