Montage V: How to Play Pinball

00:00 Introduction by Gordon Nelson, Digital Archivist, Moving Image Department, George Eastman Museum
03:27 Montage V: How to Play Pinball

Montage V: How to Play Pinball (US 1963)
Director: Wayne D. Sourbeer
Cinematographer: Wayne D. Sourbeer
Music: Jean Eichelberger Ivey
Titles: Wilbur R. Elsea
Production company: Montage Productions

Production date: 1963
Length (in feet): 211 ft. (16mm)
Length (in reels): 1
Sound: Variable Area
Color: Color reversal
Running time: 5 min., 33 sec.

Generous support for the video introduction provided by Art Bridges.

Preserved with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation
Preserved at The Cinema Lab
Digitized by Eastman Film Preservation Services
This film has been made accessible to the public in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: NEH CARES. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this video, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Vibrant, bursting with color (shot in the late, and much lamented Kodachrome) and ringing with bells and whistles, Wayne Sourbeer’s ode to the joys of the lowly pinball machine is a visual feast and as much fun as a penny arcade itself. Silver balls whiz, clink, and crash across the laminated landscapes of these mechanical demons; neon lights flash in streaks of hot pink, red, and blue. Flappers flap and bumpers bounce errant balls along their way to the final and inevitable exit hole.