A syndicate boss, Russ
Conway, wants to infiltrate the labor unions. It will be no surprise
to see the ever-present and versatile Lawrence Dobkin (sans toupee below)
as Conway's right-hand man. Binns' tavern is targeted as it is near
some blue-collar industrial plants. Conway enlists thugs, the unknown
Joe Marr and up and up-and-coming star Frank Gorshin to convince Binns to
install their machines. The multiple "sinball" machines end
up making the tavern not exactly Cracker Barrel-friendly. Marr
is just awful (maybe an actual thug) while Gorshin makes an
impression here, near the beginning of his career, often cast in
gangster or hoodlum parts. Speaking of impressions, for those old
enough to remember his stellar caricature impersonations of famous
actors, it is pretty funny watching Gorshin "method-act"
his way through.
Binns catches the
pedophilic Gorshin assaulting his daughter, and he is left horizontal
and bloodied. Co-captain of the pinball team, actor Rusty Lane, arrives late that night in Conway's late model Thunderbird to meet
Marr at a railroad warehouse. It is always a warehouse. Gorshin,
still half unconscious in the back of Marr's sedan, is a skinny
squealer by nature. Lane is not taking that chance. Gorshin's demise
is—by all accounts—gruesome.
And it is not even the halfway point of the film.
With assistance from the police, Binns is able to go undercover wearing a wiretap that doubles as a "hearing aid." The recorder is the size of a DVR under his suit. Conway and a skeptical Dobkin accept Binns into his racketeering business, with the former spilling the beans about his bigger operations. The pinball wizard handles everything like an experienced private detective—taking a beating and keeps on ticking. At one point, Jeanne Carmen (above) thrust herself on him. Her acting is so obvious, running neck-and-neck with Mr. Marr in the acting accolades. Note the sarcastic dialogue between Dobkin and Carmen, however. The prostitute is suspicious of Binns' hearing loss and informs her boss.
Knowing Binns has suddenly regained his hearing, he is transported to the obligatory warehouse where he is (naturally) beaten to a pulp. Binns is smirking most of the time until they threaten to blind his daughter with acid. He reveals where he has hidden the tapes. The thugs untie Binns from the "torture chair," but he springs to action, dispensing with some heavies, after hiding his daughter behind some crates. He strangely disappears from the film, leaving his daughter and the audience to wonder if he is still alive. A bit of strange directing. An arriving taxi—with no paying fares—leads two cars full of a rival union. They all casually step from the car as if it were movie night and appear rather reluctant to enter the warehouse with only their fists. A very brief, highly staged, and humorous rumble ensues. An upbeat closing narration closes the film to issue an "all clear" message. The citizens can breathe easy.
Note: Many who lived
near or in Portland, Oregon in the 1940s and 1950s knew or their
children have found out the history of the veritable cesspool it was.
Still a high-crime area today in the city's center, it has nothing to
do with pinball machines.
