
Michael Rand

Ruth Taylor

'Happy' MacDonald

Jill MacDonald

Klauss

Mrs. Rand

Tim Washington, the Doorman

Edith Blair

Tommy

Ed Powell

Joe

Jim

Tilt is the story of a precocious young girl who is a pinball wizard. Because she does not get on with her parents, Tilt is contemplating running away from home. Skipping school one day, she decides to go to to Mickey's Bar. Mickey, who is Tilt's good friend, helps her set up a gambler for a pinball game. Because the gambler is unaware of Tilt's pinball wizardry, he is easily hustled out of his money. While watching the confrontation, a young man named Neil Gallagher, who is an aspiring musician, is impressed with Tilt's ability, congratulating her after the win. Neil invites Tilt to watch him sing at a rock concert, and after his performance she believes he can become a great singer. Because Neil needs money for a demo tape of his songs, he has an idea of taking Tilt with him and having her hustle would-be gamblers.

Back in college, John Ballard saved Philip Hardin's life. Twenty years later, John is the district attorney and Philip is president of a railroad notorious for its accident record. When John brings a suit against the railroad, Philip threatens to reveal a ruinous secret about John unless he drops the case. Meanwhile, a railroad inspector discovers that the trestle over which an express train carrying Philip's daughter is about to pass is in eminent danger of collapse.

John Stonehouse (William Russell) checks into a hotel, intending to commit suicide. But instead he winds up helping a girl, Gilberte Bonheur (Fritzi Brunette), out of a jam. He finds her bending over a man who she has apparently killed, and since he's about to kill himself anyway, he offers to assume the blame. Throw a valuable emerald into the works, and the fact that the dead man suddenly comes back to life, and Stonehouse -- not to mention the audience -- becomes thoroughly befuddled by it all. Everything clears up, however, when Gilberte gives him a theater ticket -- it turns out that everything he went through was the plot to a stage play, enacted in real life by the actors. The critics roasted the play, saying it wasn't true to life, and this was their proof that the situations really could happen. Gilberte retires from acting when Stonehouse proposes.

A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair. Told in flashback, we witness a sleazy dancehall girl dupe a high rise riveter into marriage so she can live off of him. But when he loses his job and his marbles, she ends up supporting him with money from her side man--and misses no opportunity to rub it in his face that she's now supporting him in his emasculated state. As the animosity grows and things get more and more unbearable, he is eventually driven to desperate measures.