Old-fashioned reel-to-reel movies? Andy MacDougall owns plenty. The former Press-Republican film critic is marking 50 years of hosting public film exhibition dating back to the day he first threaded up a 16mm projector before a gathering of any size, at age 11 during a classroom presentation while a student at (long-defunct) St. John’s grade school in the spring of 1973. Since then, he’s oiled projector gears and activated powerful projection bulbs on a weekly basis for curious cinephiles all over the region, and invites anyone to join in who hasn’t yet experienced his current effort to sustain celluloid appreciation and preservation in the digital age.
Known informally as The Last Picture-Show Man (a moniker derived from an obscure 1977 independent film about traveling projectionists in the Australian outback circa 1930), MacDougall runs the only remaining celluloid-projection operation available to the public anywhere between Montreal and the Capitol region. Prior to the advent of the pandemic, his public screenings had been based at the Newman Center on the edge of the SUNY Plattsburgh campus since 2012. Before that, venues for his presentations across the decades had been as widely varied as Northwood School in Lake Placid, the historic Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, L’Hôpital Ste-Croix in Drummondville, Quebec, Stafford Middle School, Temple Beth Israel and the North Country Food Co-op in Plattsburgh, and even a hotel lobby in Orlando, Florida during MacDougall’s sole Walt Disney World excursion in the summer of 1988.
He’s logged many fond memories of having “carted (his) proudly ramshackle set-up to and fro” for so long, with none more treasured than one evening five years ago on the occasion of serving an extended-family reunion. In a nutshell, (former) Lake Champlain Weekly editor Caroline Kehne had recruited MacDougall to track down a particular title, very rare to find on 16mm film, that was the joint girlhood favorite of hers and her sisters whenever it played on TV while they were growing up in Maryland. Spurred on by Kehne’s promise to put her money where her mouth is, as it were, should he hit paydirt, he had to level with her about the odds against successful pursuit of such a coveted and highly collectible item.
Long story short(er), a couple years down the road from their conversation, lo and behold, a surprisingly affordable 16mm print turned up on an L.A.-based collector’s private list. MacDougall secured it, Kehne made good on her promise, and they proceeded to co-organize a public screening as soon as possible. It just so happened that a big reunion of Kehne’s kinfolk was on the horizon, and so why not sweeten the forthcoming festivities with a group viewing? She alerted her siblings to start spreading the plan along any still-thriving branches of their family tree and, according to MacDougall, they sold every participating member of the clan on the idea of attending the prospective screening…cousins, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, etc. Out of the evening’s turnout of 50-plus, a good half of it were members of Kehne’s extended family. “The younger ones must’ve been wondering what the heck their elders had gotten them into but everybody had fun,” says MacDougall. “Regardless, lots of post-screening pix were snapped, including of attendees posing with my 16mm projector and of course with the film reels themselves.” And that, as they say, is showbiz!
For any info on arranging bookings for birthday parties, etc., or to simply attend any of the screenings MacDougall emcees twice a week (Thursdays and Saturdays) at a standing venue in south Plattsburgh, feel free to text him at (518) 802-1220 or e-mail serious_61@yahoo.com.