Dogfight (USA, 1991)

Dogfight (USA, 1991).  Director: Nancy Savoca, starring River Phoenix, Lili Taylor, Richard Panebianco, Brendan Fraser...

The movie set in 1963, the day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. River plays a soldier about to be shipped out...

He and his buddies have some fun an arcade... River's playing a Gigi (Gottlieb, 1963), which is a slight anachronism, since it came out in December...

Behind him, there is a row of mutoscopes ("movie" viewers, but using a lot of stills, like a large flip-it book) e.g. the black one on the left is a Mutoscope "clam shell" model D, made between late 1890s to about 1909. His buddy is by a Cockeyed Circus (Exhibit Supply Company, 1941), and to the right is a baseball / bat game 10th Inning (Williams, 1964), another anachronism...

Elsewhere in the arcade is a Super Circus Rifle Gallery (Chicago Coin, 1969) yet another anachronism, and a Carnival Gun (United, 1954), and a Mr. Top Gun (Taylor, 1960-1975) shootout game with life-size cowboy (different models of cowboy existed)...

Words are exchanged between the army guys and the navy guys. In Brendan Fraser's film debut, as he walks over to engage, we can spot a Hollywood (Williams, 1961) and an Egg Head (Gottlieb, 1961)...

When the fight breaks out, we can see a row of machines, some of which I could not identify... (from left to right)...
1. ?, 2. ?, 3. ?, 4. Gigi (Gottlieb, 1963), 5. a wall game?, 6. Fast Ball (Williams, 1969) anachronism, 7. Swing-Along (Gottlieb, 1963), 8. an old woodrail, maybe even flipperless, and 9.  Hollywood (Williams, 1961), where we can now see a bit of the "Styling of the 60's" cabinet (anodized aluminum trim and tapered tubular chromium steel legs)...

Oh yeah, on the left is an Uncle Sam strength-tester (possibly made by Caille Brothers, circa 1908, or maybe a reproduction).

In a later scene, River revisits the arcade with Lili and they play Whac-A-Mole (Creative Engineering, Inc., 1976). This is another anachronism. Mysteriously, I could not find any photos of the game that match this backglass and score reel type...

Towards the end of the movie, River is back from his tour of duty, it's 1966, and he walks into a themed bar called Circus, which has a Circus (Bally, 1973) , yet another pinball anachronism...

Also of note in this movie, there is a scene with a room full of antique coin-operated music machines from the late 19th century to the 1920s or 30s. There are mechanically-animated animal orchestras, a Regina Hexaphone, J.P. Seeburg Electric player piano, etc. Since the film was set and partly shot in San Francisco, perhaps these were from the Musee Mechanique?

Thanks to Ruby for spotting this one. I had seen this movie long before my pinball obsession and did not remember the arcade scenes.

Pinballspotting: Unidentifiables

Several pinballspottings that are too blurry, far in the background or just plain too difficult to identify due to lack of clues. Here are a few, in chronological order...

Black Angel (USA, 1946)
Director: Roy William Neill.  Stars: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford...

Two flipperless and headless machines. Flippers arrived in 1947, i.e. after this movie was released, and headless machines were pretty much over by the later 30s, in favor of backboxes with illuminated backglasses. However, these are too tough to identify without more clues. For example, for 1935 alone, ipdb lists 309 machines from 54 different manufacturers!

Criss Cross (USA, 1949)
Director: Robert Siodmak.  Stars: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea...

There's a flipperless and headless pinball machine, and the cabinet artwork looks like one of the ones in the above-mentioned Black Angel, as well as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) (see this post) and it could well be the exact same machine. e.g. the set dressers ask for an old pinball machine and this is what they have in their props department...

Midnight Cowboy (USA, 1969)
Director: John Schlesinger.  Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro...

Voight is playing a rifle game, probably a mid-50s Williams (the backglass is similar to Cross Fire but with a different theme). Far in the background, three pinball machines, two of which are the same...

The guy talking to him is in front of another rifle game with a space theme, in the background are two of the same rifle game...

Five Easy Pieces (USA, 1970)
Director: Bob Rafelson.  Stars: Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Billy Green Bush, Sally Struthers...

Jack and friends are in a bowling alley, and we can spot a row of pinball machines in the background, too blurry to easily make out...

Porky's (USA, 1981)
Director: Bob Clark.  Stars: Dan Monahan, Mark Herrier, Wyatt Knight, Kim Cattrall, Susan Clark...

Set in Florida in 1954. A couple of machines in the corner of Porky's place. In a bad movie like this, I highly doubt that the machines are even remotely from the same time period, so even though I cannot identify them, I will declare this another pinball anachronism.

As an aside, the neon-ringed clock looks just like the one in Montreal's Le cheval blanc brewpub, which I used to frequent...

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...

La balance (France, 1982)

La balance (France, 1982).
Director: Bob Swaim. Stars: Nathalie Baye, Philippe Léotard, Richard Berry, Tchéky Karyo...

A gritty crime story in a rough Parisian neighbourhood. After one of the cop's major informants ("balance" in French) is murdered, they go after the crime boss who is responsible and stop at nothing. They put pressure on a streetwalker (Baye) and her boyfriend (Léotard) who used be her pimp and work for the boss, and try to get them to inform on the boss.

We can spot a Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) through the window as the cops give Baye a hard time...

Later in a café we can see a bit of a Barcrest "Amabassadeur" slot machine with the boss' henchman/psycho Tchéky Karyo about to get nasty...

In one scene, five cops drag Léotard into a noisy busy arcade and work on him a bit. The camera pans by a row of machines and punks... we can spot Devil's Dare (Gottlieb, 1982), Black Hole (Gottlieb, 1981) (European model with no infinity mirror lights in backbox)...

... Mars God of War (Gottlieb, 1981), Spectrum (Bally, 1982), Rocky (Gottlieb, 1982), Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982)...

The camera pans along, passing a 1970s Kasco Clay Shooting rifle game...

Finally the camera finds where the gang of cops have Léotard cornered, where we can spot a bunch of video games including Namco/Midway's Galaxian (or its sequel, Galaga), King Kong, and Pac-Man, and he's got his back against an Armor Attack (Cinematronics, 1980)...

The scene closes with the camera zooming in on the CRT to show an explosion...

Here in this café, we can spot a Rock-Ola 463 jukebox (1976) on the left, and a glimpse of a Barcrest Ambassadeur slot machine...

Bonus connections:
At the police station, there are a few movie posters, one of which is for The Enforcer (1976) with Clint Eastwood, which has a brief pinballspotting (see this post).

Also in the streets outside of a movie theatre, there's a poster of The Hunter (1980), which also had some pinballspottings (see this post).

In Tchao Pantin (1983), another French film set in a gritty part of town around the same time period, we also saw a Barcrest Ambassadeur slot machine as well as a Devil's Dare pinball machine... see this post.

The Warriors (USA, 1979)

The Warriors  (USA, 1979). Director: Walter Hill. Stars: Michael Beck, James Remar, David Harris...

“Warriors, come out to play-ay!” taunts one of their enemy gang leaders. But The Warriors were a bit too busy to play pinball, that’s for sure. A classic movie in my books... my friends and I would quote bits all the time. And it had a cool look about it... the lights on the wet streets, the different styles of all the gangs encountered, especially of course the Baseball Furies.

Basic plot was that Cyrus and his powerful NYC gang held a big conclave in the Bronx with 9 representatives from each gang and tried to unite them in order to take over the city. However, he is murdered and the blame is pinned on The Warriors, who then have to battle their way back home to Coney Island, encountering different gangs.

It’s one of those against-the-odds situations, but it’s loosely based on Xenophon’s Anabasis, wherein an army hired by Cyrus the Younger gets isolated deep in enemy territory after he is killed during the battle of Cunaxa, and they had to fight their way out.

Orson Welles was supposed to be the narrator, but it’s unclear if it was actually recorded.

Anyway, somewhere in the maze of tunnels of the Union Square subway station was this little Playland amusements arcade.

Members of “The Punks”, a gang wearing roller-skates, overalls and rugby shirts start to show up. Behind them is an Aquarius (Gottlieb, 1971) and possibly a juke-box...

The leader of The Warriors pretends to be unaware of the gang gathering behind him. Over his left shoulder, we spot a 2001 (Gottlieb, 1971), whilst behind the girl is a gypsy grandmother fortune telling machine (Genco, late 50s)...

Behind a Top Card (Gottlieb, 1974), The Warriors try to draw The Punks into a more strategic fighting spot...

The Punks follow slowly... on the left is a life-size sheriff mannequin, as well as an Ambush (Williams, 1973) Vietnam-themed rifle game...

CAN YOU DIG IT ?!