Girls Just Want To Have Fun (USA, 1985)

Girls Just Want To Have Fun (USA, 1985)

Director: Alan Metter. Stars: Biff Yeager, Kristi Somers, Helen Hunt, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shannen Doherty...

Not a very good movie. Early days for a couple of actresses who went on to become more famous.

There's a scene in the house of the "rich enemy girl", wherein she's playing pool with her father in the game room.  We can spot an Old Chicago (Bally, 1976)...

There are also some slot machines (the two on the right might be manufactured by O.D. Jennings & Co.)...

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.

Tchao Pantin (France, 1983)

Tchao Pantin (France, 1983). Director: Claude Berri. Stars: Coluche, Richard Anconina, Agnès Soral, Philippe Léotard...

Coluche was a famous stand-up comedian in France, and this was one of his few dramatic roles (for which he won a César award for best actor). Here he plays a sad, middle-aged, solitary gas-station attendant on the night shift, with a bottle for company. The atmosphere is dark and often rainy, in a working-class neighborhood in North Paris. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young small-time drug dealer (Anconina) who comes into his station one night.

The latter hangs out in cafés and bars, and in one of them, we can spot a couple of pinball machines, Devil’s Dare (Gottlieb, 1982) and Pink Panther (Gottlieb, 1981)...

In a later scene, we can spot a Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man Pinball (Bally, 1982)...

Bonus: Anconina playing a Barcrest “Ambassadeur 2000” slot machine...

Star Trek: A Piece of the Action (USA, 1968)

Star Trek: A Piece of the Action (USA, 1968). Season 2, Episode 17. Director: James Komack. Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley...

Normally I don’t do TV shows on this blog, but since I love the original Star Trek and there were these nice old machines to identify, I made an exception...

The basic premise of the episode is that Captain Kirk and the gang go to a planet and discover a culture who have adopted a way of life based on a book on gangsters of the 1920s, accidentally left behind by previous visitors from Earth.

At one point, Kirk and the gang are captured and put “on ice” in a warehouse under guard, amongst some dusty pinball and slot machines.

These tables are from 1941 and 1952... talk about major pinball anachronism! Pinball as we know it didn’t quite exist yet in the 20s... they were still bagatelles with no flippers, and weren’t even coin-operated until the early 30s, let alone electric.

Anyway, this is not the place to get into a detailed history of pinball or be overly critical, since this is after all a science fiction story set not in the 1920s, but in 2268!

What we spot here on the left are a couple of Majors - 1941 (Chicago Coin, 1941), one of them very dusty, as well as  a Twenty Grand (Williams, 1952) closest to the crew...

Kirk about to create a diversion, with the Twenty Grand visible over his shoulder... BTW, it had flippers, which only started appearing on pinball tables in 1947 :-)...

After a brief explanation of the game of “Fizzbin”, a fight breaks out. In the wider shot, we can see a third  Majors - 1941 machine on the right...

As Spock and ‘Bones exit, we get a closer look at the flipperless Majors - 1941...