Runaway Nightmare (USA, 1982)

Runaway Nightmare (USA, 1982)
Director: Mike Cartel (as Michael Cartel), starring: Mike Cartel, Al Valletta, Seeska Vandenberg...

An action comedy horror movie written, directed & starring Mike Cartel. Low-budget, bad acting, weak plot, and never really delivers on the promise of this description I found on imdb: "Two dorky Nevada worm wranglers are kidnapped by a gang of beautiful women as part of a plot to steal plutonium from the Mafia."

There is a bar scene with pinball machines, a jukebox, a mirror ball, and the two main characters get into a fight amongst them.

Oblivious to the fighting, there's a girl playing Suspense (Williams, 1969) the whole time...

Just before this mean-looking guy punches out the main character, we can see the reflection of two machines in the mirror behind the bar, and these may be the Night Rider and Power Play seen a bit later...

The punch throws him into a 1976 Seeburg Sunstar jukebox, which starts playing (slightly earlier, we see a girl drop a coin and make a selection, but it fails to turn on)...

Another punch is thrown in front of a Night Rider (Bally, 1976) EM version, and a Power Play (Bally, 1978)... these are quite possibly the machines seen reflected in the behind-the-bar mirror in the still above...

The other main character is seen near a Drop-A-Card (Gottlieb, 1971)...

The scene ends with TILT flashing on a Roller Coaster (Gottlieb, 1971)...

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.

The Clock (USA, 1945)

The Clock (USA, 1945). Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinnemann (uncredited). Starring: Judy Garland, Robert Walker, James Gleason, Keenan Wynn...

Thanks to Bruce of the Mystic / Vintage Pinball blog for the tip on this one! I like old movies, but this one didn’t appeal to me that much.

The main characters walk into a lunch room, and there’s a flipperless Rotation (Stoner Manufacturing Co., 1940) by the door...

In one of the best scenes in the movie, Keenan Wynn plays a ranting drunk who accidentally hits James Gleason who then falls onto the machine and sends it crashing down. TILT!

TILT.

Wim Wenders (Germany)

"New German Cinema" director Wim Wenders seemed quite familiar with pinball, and this is probably no surprise since in the early days, was a bit enamored of American culture & rock n roll music.

Der Himmel Über Berlin (Germany, 1987) [A.K.A. Wings of Desire]

Director: Wim Wenders, Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Peter Falk...

On the set of a war film that Peter Falk is playing in, the extras get to enjoy playing a Bronco (Gottlieb, 1977). We see & hear it in the lower right corner in the background whilst Falk tries to find the perfect hat for his character...

 Later we see it better...

No pinball anachronism here… the WWII-era soldier is just an actor playing an actor on a set…

Der amerikanische Freund (Germany, 1977) [A.K.A. The American Friend]

Director: Wim Wenders. Starring: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer...

Just a quick glance of a machine as Ganz walks by of Fast Draw (Gottlieb, 1975)…

Summer in the City (Germany, 1970)
Director: Wim Wenders. Starring: Hanns Zischler, Edda Köchl, Libgart Schwarz...

Wenders' first feature film. There is a scene which last several minutes wherein the main character plays a pinball machine, a College Queens (Gottlieb, 1969).

The other machine is only partially visible, and the camera never changes angle, so there's not enough to identify it, but from the coin door, it is likely a Williams. [Sorry for low quality youtube screengrab image]...

Same Player Shoots Again (Germany, 1968)
Early Wenders short film. No machines to be spotted here, but the title and structure of the film is obviously inspired by pinball, which Wenders confirmed in an interview I read.

In those days, most machines were 5 ball games. The film shows 5 different takes (each tinted in a different color) of a man running beside the camera with a gun. The title appears near the beginning for a few seconds...

And near the end, the following appears for a few seconds...

B o n u s :
Die linkshändige Frau (Germany, 1978) [A.K.A. The Left-handed Woman]

This film was directed by Peter Handke, a writer who Wenders collaborated with or adapted material from. Acting in it is Bruno Ganz, a Wenders regular. It's just a quick glance of a Spirit of 76 (Gottlieb, 1976) with some random guy leaning against it...

[Edit 2017.12.07:  Better stills for Same Player, and added new section for Summer in the City]

Caught (USA, 1949)

Caught (USA, 1949). Director: Max Ophüls (as Max Opuls), Starring: Robert Ryan, James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes...

In this drama / film noir, Robert Ryan plays a very rich control freak, a character loosely based on Howard Hughes. The role was originally cast for James Mason in his american film debut, but he demanded to switch roles and play the nice guy for a change.

Anyway, this rich guy has a pinball machine in his living room, a Carnival (Bally, 1948), which has that rather new innovation…flippers! The cabinet and backbox seems to have been wallpapered… possibly to avoid paying licensing fees? It’s odd, because the manufacturer’s name does not appear there anyway. In any case, there was enough for me to identify the table from the playfield...

Ryan’s character seems to like to take his aggression out on the machine, so much so that he tilts in a major way...

And that’s my second post that ends with broken pinball glass :-(.

TILT.

Heavy Traffic (USA, 1973)

Heavy Traffic (USA, 1973). Director: Ralph Bakshi. Starring: Joseph Kaufmann, Beverly Hope Atkinson, Frank DeKova...

The very first frame of this film is a shot of a quarter being dropped into a pinball machine… apparently Bakshi often played pinball, and seems to use it as a metaphor for life in a big city. Indeed the various characters bounce around the streets and off each other crazily.

A lot of the live action shots of pinball playing have been processed somehow to alter the colors (my experimental filmmaker friends could not identify the exact technique used). Here are a couple of example stills of that with a Time Tunnel (Bally, 1972) machine (but it could also be Space Time, which is the same game but with different number of players… the backglass is never shown, so there is no way to tell)...

 There is also a composite shot involving color-altered ladies panning across the score reel of a Travel Time (Williams, 1973)...

The film mixes animation and live action. Michael, the main character of the film appears in both animated and live action incarnations. In part of his off-camera narration, he repeats “Tilt City, Pinball Alley. Blinkin’ lights, shot to Hell, fuck it all!” a couple of times. He can be seen in an arcade playing a pretty beat up Foto Finish (Gottlieb, 1961)...

In a climactic scene, Michael’s frustrations mount to the point where he tilts the poor machine in a major way...

TILT.