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Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game
Oct. 18th, 2022 05:50 pmPinball: The Man Who Saved the Game tells the story of Roger Sharpe, an avid pinball player in his college years at a large Midwestern university, who moved to New York City in the 1970s and discovered that it was almost impossible to find a pinball machine in the city. He eventually finds three pinball machines in the foyer of a porn store, and when he gets divorced and loses his job in short order, he spends hours playing pinball there… until the police raid the store and bust up the pinball machines.
The police came, it turns out, specifically for the pinball machines. Pinball had been illegal in New York ever since Fiorello La Guardia banned the game in the 1930s. Why? “Gambling,” he called it. “A game of chance.” “A way for the Mob to steal children’s lunch money.” Cities across the country followed suit.
Thus, Sharpe gets drawn into an attempt to overturn the city council’s pinball ban, which ends with Sharpe playing a demonstration pinball game in court to show that pinball is a game of skill, not chance. He makes a particularly difficult shot, and everyone cheers! People throw their hats in the air! The cranky anti-pinball councilman hugs Sharpe…
“Wait, wait, wait,” protests Roger Sharpe, the reenactment cutting back to a shot of modern-day Roger Sharpe, whose interviews have been interspersed throughout. “It wasn’t like that! Nobody acts like that!”
Back to the city council chamber, where the cranky anti-pinball councilman snaps, “I’ve seen enough.” He lumbers off, chats with the other council members, and - votes to overturn the pinball ban.
Pinball is one-quarter documentary, three-quarters biopic, and 100% delightful. I wasn’t sure at first about the ratio of love-story-to-pinball, but it actually really won me over, not least because it’s a somewhat unusual love story: divorced Roger Sharpe fell for a divorced woman six years his senior who already had an eleven-year-old son from her first marriage. The age difference is a non-issue, but Roger is understandably concerned about the emotional challenges of dating someone who has a kid. What happens if he gets sufficiently involved with the mother that he becomes a part of the son’s life, and the son gets attached to him, and then things don’t work out? “Would that make me a bad guy?” he muses to his coworkers.
“Oh, you’d be a bad guy,” says his coworker (the very gay art director at Gentleman’s Quarterly; a delight), “But what’s life without risk?”
Delighted to inform you that this movie won the Audience Choice award at the Heartland Film Festival. Nothing makes you feel like your vote counted like seeing your favorite movie of the festival win.
The police came, it turns out, specifically for the pinball machines. Pinball had been illegal in New York ever since Fiorello La Guardia banned the game in the 1930s. Why? “Gambling,” he called it. “A game of chance.” “A way for the Mob to steal children’s lunch money.” Cities across the country followed suit.
Thus, Sharpe gets drawn into an attempt to overturn the city council’s pinball ban, which ends with Sharpe playing a demonstration pinball game in court to show that pinball is a game of skill, not chance. He makes a particularly difficult shot, and everyone cheers! People throw their hats in the air! The cranky anti-pinball councilman hugs Sharpe…
“Wait, wait, wait,” protests Roger Sharpe, the reenactment cutting back to a shot of modern-day Roger Sharpe, whose interviews have been interspersed throughout. “It wasn’t like that! Nobody acts like that!”
Back to the city council chamber, where the cranky anti-pinball councilman snaps, “I’ve seen enough.” He lumbers off, chats with the other council members, and - votes to overturn the pinball ban.
Pinball is one-quarter documentary, three-quarters biopic, and 100% delightful. I wasn’t sure at first about the ratio of love-story-to-pinball, but it actually really won me over, not least because it’s a somewhat unusual love story: divorced Roger Sharpe fell for a divorced woman six years his senior who already had an eleven-year-old son from her first marriage. The age difference is a non-issue, but Roger is understandably concerned about the emotional challenges of dating someone who has a kid. What happens if he gets sufficiently involved with the mother that he becomes a part of the son’s life, and the son gets attached to him, and then things don’t work out? “Would that make me a bad guy?” he muses to his coworkers.
“Oh, you’d be a bad guy,” says his coworker (the very gay art director at Gentleman’s Quarterly; a delight), “But what’s life without risk?”
Delighted to inform you that this movie won the Audience Choice award at the Heartland Film Festival. Nothing makes you feel like your vote counted like seeing your favorite movie of the festival win.
