Tin Men (1987) Richard Dreyfuss / Danny DeVito Movie Retrospective & Review

[Music] you know when I saw ban the other day something occurred to me you got these four guys living on the Ponder Roa and you never hear them say anything about wanting to get laid I mean you you never hear horse say a little Joe had such a hot on when I woke up this morning no no no they don't talk about broads nothing you never yeah you never hear Little Joe say hey horse I went to Virginia City and I saw a girl with the greatest ass I've ever seen in my life they just walk around a Ponder Roa yes PA where's Little Joe nothing about broads I don't think I'm being too picky I'm beginning to think that show doesn't have too much realism what do you think Sam I I can't concentrate on a bananza [ __ ] I got too much on my brain but with that [ __ ] and the Home Improvement commission I don't want to have to worry about what a little Joe got laid last night all [Music] right hello there welcome back to the flick files so this is going to be another Hidden Gem video where I talk about a movie that is either not many people have seen or it doesn't get talked about very much it's certainly the case that this movie is a Hidden Gem because it's it's never had a uh a physical Blu-ray release the the movie as of me recording this in August 2024 is only available on DVD and I just wish it had a Blu-ray release I keep checking every couple of months to see if it's announced but it it never has been it's a touchstone pictures movie and I know that there are a number of Touchstone pictures films out there that have yet to have a Blu-ray release Touchstone is a subsidiary of Disney or it used to to be so I don't know whether there's some legal problems that are preventing these films from getting released on the Blu-ray format but I just hope that if there are they they're sorted because I really want to own this movie on Blu-Ray so I only have it as a digital copy at the moment um you you can get it from Amazon Prime and Apple TV and all the usual sources so if at the end of this film you thinking yeah I kind of liked the idea of that film and the way he talked about it and you want to give it a go please do so this is a very lovely lighthearted comedy movie which was directed and written by Barry levenson and it's set in Baltimore in the early 1960s and I became aware of this movie because I'd seen Barry levenson's earlier film which was called diner and the thing I noticed about that movie was that bar son had a really good knack for writing real dialogue you know like writing the way people speak normally and it's not like movies speak if that makes sense Quinton Tarantino is really good at that as well and there's a lot of that in tment and I thought when I was about to make this retrospective review I thought this is going to be a hard one to talk about because plot-wise you know obviously it has a plot but the plot is secondary to the characters what makes this movie so lovely and so much fun are the actors and the roles that they play and the conversations that they have and I normally do include Clips in these videos but I think this one's going to be a quite hard one to do because the clips I'm going to try and show you are extended clips with audio so I'm probably going to upload it and then end up with a lot of copyright strikes from YouTube but I want to get this movie out there and give it some love so I'm going to give it a try now anyone that saw my alltime top 15 video uh which was the my channel introduction video I don't think many people did because I rambled on for about an hour but when I talked about Jaws in that video I made the comment that whenever I watch Jaws it's like spending time with with old friends and I'm going to say the same for tinmen now what do I mean by that I mean that because I've watched it over so many decades now and I love the character so much that whenever I rewatch it it gives me like a nice warm fuzzy feeling because it feels like people that I know so well if that makes sense so what is this film about you know what makes it so funny as I say it's set in the early 60s and it the the movie opens with Richard D's character and he's buying a Cadillac car from a car dealership and uh he's wearing a nice suit and he's obviously a man of means so at this point we don't quite know what he does for a living but he's buying this brand new Cadillac car and as he's driving it out of the showroom he gets rammed into by Danny deito who's driving down the street in another Cadillac and they both get out the car and you know like shout at each other and and none of them want to accept blame for the accident you bolted out of nowhere you bolted out of no place b b out I Bol it at 6 miles hour I Bol it into the street and and that's kind of the the plot and it's essentially a tit for TCT and that neither of them you know want to accept blame and both of them blame the other for the accident occurring and you know the damage they did to each of their cars so they try and get even with one another and that plays out throughout the whole film and while that happens there are obviously other characters that come into play um which again is one of the reasons I love this movie not only are Richard draus and Danny deito two great characters but all the other characters that come and go and the actors that play them just do such a a wonderful job so we learned that Richard draus is a um is it draus or drus I'll probably say both U but we learned that Richard draus is a what they call a tin man and he sells aluminium siding which is like cladding that goes onto the the uh the walls of exterior walls of a house to protect it and I think in America it's called aluminum siding so if you're an American sorry but I will be saying aluminium so Richard rafus works for a company that sells aluminium siding and he's a bit of a hustler the kind of you know him and his work colleagues for this particular company kind of know the tricks to get a sale um one of the first scenes that I really like is where Richard ders and a colleague are outside the front of somebody's house photographing this house um and they're they're kind of speaking very loudly so the the lady inside the house hears them and they make out that they're working for Life magazine and they're going oh yes yes this house will be a wonderful before picture and this lady comes out of the house and she's saying what what do you mean before picture and they go oh well we're doing an article about aluminum aluminium siding and we thought your house would be a good before picture and then we'll get another house with aluminium siding that looks so much nicer and more lovely and that will be the after picture and of course this lady just goes oh well well can't my picture be the after picture and uh how much does this aluminium siding cost that'll be a total of $3,700 $ 3700 and you and you think you crafty Bookers you know that and that's one of their hustles and how do you eventually get a sale so yeah so Richard draus is kind of a successful Tin Man whereas Danny deito on the other side of the coin he is also a Tin Man by some strange twist of fate but the company that he works for um the guys are a bit more jaded they've obviously been in the business a lot longer and Dan DeVito's character is in a bit of a slump in that he's not made a decent sell for quite a while so he doesn't have much commission and he's in a relationship with