Presented by The Chicago Film Society | CLICK HERE to purchase tickets

A young couple (Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) discover they have inherited a derelict cinema the locals call "the fleapit." The staff is a bickering triad of fantastic character actors: Peter Sellers as Mr. Quill, the projectionist, Margaret Rutherford as Mrs. Fazackalee, the cashier, and Bernard Miles as Old Tom, the usher. McKenna and Travers gamely succumb to the joys and pains of running a decrepit single screen: elaborate concessions sales schemes, customers who want to pay in pork chops, and the eternal problems of management vs. projection. A love letter to movie houses and their occupants that will be felt keenly by anyone who watched a multiplex go up around the corner and secretly wished that it would mysteriously burn to the ground.

Imported 35MM print