exploring the arcade in The Women In His Life (1933)

Lots of people have seen this clip from The Women In His Life (1933) bounce around,  as it's heralded as the first movie appearance of a pinball machine, so check it here:

It's on screen for less than a minute, and it's just one machine, so maybe this isn't much of an "Arcade Exploration", but it's still an arcade that needs to be explored.

From Dick Bueschel's Encyclopedia Of Pinball Vol. 2

newspaper ad March 17, 1934

But notice something odd?  The game in the movie is not a Contact at all.

It's quite large, looking like the size of a Contact Senior, which were advertised at 30" wide by 60" long.

Notice what's wrong with the above photo?  The center holes of the middle top 2 are not aligned with the other center-aligned holes on the board.

According to the EOPv2, Contact was made in California by PAMCO (Pacific Amusement Machine Company on Flower Street in LA).  California Games Company built the original CONTACT (which was Contact Senior, the largest model) to overwhelming orders.

The Women In His Life was released December 8, 1933, so more than enough time for one to be in filming, but also perhaps assuring us that this would be an earliest model.

But what I would wager is that the film company requested a machine built to certain specs for the shot, and they sent them a prototype or an early version.

The rounded "advance" areas in most versions of Contact are normally highlighted in metal pieces, but in this game they are replaced by lines of pins, the top of each area having a small metal wall barrier.

The earliest Contacts had pins like this instead of the metal, but the advertisements don't have the metal at the entranceway.

We see 5 different advancement areas, when in the official Contacts there are just two in the center

Contact advert via imdb

The side of the machine also does not match up with the movie, but side designs of machines in the early 30s were often not consitent.

There absolutely must have been a connection with the manufacturers to get this machine for the movie, considering the timeline of how Contact was developed and how little before it compared to the layout design.  Plus, both being in Los Angeles.  (well, I assume the movie was made near Hollywood)

I have yet to find the symbols on the playfield (either side of the 1500 point holes) anywhere else, but they might hold a key to understanding who exactly made this machine.

So while this might not be an exact Contact (Senior) machine, if the same company supplied it I would absolutely see them taking the opportunity to claim this machine as Contact for the sake of advertising.

Here is a Contact Jr photo, with just nails around the center feature

Conclusion?  The pinball machine in The Women In His Life is not Contact, but was most likely made by PAMCO who was working on Contact at the time, and then shortly after claimed it was Contact to sell their new star machine.

1934-06-23 advert, via