Made shortly before Pac-Man and its ilk surpassed pinball as America's quarter-operated pastime of choice, Tilt stars Ken Marshall as a dim-witted musician in the employ of monolithic pinball wizard Charles Durning. A Texas bar owner known as "The Whale," Durning terrorizes his employees with such uniquely pinball-specific taunts as, "Play my ball, punk!" After being exiled from Durning's bar for cheating, Marshall tries to make a go of it in Los Angeles, but he finds the cynicism-infested music industry strangely inhospitable to pinball-crazy yokels. "We got 50,000 kids comin' in here smokin', druggin', snortin, freakin' out," a frazzled industry bigwig tells Marshall early into an aborted audition. "You think they're going to sit still for a hick with a guitar?" Moved by the man's wisdom, he decides to redirect his energies. Encountering pint-sized pinball champ Brooke Shields at a bar, Marshall sees his way out of obscurity, convinced that the pinball-adept juvenile delinquent can win him enough money to cut a demo. Through nefarious trickery, he convinces Shields to let him serve as her pinball pimp, then hustles her in pinball showdowns throughout the Southwest on the way to a climactic encounter with Durning. The perpetually ravenous Durning, meanwhile, continues to dominate the heated Corpus Christi pinball scene, demolishing humbled competitors while contorting rhythmically to the twangy barroom stylings of Bill Wray's oft-repeated "Pinball That's All." Marshall finally returns to his old stomping grounds, but Durning is unimpressed by his tall tales, frilly cowboy-gigolo wardrobe, and fetching man-purse, playing Shields only after repeated taunts. Shields, Marshall, and Durning all eventually learn that there's more to life than pinball, and Marshall finally achieves his lifelong dream of playing to an audience that's not too busy smokin', druggin', snortin', or freakin' out to listen to a pinball-obsessed hick and his guitar.
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