While I was doing some YouTube channel surfing, I stumbled upon this full version of the 1979 movie "Tilt" starring a young Brooke Shields as a incorrigible 14-year-old pinball-wizard, the so called heartthrob Ken Marshall and the eternal puffy Charles Durning. Alongside the likes of Geoffrey Lewis, Fred Ward and even an unrecognizable Lorenzo Lamas for all you "Renegade" fans.
The story begins in a small country town in Texas, where a young country musician named Neil Gallagher (Ken Marshall) challenging the largest pinball world champion, Harold Remmens (Charles Durning), known as 'The Whale' due to his immense weight. When he learns that Neil tried to beat him by cheating, he has him beaten and kicked out. After getting his ass kicked, Neil tries to raise cash so he can go to LA and make a demo tape. When he sees runaway Brenda 'Tilt' Davenport's amazing pinball skills, he convinced her to join him on a cross-country trip hustling people in pool-halls and arcades. Eventually, the action leads to the big showdown with The Whale.
First off, pinball hustling?! WTF! Who the hell ever heard of that? The plot is stupid, the music is bad, the acting, generally tolerable to poorly at times. The only reason to watch this is for Durning. His performance was WAY too good for this movie and gives the part a nice hammy turn. He’s supposed to be the villain, but he’s the only character with likability. Even if I wasn't a Durning fan, I'd still like his character better than any other character in this movie.
The film’s final sequence in which Tilt and The Whale get together late at night in an empty bar and challenge each other to a pinball contest is the best scene in the whole movie. The surprise twist that occurs at the very end is cute and endearing which helps give this otherwise flat film more points than it deserves.
It's kind of a sweet little movie despite its fairly predictable plot. It is easy to see why this movie bombed at the box office and basically sat on the studio shelf for years. So if you're a Durning-fan (and c'mon, who isn't?) you can see him finesse the tables in ways that only he could...
The way he was dancing around and bumping against the pinball machine took on a somewhat erotic quality. It got me wondering. How good was he in bed back in the day?
Damn good, I imagine.
So what is Tilt? It’s a bad movie. Really bad. But it's something to watch on an afternoon when you don't have to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment