# Tin Men
**Tin Men** is a 1987 American comedy-drama written and directed by [Barry Levinson](https://www.edgepedia.org/barry-levinson), starring [Richard Dreyfuss](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-dreyfuss), Danny DeVito, and [Barbara Hershey](https://www.edgepedia.org/barbara-hershey) as aluminum-siding salesmen and the wife caught between them in Baltimore in 1963.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) It was produced by Touchstone Pictures, runs 112 minutes, and carries an R rating.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) • [2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | March 6, 1987, first limited on nine screens, then 684 screens the following weekend[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) |
| Director and writer | Barry Levinson; producer Mark Johnson[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) |
| Lead cast | Richard Dreyfuss (Bill "BB" Babowsky), Danny DeVito (Ernest Tilley), Barbara Hershey (Nora Tilley)[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) |
| Setting | Working-class Baltimore, 1963, the heyday of door-to-door aluminum-siding salesmen[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) • [3](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/06/not-for-the-ages) |
| Box office | $25.3 million gross in the United States[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tin_men) |
| Critical scores | 82% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (22 reviews)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tin_men) • [5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tin-men/critic-reviews/) |
| Series | Second of Levinson's four semi-autobiographical "Baltimore Movies," after *Diner* (1982) and before *Avalon* (1990) and *Liberty Heights* (1999)[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Bill "BB" Babowsky and Ernest Tilley are rival door-to-door aluminum-siding salesmen in an industry known for shady dealings and high-pressure tactics. Their rivalry turns personal when Tilley runs his car into BB's brand-new Cadillac, which had one-sixteenth of a mile on its odometer, and neither man will accept blame for the accident.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) • [6](https://time.com/archive/6708790/cinema-shark-parade-tin-men/) The feud escalates through tit-for-tat damage to their cars until BB seduces Tilley's wife, Nora. The plan backfires: Tilley is glad to be rid of Nora, and BB finds himself falling in love with her.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/)
Both men face professional ruin. The IRS is pursuing Tilley, and the Home Improvement Commission threatens both with the loss of their licenses over unscrupulous sales practices. The film ends with the two survivors facing the future together with new dreams.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) • [7](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/13/tin-men-a-heart-of-old/c58b0626-d1e2-4b58-ad61-a59eacac6b82/)
## The real tin men
The title comes from what the salesmen actually called themselves. In 1963 Baltimore, aluminum siding was sold door to door by fast-talking hustlers who celebrated their commissions over fried eggs at diners, and the film depicts a real-life scam in which salesmen posing as *Life* magazine photographers convinced homeowners that covering their fading wood exteriors would get their houses into a magazine spread.[7](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/13/tin-men-a-heart-of-old/c58b0626-d1e2-4b58-ad61-a59eacac6b82/) • [8](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/realestate/1995/09/09/aluminum-siding-celebrates-50th-anniversary/26a5d07d-a8f3-4e0f-a109-ff7da2f8590e/) The critic [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), reviewing the film in *The New Yorker*, noted that she had known the breed as "shinglemen" or "shinglers," compulsive rhythmic talkers who worked in pairs and often moved between sales work and the lower rungs of show business; the young [Rodney Dangerfield](https://www.edgepedia.org/rodney-dangerfield) sold aluminum siding with hired comics, dancers, and jazzmen during one stretch of his career.[3](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/06/not-for-the-ages)
The product itself was young. Aluminum siding was introduced in 1945, when Richmond-based Reynolds Metals, looking for a peacetime use for wartime aluminum capacity, installed the first siding on a cement house and garage in Louisville. It spread through postwar suburbia as a low-maintenance alternative to repainting wooden houses, and by 1963 it was a fixture of the working-class streetscape the film recreates.[8](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/realestate/1995/09/09/aluminum-siding-celebrates-50th-anniversary/26a5d07d-a8f3-4e0f-a109-ff7da2f8590e/) One design historian has pointed out the joke in the title: the salesmen were not even selling tin, but a representation of tin actually made of aluminum.[9](https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/1393582.pdf) Kael also records that 1963 was the year the state cracked down on the siding trade, which gives the characters' licensing troubles a historical anchor.[3](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/06/not-for-the-ages)
