YEAR: 1955
DIRECTOR: John Sturges
PINBALL MODEL(S): 'Follies of 1940' (1939, Genco)
GAME LOCATION: Saloon
NOTES: Once again we have a Robert Ryan/Pinball connection in a film! This Sturges classic is essential viewing for any fan of investigative cinema, but the presence of this pin-table makes it essential viewing for the pinball junkie as well.
In this film, Black Rock is a town torn between two eras: one marked by the self-policing, pre-war, pre-modern anonymity afforded by living in the American west, and a new era in which the encroachment of modernity is unavoidable. Here, the personal and cultural scars of United States involvement in WWII are hiding in plain sight (vertical surfaces are adorned by remembrances of wartime), and even the pin-table model name serves to call-to-attention the world events that derailed America's isolationist mentality.
