Touchstone Plus-Or-Minus: Tin Men

As we’ve seen in this column on multiple occasions, Disney was a real pioneer in the concept of the cinematic shared universe. Sleepy Medfield College was the setting for all manner of wacky experiments gone awry, from The Absent-Minded Professor to the misadventures of Dexter Riley. Alonzo Hawk, Medfield’s chief nemesis, relocated long enough to take on Herbie, the Love Bug. Hell, even Perri the squirrel had an encounter with the Great King of the Forest, Bambi. In 1987, Touchstone decided to get in on the act, hiring writer-director Barry Levinson to expand his semiautobiographical Diner-verse with Tin Men, another trip back to the Baltimore of his youth.

Barry Levinson began his career as a comedy writer in the 1970s, working on variety shows hosted by Marty Feldman, Carol Burnett and former Disney star Tim Conway. He transitioned to screenwriting relatively quickly, collaborating with Mel Brooks on the scripts for Silent Movie and High Anxiety. In 1979, he and his then-wife-and-writing-partner Valerie Curtin were nominated for an Oscar for their screenplay for …And Justice For All. He received another nomination for writing his directorial debut, Diner, in 1982. Diner was a semi-autobiographical story of five friends who grew up together in Baltimore during the late ‘50s and Levinson was hailed as a talent to watch.