The Projectionist

The Projectionist centers on a movie theater projectionist whose routine has worn thin. He spends his shifts running films and his off-hours shooting pool with other men who seem just as rootless, without family or close friends to go home to. To fill the emptiness, he slips into daydreams in which he becomes a hero of the very kind of movie he threads through his machine, imagining himself as a costumed crime fighter up against exaggerated villains and assorted threats.

Harry Hurwitz wrote, produced and directed the film, his first feature, followed years later by Fairy Tales. Chuck McCann plays the projectionist and his fantasy alter ego, Captain Flash. Rodney Dangerfield appears as Renaldi and the Bat, Ina Balin as the Girl, with Jára Kohout, Hurwitz himself and Lucky Kargo in supporting parts. The comedy-fantasy runs 88 minutes and was released in October 1970.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.9 from 458 votes, a middling audience score for a low-budget independent film whose blend of slapstick fantasy and mundane reality has kept it a niche item rather than a widely seen one.