## Production
[Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began on July 21, 1986 in Baltimore, with a scheduled shoot of fifty to sixty days.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) In the first days of September 1986, a truck carrying the picture to a New York City lab for processing was robbed of some uncut negative dailies, which obliged Dreyfuss and DeVito to film again three days' worth of material.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) Levinson filmed on location in Baltimore, as he had for *Diner*, and shot part of the movie at the same diner used in the earlier film; during filming he visited the porch of his boyhood home, which he had not seen since 1963, with old friends and acquaintances working as extras.[1](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/) • [10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/13/the-forging-of-tin-men/251a157a-c33f-47bc-8e85-c40cbe22fe2a/)
**Origin of the idea.** Levinson traced the film to a single remark made while he was directing *Diner*. Seeing too many young extras on one side of the set, he told the assistant director, "Because that's where the tin men sit," referring to the older aluminum-siding salesmen who used to frequent such places. The phrase stayed with him and became the movie.[11](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/sep/07/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank)
## Place in the Baltimore films
*Tin Men* is the second of Levinson's four semi-autobiographical "Baltimore Movies," set in his hometown: *Diner* (1982), *Tin Men* (1987), *Avalon* (1990), and *Liberty Heights* (1999). It is not a sequel to *Diner*, but it takes place in the same world: two minor characters from *Diner*, Michael Tucker's "Bagel" and Florence Moody's diner waitress, reappear, and several scenes are set in the Hilltop Diner on Reisterstown Road used in the earlier film.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) Roger Ebert, reviewing the film at release, described it as written and directed in a style similar to *Diner*, with a series of scenes strung together around the diner as home base, but with characters about twenty years older who are still mystified by sex, life, ambition, and women, by everything but Cadillacs.[12](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tin-men-1987)
## Release and reception
The picture opened in limited release on nine screens on March 6, 1987 and expanded to 684 screens the following weekend, earning $4 million in its first weekend of wide release.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN) Its United States gross reached $25.3 million.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tin_men)
Critics responded warmly. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 82% Tomatometer from 22 reviews, and its Metacritic score of 77 percent positive reviews reflects generally favorable notices.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tin_men) • [5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tin-men/critic-reviews/) Janet Maslin of *The New York Times* called it richly textured, with rueful nostalgia and the same hilarious, nit-picking small talk that colored *Diner*; *Variety* praised the taut scripting and the character work of Dreyfuss, DeVito, and the supporting troupe.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tin-men/critic-reviews/) Richard Corliss, writing in *Time*, framed the film as "the middle-class tragedy played as sprightly farce," about middle-aged salesmen peddling an obsolete product: themselves.[6](https://time.com/archive/6708790/cinema-shark-parade-tin-men/) A Congressional Record column of April 1987, quoting George F. Will, argued that the film was notable for being unsparing yet uncondescending about a slice of society, the lower and barely-middle class, that Hollywood rarely noticed.[13](https://www.congress.gov/100/crecb/1987/04/02/GPO-CRECB-1987-pt6-5-2.pdf)
In 1998 Levinson was in talks with the Walt Disney Co. to create a musical stage version of *Tin Men*, but nothing came of the plans.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN)
## References
1. [Tin Men (film), D23 (Official Disney Fan Club)](https://d23.com/a-to-z/tin-men-film/)
2. [Tin Men (1987), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57868-TIN-MEN)
3. [Pauline Kael, "Not for the Ages," The New Yorker, March 30, 1987](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/04/06/not-for-the-ages)
4. [Tin Men, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tin_men)
5. [Tin Men critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/tin-men/critic-reviews/)
6. [Richard Corliss, "Cinema: Shark Parade: Tin Men," Time, April 6, 1987](https://time.com/archive/6708790/cinema-shark-parade-tin-men/)
7. [Rita Kempley, "'Tin Men' A Heart of Old," The Washington Post, March 12, 1987](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/13/tin-men-a-heart-of-old/c58b0626-d1e2-4b58-ad61-a59eacac6b82/)
8. [Martha Slud, "Aluminum Siding Celebrates 50th Anniversary," The Washington Post, September 8, 1995](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/realestate/1995/09/09/aluminum-siding-celebrates-50th-anniversary/26a5d07d-a8f3-4e0f-a109-ff7da2f8590e/)
9. [Aluminum Upcycled: Sustainable Design in Historical Perspective](https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/1393582.pdf)
10. [Rita Kempley, "The Forging of 'Tin Men'," The Washington Post, March 12, 1987](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/03/13/the-forging-of-tin-men/251a157a-c33f-47bc-8e85-c40cbe22fe2a/)
11. [Barry Levinson interview, The Guardian, September 7, 2000](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/sep/07/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank)
12. [Roger Ebert, "Tin Men," Chicago Sun-Times, March 6, 1987](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tin-men-1987)
13. [Congressional Record, April 2, 1987 (column quoting George F. Will on "Tin Men")](https://www.congress.gov/100/crecb/1987/04/02/GPO-CRECB-1987-pt6-5-2.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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