the lovely Barbara Hershey and you know the movie opens where they they're like bickering you can see that their relationship's getting a bit strained and um Danny deito struggling uh with his job and I talk about how brilliant the secondary characters are and what one of the characters that Danny DeVito hangs out with in one of the many scenes uh that involves a diner which is something that bar Evenson likes to do there's a great scene where they sat around in a diner eating breakfast and one of the all the characters is obsessed with the TV western series Bonanza so he's always talking about Bloody Bonanza much to the shagrin of Danny deito and it's really funny you know and I'm going to try and include a clip here an extended clip and uh hopefully it won't get a copyright strike I'm going to tell you something Bonanza is not an accurate depiction at a West that's all I'm saying you ever watch that show is somebody talking about bananza in here today's a bananza day today it's Monday to ban bananza day the Big D day you laugh about it but it's just not believable we ever seen the show it's a 50-year-old father with three 47y old Sons you know why they get along good cuz they're all the same age hey you ride the horse and I'll go to town come on what kind of show is that well I don't look I'm not an authority on it like you are but I mean I occasionally watch Bonanza and I think it's like can you believe here's a man who's got three kids from three different wives they all died at child birth what is this must have been a hell of a man who going to go around there he's the kiss of death know I mean yeah it's just called one hum and out so so that gives you an idea of the kind of thing that I meant about Barry livon having a really good ear for dialogue and there's another sequence that I like where the the Tit for Tat progresses to the point where Richard draus thinks I know how to get the ultimate comeback against Dan DeVito's C I'll sleep with his wife so he he finds out who Dan DeVito's wife is and then he tracks Barbara Hershey down to this store where he strikes up a conversation with her and ends up kind of wooing her and uh eventually sleeps with her and he immediately Rings Danny deito and um and says this to him hey [ __ ] this is the ultimate [ __ ] you I just poked your wife what are you talking about yeah she's in my bed right now with a very big smile on her face well let just find by me she's a pain in the ass an albatross around my neck you're welcome too keep her and may you both right in hell and as you can see Danny DeVito doesn't really care you know he realizes that he's getting towards the end of his relationship with Barbara hushy So this enrages Richard ders even more because he was hoping it would really annoy him and it had the opposite effect and it's at that point in the movie that uh Richard draus realizes he's falling in love with Barbara H's character and it's nice because to begin with you feel really sorry for it because she's just a porn in this tit fortat game that they're playing but he realizes he's genuinely starting to De develop feelings for her and another scene that that's a real standout for me that I really like and just thinking about it makes me smile is he decides uh to go to Barbara Hershey's house to to just open his heart to her you know he's had a few drinks and he thinks I'm going to tell her how I feel and it's late in the evening and he realizes that he thinks oh Danny DeVito won't be around because he knows at that point he's always hanging around with his salesman buddies you know trying to make a sale into the evenings so he goes around to the house and Barbara hush is not there but Dan DeVito is and he's sort of hiding in the shadows waiting for him and uh he deliberately unlocks the front door so Richard draus can sort of enter the property and as he walks in Danny DeVito kind of clocks him with the butt of his pistol and knocks him out and uh and then he sat waiting for Richard draus to wake up so he can have a some words with him and that's the next clip I'm going to show in its entirety you're a sick man you smash my car you steal my wife and now you come to rob me you're one demented human being I'm going to call the police and send you to jail but first i'm going to humiliate you what do you want to break into my house for this ain't the [ __ ] Rockefeller Mansion there ain't 38 television sets here it ain't like somebody saying Nelson I think we've had a Breakin count the sets to see how many we got left it ain't like there's tons of jewelry hanging out of the drawers or I don't know which watch to put on in the morning I got so many I got enough problems with the IRS [ __ ] busting my balls and the Home Improvement commission to contend with I don't need aggravation from you how you like your eggs Basi over easy so again hopefully you know that clip made you smile and you can get an idea of the kind of Comedy that's in this movie it's not like a Jim Carry zany comedy it is more subtle and the comedy is in the interaction you know with all the different characters so yeah the the plots just tit fortat you know it's it's like for like it's Danny DeVito and Richard draus going to odds with one another and then another plot element is introduced to do with the Home Improvement commission which was a government body that looked at any nefarious practices that the salesman may have been using to encourage sales and at this point in in the movie we know that both of them do use and the various practices so they start to worry if they're going to lose their licenses to sell aluminium siding and um towards the end of the film so should I give spoilers are you going to what oh I'll give spoilers I don't normally but what the hell so towards the end of the film they both get pulled up in front of the Home Improvement commission and as a result they both lose their licenses and what's nice is that their character arcs is at the end of the movie they realize that they have more in common than they think they do and they're both in the same position professionally now because they're both effectively out of work they can't be tinmen anymore and that's where they see a Volkswagen Beetle driving down the street and Richard rafus kind of makes a comment of you ever seen you know like a a sale showroom for those sort of cars and you think Ah that's what they're going to do they're going to go into business setting up a a car showroom to sell Volkswagen Beatles and that's kind of how the movie ends so as I say this has been a difficult video to edit because it is a dialogue driven comedy and how do I get that across without having the video taken down by YouTube so I've given it my best shot and hopefully I've put out some love for tinman made by Barry lenson released in 1987 and you know if you do really want to watch it either get it from one of the streaming services that I mentioned or pick up the DVD I think you can get the DVD from Amazon I think it's an American DVD I don't think it was released in the UK as I say I have a a digital copy which is a good enough quality to kind of Tad me over but when it does eventually get released I will be buying it day one don't you worry about that so there we go so I hope you enjoyed this video if you did give me a thumbs up and um you can hit subscribe it doesn't cost anything and it helps me out a great deal and I look forward to seeing you on the next video so bye-bye for now