jfarms1956 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.

tavm When I played this movie on VHS and the first thing that appeared was the cartoon Gerald McBoing Boing's Symphony (which I reviewed here last year), I actually thought this short was going to be played in full before the feature. Instead, it turns out the title character whose name is the same as the person playing him, Chuck McCann, is playing it at the New York theatre he works at and has to fix it when it tears on the projector it's on. And so begins this fascinating film as we follow Chuck as he talks to one of the ushers, Harry (writer/director Harry Hurwitz), who gets shooed away by manager Renaldi (Rodney Dangerfield in his film debut) who warns Chuck not to communicate with his other employees on company time of which another one of those Chuck's friendly with is the candy man played by Jara Kohout. During some downtime, Chuck imagines-in silent black and white-he's superhero Captain Flash who has to defeat Dangerfield's The Bat from Kohout's Scientist and his daughter who's played by 60's leading lady Ina Balin. These sequences are quite hilarious what with the sound effects and physical movements. Ms. Balin is also in another dream sequence-also in silent black and white-with Chuck whenever he tells Harry about his dates with her. Since we never see her in the real-life color sequences, we don't know if she really exists here. Oh, and the Captain Flash music sounds like stock melodies from the '30s-'40s serials while the ones with just Chuck and Ina have the more Easy Listening '60s vibe. There's also some creatively amusing mix of various newsreel/classic feature/new footage meant to convey just how immersed in movie lore Chuck really is that provide some bizarre juxtapositions like when JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" seems to come out of Adolf Hitler's mouth! There's also a touching moment between Kohout and McCann when the latter asks about the former's experience in silent movies in his home country of Czechoslovakia as well as his escape from the Communist country during the intermission of a theatrical revue he performed in. McCann himself has one good scene by himself when he impersonates some of the famous movie stars like his idols Laurel & Hardy not to mention Rodney himself on another occasion! Oh, and while Dangerfield provides some lines that could have been funny if he delivered them in his stand-up voice, here they're just said in a solemn tone that only brought a slight smile on my face. When he's in the bw footage, however, his bug eyes can still highly amuse. And one more thing: if you're familiar with movie names from a certain era, then you could tell what year this movie was filmed in when titles like Barbarella and Star! appear on marquees though one more that's displayed is the one you're reading about right now...

John Seal The Projectionist is not a great film, but it IS a film that every self-respecting movie fan will love, in whole or in part. Chuck McCann plays a union projectionist who escapes from his day job via black and white fantasy sequences where he 'plays' an overweight super hero or a bit part in Casablanca. The film also features footage from Buck Rogers and lots of other old movies, parodies of Universal horrors, the trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still (original version of course!), and copious newsreel footage featuring Hitler, Mussolini, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John and Bobby Kennedy, and others. We also get Rodney Dangerfield, who gives the best film performance of his career as the manager of the decaying bijou where McCann works, beautiful Ina Balin (sans dialogue) as The Projectionist's (fantasy?) girlfriend, and a bittersweet semi-autobiographical turn by Czech émigré Jara Kohout as the theater's concessions salesman. An obvious labor of love for writer-director-costar Harry Hurwitz, this prophetic post-modern salute to the magic of the motion picture will appeal to admirers of Mohsen Makhmalbhaf's Once Upon a Time...Cinema and Bill Morrison's Decasia, as well as those who just want to soak up some circa 1970 Times Square atmosphere.

petelush There have been movies before and after The Projectionist that tear down film's equivalent of Theatre's fourth wall by lifting the barrier between the movie and the real world. Buster Keaton did it most brilliantly in Sherlock Jr. (1924, 44 mins., also featuring a projectionist), and Woody Allen pulled off a reversal (character steps out of the screen) in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Steve Martin duked it out with Cagney and others in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). The Projectionist is an amusing and annoying combination of a sweet schlub played by Chuck McCann, very reminiscent of John Candy, Rodney Dangerfield's film debut as a dictatorial movie theatre manager given to delivering incredible dressing-down speeches at his hapless ushers (shades of Full Metal Jacket), a nostalgic look at Times Square before it became "Times Square", and a melding of our hero with his screen idols, including his eye-popping drop-in at Rick's Cafe Americain. So what's to be annoyed at? A running super-hero theme is weak, and once you realize it will return again and again it's stomach tightening time while you anticipate the enjoyable sequences being interrupted by this underwritten motif. But without question The Projectionist is not to be missed in a time when imagination has been sucked out of Hollywood. And so I appreciated this film last night even more than when I saw it in a theatre 31 years ago, not excluding a hilarious trailer for a faux end-of-the-world flick that's a little too predictive of 9/11 for comfort.