The Bad News Bears (USA, 1976 & 2005)

The Bad News Bears (USA, 1976 & 2005)

The Bad News Bears (USA, 1976) 
Director: Michael Ritchie, starring: Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal, Vic Morrow...

A scene in the Bonanza arcade shows the juvenile delinquent Kelly playing air hockey for money.

From left to right, the complete lineup is:  Hee Haw (Chicago Coin, 1973), Jumping Jack (Gottlieb, 1973), Klondike (Williams, 1971), High Hand (Gottlieb, 1973)...

In the background on the right may be a few more amongst some other arcade games, but too they are hard to make out. There is a racing car game which looks much like a Gran Trak 10 (Atari, 1974), but the side of the cabinet has been repainted a solid color instead of the stencil art, and the front art doesn't quite match either...

The man loses and Kelly tries to hit on a girl playing a wedgehead pinball. The complete lineup is Paul Bunyan (Gottlieb, 1968) (just a bit of the backbox side), Bali-Hi   (Bally, 1970), Big Indian (Gottlieb, 1974), Gulfstream (Williams, 1973), Fun-Fest (Williams, 1973), and the girl is playing a Flip A Card (Gottlieb, 1970)...

Bali-Hi is apparently a rare game, with only 80 units ever made, however, it can also be spotted in an episode of The Rockford Files ("Dirty Money, Black Light", season 3, 1977).

Then Tatum walks in and plays him on condition that if she wins, he has to play ball with the Bears, and if he wins, she goes on a date with him...

High Hand (Gottlieb, 1973) behind her...

Bad News Bears (USA, 2005)
Director: Richard Linklater, starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden...

For whatever reasons, they decided to remake this classic. The air-hockey battle/bet has been "modernized" to a skateboard battle, but  since it was directed by our pinball-loving friend Linklater, he managed to squeeze in a couple of pinball machines, although they are only onscreen for less than 3 seconds.

From left to right, Kiss (Bally, 1979), Skateball (Bally, 1980), and another that I can't identify because the girl is blocking most of it...

Harper (USA, 1966)

Harper (USA, 1966)

Director: Jack Smight. Stars: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner...

Newman plays Harper, a private investigator who gets embroiled in a case and meets some crazy people. His character is a little bit of an S.O.B., tough, but loses some fights, quite witty and very entertaining to watch.

In some joint, he pumps a waitress for information next to a pinball machine...

He then talks to the barman, and finally asks for some dimes, walks over to the pinball machines -- Cross Country (Bally, 1963) and Go-Cart (Keeney, 1963) -- sticks his gum under a table, but before he's able to coin one of them up, he hears a cop car screech in and he goes to hide in the restroom to avoid them...

Although this blog is not about jukeboxes, this one was intriguing and easy enough to identify, so why not... At one point Harper ends up in a bar trying to get some info from Shelley Winters. We can spot a 1963 Rowe/AMI JAL model jukebox with a cool little animation thing (here's a fuzzy animated GIF showing that a bit)...

Not-quite Pinball Bonus:

Nine years later, they made a sequel called The Drowning Pool (USA, 1975)  and Harper embarks on another adventure. It was directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starred Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Melanie Griffith...

There's a scene in a bar where Harper talks to Richard Jaeckel and in the background, blurry, I believe is a pinball machine, but of course, too hard to identify. There appears to be a jukebox as well, again, too blurry to identify...

No Pinball Bonus:

Paul Newman also starred in The Hustler (USA,1961) which features several pool halls. There are no pinballs, but there are some interesting coin-operated machines...

Intro scene has an All-Star Deluxe Bowler (Bally, 1958)...

In a later scene in a bus station, we can spot a Deluxe Short-Stop (Williams, 1958) baseball (with part of cabinet painted over in a solid color), a rifle / gun game that looks like a Crossfire (Williams, 1956) and a Ten Strike (or Ten Pins), (Williams, 1957), a two-player, mechanically-animated manikin bowling game...

