Sunday, October 23, 2022

exploring the arcade in 女獣 / Mejû / Woman Beast (1960)

Like the previous posts, I found this movie through a tweet by TOO_yoshikawa.  I have also included this in my "exploring pachinko in Japanese cinema..." post, but since this has smartball in it, I wanted to post it separately as well.  I'm going to include a few extra photos in this post.


The movie starts with a great pan of a bustling downtown streetscape, and then we pan down to a pachinko parlor exterior shot.


"Shinjuku Tokyo"








Side note:  The music in this movie is SO GOOD!  It channels the vibrancy of the jazz era.






Back to the pachinko parlor, which we quickly see is also a smartball parlor!




I am unsure what kind of smartball tables these are.  They do not have a tray on their immediate front.  Some tables of this style have a tray built right along the bottom, but it is hard to see in this movie.  There is definitely no upper tray, the balls are clearly resting near the edge of the table.
This is not rare for smartball machines, but machines without trays are usually seen in 1970s and late-1960s smartball tables that have backboxes which dispense marbles.

The only smartball I have seen that does not have a backbox and does not have a major front tray is this machine:

note that it does have a tray at the bottom.  While the profile seems to match, I am unable to be sure if there is a lower tray in the movie.






I love shots that show the layout of parlors and how people worked behind the aisles





man on the left is carrying his prizes



note the mechanical ball dispenser on the prize table




Did I mention that this movie loves jazz?  Very much appreciated.


Watch the trailer:



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