The Last Starfighter was a classic eighties film about a whiz arcade game player called Alex who goes on to fight aliens in a distant galaxy.
There are lot of prop space guns and pistols in the movie.
Early on in the film, around when Centauri asks him to fight in an interstellar war, Alex is in his bedroom, where we see a table full of typical teenage boy clutter.
On the table is a red toy pistol with a yellow handle. But what is it?
My You Tube screengrab is not very clear but here's the toy in close-up.
About three years ago I suggested on this blog that the toy gun was possibly a 1967 Lone Star Captain Scarlet pistol. This was die-cast and fired caps.
Looking at the close-up again the toy has a trigger guard so I now think it's unlikely to be the Lone Star gun. However, I found this picture of a Marx pistol which has the same colouring and a similar trigger guard.
It's from a Marx set called Cops 'N' Robbers, which came with a stand-up target.
It's clear though that the Last Starfighter toy does not have a silencer like this Marx gun. It looks tapered like an old Moulinex hairdryer and has a bulbous barrel tip.
Maybe the toy gun is also from the 1980's, a contemporary of the film?
The search goes on. Anyone got a better screengrab of the toy or any idea what it is readers?
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Addendum:
There is a similarly fascinating toy gun in the film called the Super Electronic Gun.
The superb blog 2 Warps to Neptune takes up the story.
not sure about the gun, but Alex has Fisher Price Alpha Probe shuttle toy on his chair on the second photo
ReplyDeleteah yes! I see that too Bill now. Nice one. there's a space machine blaster on the chaor which looks familiar.
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