In the rest rooms, we can spot a Zodiac fortune teller / horoscope machine. It appears to be an "Astroscope", made by Crabb Manufacturing circa 1939. I spotted this machine before, in Dazed And Confused (USA, 1993), see this post...

The "Is this your lucky day?" seems to be an optional topper...

The Blues Brothers (USA, 1980)

The Blues Brothers (USA, 1980).  Director: John Landis. Stars: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, John Candy...

Pure gold comedy classic with Belushi and Aykroyd expanding their characters from a Saturday Night Live sketch into a feature-length film. A fun ride (whilst being chased by cops) and filled with great funny lines. The list of musical talent in cameo and supporting roles is unbelievable...  Cab Calloway, James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, etc. etc.

In the scene where the Blues Brothers invade Bob's Country Bunker (where they have both types of music: country and western), we can spot several machines...

As Jake and Elwood Blues first walk in, they pass by a jukebox that resembles a Seeburg V200 (1955-6)...

Then they pass pinball 3 machines... from left to right: a 4 Square (Gottlieb, 1971) wedgehead, a Monte Carlo (Bally, 1972) and a Blue Chip (Williams, 1976)...

The famous chicken-wire fronted stage, flanked on both sides by a pinball machine. The one on the left is too hard to make out. The one on the right is a wedgehead, which I'm pretty sure is a Buccaneer (Gottlieb, 1976)...

During the set, Bob expresses his appreciation for the "The Good Ol' Blues Brothers Boys Band" whilst his patrons play the 4 Square and Monte Carlo machines seen earlier. On the wall is a warning to minors about a $500 fine, which, if it's for playing pinball, seems pretty steep...

Bring me four fried chickens and a Coke, please. And some dry white toast.

More (France, 1969)

More (France, 1969)

Director: Barbet Schroeder. Stars: Mimsy Farmer, Klaus Grünberg, Heinz Engelmann...

A young German fresh out of college hitch-hikes to Paris and meets up with a lovely American girl, who he ends up following to Ibiza, where they live a hedonistic lifestyle in the sun and eventually become heroin addicts. Of course, the main reason I watched this was because Pink Floyd did the music for it.

Anyway, before meeting the girl, he befriends a guy in a café, who plays a few games of Ship-Mates (Gottlieb, 1964)...

Play It Again, Sam (USA, 1972)

Play It Again, Sam (USA, 1972).  Director: Herbert Ross. Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts...

Great comedy based on Woody's play wherein he gets love advice from an apparition of Humphrey Bogart, and there are several references to Bogie's films, especially of course Casablanca.

Woody and his cute date go into a questionable bar and some bikers are beside a couple of wedgeheads... a Central Park (Gottlieb, 1966) and a Cross Town (Gottlieb, 1966)...

One immediately sits at their table, then calls his friend over and they hassle them and try to steal his date from him... [yes, there is no pinball machine in this photo... just had to get Woody in there...]

Woody ends up snapping his chin down on one guy's fist and hit another one in the knee with his nose.

Game over.

Quicksand (USA, 1950)

Quicksand (USA, 1950). Director: Irving Pichel. Stars: Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Peter Lorre, Barbara Bates...

Rooney makes one stupid decision after another. To impress his date (Jeanne Cagney), he’s gotta have cash, so he borrows money from the cash register where he works... of course things go wrong, and get worse and worse...

In the diner where Jeanne works we can spot an aviation-themed pinball...
Fleet (Bally, 1940)...

Nick (Peter Lorre) runs a penny arcade (I include these shots because there are a lot of other vintage coin-operated amusement machines that may interest someone)...

Rooney and Jeanne go for some pinball, and we can spot a Big Hit (Exhibit, 1946) partially visible on the left, and a Ballerina (Bally, 1948) that she plays...

