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.
Review of The Projectionist
