This independent, low-budget pearl from writer/director Harry Hurwitz deserved a better fate on its initial release.
Burly Chuck McCann is the lonely projectionist whose boring and tedious job leads him into flights of fantasy in which he is transformed into superhero Captain Flash, clashing with archenemy The Bat (Rodney Dangerfield) and forever rescuing and wooing his dream girl (Ina Balin).
Film clips from other movies are well used, as McCann’s daydreams lead him into adventures with fictional characters from Hollywood classics as well as historical characters.
Steve Martin and Woody Allen later blurred the line between movies and reality in films like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid(1982) and The Purple Rose of Cairo(1985), but it’s worth finding out why this early effort now enjoys a cult following.
Projectionist/Captain Flash
Chuck McCann Girl
Ina Balin Renaldi/The Bat
Rodney Dangerfield Candy Man/Scientist
Jara Kohout Friendly usher
Harry Hurwitz TV pitchman
Robert Staats
Privilege (1967) Privilege was Peter Watkins' first feature film. It was made after he quit the BBC in disgust following the Corporation's banning…
Porky's (1981) In Florida in the late 1950s, a gang of fun-loving horny teenage boys from Angel Beach High seeks revenge against…
Tropic of Cancer (1970) Described as almost everything from a purveyor of obscenity and filth to the most remarkable original writer of the age,…
Strawberry Statement, The (1970) Easy Rider (1969) showed studio executives that they didn't need to wear a tie to the office and that there was…
Cool It Carol (1970) This low-budget mod sleaze-fest came from Britain's answer to Russ Meyer, director Peter Walker, the man behind such underground oddities…
Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1981) Depression drifter Frank Chambers (Jack Nicholson) gets a job at a roadside diner, where he worms his way into the…
Play It Again, Sam (1971) "My parents never got divorced. Although I begged them to." Film critic Allan Felix (Woody Allen, who wrote both the…
Film clips from other movies are well used, as McCann’s daydreams lead him into adventures with fictional characters from Hollywood classics as well as historical characters.