Jeanne Cagney wins a payout after one ball (she knows the trick because she used to work at the arcade)... “Hey Nick! Pay me! I hit the jackpot.” Lorre begrudgingly comes over...

He pays her, but then puts an “Out of Order” sign on it saying “That’s all for you.”...

Later there’s a reverse angle on Ballerina, with a card-themed game (not necessarily a pinball) on the left...

Thieves’ Highway (USA, 1949)

Thieves’ Highway (USA, 1949). Director: Jules Dassin. Stars: Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Millard Mitchell...

Written by A.I. Bezzerides (based on his novel), who also wrote They Drive By Night (1940), which I featured near the beginning of this blog in this post.

The subject matter is similar... dealing with truckers driving long hours to haul loads as quickly as possible, but this one focuses more on greed and the nasty dealings in the produce industry. I prefer They Drive By Night, but there are a couple of great scenes in this one.

Valentina walks into a restaurant in the market area and we can spot the backboxes of two machines through the window...

The first machine is a Smarty (Williams, 1946)...

The second machine is a Super Score (Chicago Coin, 1946)...

Both pinball machines were originally manufactured flipperless. However, since the first flipper machine came out in December 1947 and made flipperless ones obsolete overnight, operators may have retrofitted them with flippers by the time the movie was filmed. It’s impossible to tell from what we can see in the footage.

Ida Lupino: Out of the Fog (USA, 1941) and Road House (USA, 1948)

Out of the Fog (USA, 1941)
Director: Anatole Litvak. Stars: Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert, George Tobias...

I’ve seen this movie many many times, but mostly in the 80s and early 90s. It was one of the three movies with the great Ida Lupino in it that CBC had in their Warner Bros. late night movie collection. But I had not remembered the scene with pinball machines in it until seeing my friend Mark Loeser’s supercut video that is projected in a loop at the North Star bar in Montreal.

Ida walks into a drug store / soda shop, and there’s a kid playing a Snooks (Stoner, 1939)...

The “kid”, played by Walter Tetley (better known as a voice actor due to his perennially adolescent voice) wins a payout, exclaiming “I hit it! I hit it! For once in my life I beat the machine!” then he rushes over to the bartender and says “Fourty-eight thousand! Pay me nine nickels!”. In those days, pinballs were flipperless gambling machines...

There’s something a bit strange about the backbox... it has a second section on top which isn’t seen in the flyers on IPDB.

Behind the Snooks machine is the one with the famous mysterious cabinet which could be a Rink (Genco Manufacturing Co., 1939), as seen in They Drive By Night (1940), also starring Ida Lupino, which I wrote about previously in this post.

Road House (USA, 1948)
Director: Jean Negulesco. Stars: Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark...

An Argentine (Genco, 1941) pinball machine can be spotted in the opening credits and a few scenes...

Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark (who plays Jefty, the owner of the titular road house) walking by the machine...

And to my knowledge, this is the only other movie scene where Ida appears in the same frame as a pinball machine...

The Hunter (USA, 1980)

The Hunter (USA, 1980). Director: Buzz Kulik. Stars: Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Kathryn Harrold, LeVar Burton...

McQueen’s final movie. He plays Ralph ‘Papa’ Thorson, a real-life bounty hunter who wrote the book the movie was based upon. It’s got some humor in it... McQueen plays a terrible driver, going against his famous car driving skills.

Anyway, he walks into a bar looking for a bail jumper and we can spot a couple of pinball machines... a Toledo (Williams, 1975) on the left and a Royal Flush (Gottlieb, 1976) on the right:

McQueen’s walking into the bar apparently was enough of an event to warrant the man on the left’s interrupting of his game of Toledo...

The bartendress goes to warn the bail jumper (LeVar Burton), who is repairing a Gottlieb wedgehead in a back room... a Strange World (Gottlieb, 1978):

Or shall we say, attempts to repair... it becomes a running joke in the movie when LeVar’s always starting repairs of stuff... a TV, a toaster oven, etc... but never finishes them.