The Projectionist

In this lovingly wonderful tribute to old movies and the unsung hero of the movie theaters:"The Projectionst!".Chuck McCann creates a unique character and fantasy world all his own.Here.McCann plays a dilligent,hard working movie theater projectionist.Who has to put up with his obnoxious and crazed go by the book boss:Theater Manager:"Rinaldi"(Played by Rodney Dangerfield in his movie debut)."Rinaldi"forces his staff to try and turn a dilapidated little movie house.(Which has probably seen better days in the l930's)into a glowing movie palace and he expects everyone to shape up.Chuck Tolerates Dangerfield's abuse and manages to do his job.The rest of the film has McCann having a relationship with a beautiful girl(Ina Ballin)and dealing with his dislike for his Boss and the changes in late l960's NYC Via his fantasies of being a old movie serial Superhero"Captain Flash".Who defeats a power mad supervillian"The Bat"(also played by Dangerfield) and his henchmen.as "The Bat"and his gang try to steal an Old Scientist/iventor's(Jara Krohout .Who also plays a candy butcher in Dangerfield's movie theater)"Death Ray Machine"and kidnaps his daughter(Also played by Ms.Ballin).The battle between McCann's"Capt.Flash"and Dangerfield's"Bat"is done in pantomime and is a brilliant piece of comic acting,psyhicial comedy and farce.Truly worthy of Keaton,Semon and Chuck's two idols and mine:Laurel & Hardy(McCann does a brief L&H impression in the film)Harry Hurwitz(The film's guiding genius plays a small cameo in this film as a put upon theater usher).Filled with great film clips of classic old movies,brilliant pantomime , comic acting and insightful wit.This film is more funny and heartwarming than Mr.Allen's"Purple Rose Of Cario"and more faithful to old movies.Forget Woody Allen.Stick To Harry Hurwitz's "The Projectionist".This is a real tribute to old movies.

"The Projectionist" is a witty, clever, creative fantasy that deserves a large underground following. The simple tale tells of Chuck McCann (played by, er, Chuck McCann) who is the projectionist at the local uniplex. His life is pretty uneventful, and most of his time is spent watching, quoting, and generally living deep, deep inside movies.

His boring every day life gives way to wonderfully shot black and white fantasy sequences in which Chuck becomes Captain Flash, super superhero and all around nice guy, who must save the world from the Bat (Rodney Dangerfield) and his army of Nazi stock footage.

The fantasy sequences look great, really capturing the look of a silent movie serial. The scenes mix real old movie footage with the new stuff seamlessly, looking fantastic. There is another fantasy sequence, in which Chuck tells about a women he met & fell in love with, also shot in black and white, that is sweet and very reminiscent of Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories".

McCann is a wonderful talent, mixing impersonations, physical comedy, and a surprising tenderness that would almost be heart-breaking if the movie didn't remain upbeat. Rodney Dangerfield is superb also. He doubles as McCann's boss in the "real" world as well as the villainous Bat in Captain Flash's world. Dangerfield's character is a miserly control freak, and Dangerfield never breaks character to crack a joke or anything- he remains slimy and unlikable in a professional performance altogether missing from his starring roles (not to undermine the subtle nuances of "Meet Wally Sparks").

My only complaint is that the color reality sequences don't live up to the day-dream scenes, but they too look great and gritty, a real great contrast to the fantasy scenes.

I whole-heatedly endorse "The Projectionist" as a fine, entertaining art film disguised as a comedy that makes few mistakes in it's character study of a lonely, good natured man mired in pop culture.

A projectionist (Chuck McCann) fantasizes that he is a superhero named Captain Flash and his jerk of a boss (Rodney Dangerfield) is a villain named The Bat. This seemed like it would be a fun movie but it just didn't work for me. I'm not saying it isn't interesting but it's just not that entertaining. The Captain Flash segments are especially tedious. The film would have been better served focusing less on that and the tiresome clips and more on the somewhat interesting goings-on at the theater. Speaking of clips, I have no idea how the producers and distributors of this film were able to get away with using the wide variety of classic film clips they used. I'm going to assume they didn't pay for them as this was a very low budget movie. Even more puzzling than how they got away with it in 1971 is how they managed to get it on DVD in this sue-happy day and age.

Chuck McCann, the master of the bowl haircut and the stupid grin, takes you on an 88 minute tour of the lonely life of a projectionist who has no friends. Wow, it takes about five minutes in to realize this is going to be a long haul. Like the three hour tour with Gilligan.

Chuck McCann manages to make anything less funny, and more boring than it needs to be. He sits in an empty theatre, night after night, imagining himself as some horribly inept superhero. McCann used to do children's TV shows, and so he merges his kiddie show antics with the half-baked projectionist's life.

The only good thing about this steaming pile is Rodney Dangerfield making his movie debut many years before he became famous. Try to find his highlights from this movie on youtube if you are a fan of Rodney Dangerfield, and skip the depressing and painful viewing of Chuck as the imaginary hero, Super-Chump.

A few years later (1975) he did a TV series with Bob Denver called "Far Out Space Nuts" which was canceled after 15 episodes were filmed, but most of them were never seen except on bootleg video.

The film, the Projectionist, is geared towards those who like weird, cult-type films. I watched this because I usually like to see Rodney Dangerfield. This is Rodney's film debut. This film only gives a glimpse of Rodney Dangerfield's acting/comedic ability. He is not starring as a typical Rodney Dangerfield character. This is a strange film and was difficult to follow. With the exception of seeing Rodney's first flick, watching this film was a total waste of time for me. However, others might like this type of flick to watch. This is not a prime time film. I could see a young college type crowd watching this movie while partying. Definitely, not my cup of tea.