Tin Men
Director: Barry Levinson
Genre: Comedy, Comedy-drama, Period piece
Year: 1987
Country: United States of America
Language: English Language
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito, Barbara Hershey, Seymour Cassel, Bruno Kirby, Richard Portnow, Matt Craven, John Mahoney, J. T. Walsh, Brad Sullivan, Stanley Brock, Jackie Gayle, Alan Blumenfeld
Tin Men is a 1987 comedy film written and directed by Barry Levinson, produced by Mark Johnson and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito and Barbara Hershey. It is the second in Levinson's series of four "Baltimore Films" — Diner (1982), Tin Men (1987), Avalon (1990), and Liberty Heights (1999) — set in his hometown during the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
Ernest Tilley and Bill "BB" Babowsky are "tin men," door-to-door aluminum-siding salesmen in Baltimore in 1963. Working for different companies, they are prepared to do almost anything — legal or illegal — to close a sale. They are based on actual salesmen from the era who sold formstone - a concrete overlay for the brick houses in Baltimore that gave the look of a stone facade to the homes (few Baltimore homes had aluminum siding installed).
The two meet after BB buys a new Cadillac to maintain a successful image and almost immediately crashes into another Cadillac driven by Tilley. It is not clear who is at fault for the accident -- BB is entering the street from the dealer's garage door, in reverse but very slowly, while Tilley was clearly distracted despite having the right of way -- but the two vow to do anything to get back at
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