The keeper of the frame at the West Newton Cinema has a lifelong passion for film. As a child, he would study 16mm cartoons on his father's hand-cranked editing block. "There were all these still drawings and each one was different from the other and you knew it was a trick, but it would fool you every time," he said. "You'd crank those cranks and the things would actually seem to move. At an early age that really got to me. It's stayed with me ever since."

Later, Mork studied film at the Massachusetts College of Art and worked for the Rear Window film society. One of his own animated films, "The Mimsy Report," has been exhibited at the New England Film and Video Festival.

As head projectionist, Mork ships out old films and assembles new movies to be exhibited on the theatre's six screens. The films arrive in octagonal boxes on Thursday nights from distributors. Each reel contains about 20 minutes of film; several reels will be spliced together, along with trailers that hype coming attractions, and wound onto larger reels. The most unbearable job of splicing, according to Mork, was the nine-reel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."

Built in 1937, West Newton Cinema uses two different projection systems. The two screens downstairs have ancient projectors with xenon lamps that date from the Truman administration. The four cinemas upstairs use modern, continuous-feed platter systems. Without these systems, which eliminate "change-over" and film rewinding, it would be impossible for a single projectionist to tend to all six films, said Mork.

When all six screens are ablaze, Mork is usually downstairs, keeping one wary eye on the old machinery and one eye on the alarm system that indicates if a film has broken upstairs. "Before we had this in, if a film broke we wouldn't know unless somebody came out," he said. "It might take them 10 minutes before they realized nothing was going to happen unless they came out and complained about it."

Every projector has its quirks, said Mork, eyeing an ancient Simplex. "This one, for years, it was anybody's guess whether the lamp would come on." If it didn't illuminate, he'd have to open a panel and poke the solenoid with an old toothbrush, a safeguard against electrocution. The ancient yellow toothbrush remains to this day in the cluttered booth, along with a tool tray stocked with assorted screws, gears, and Windex.

The dying art of the changeover - switching from one projector to another - is still performed downstairs [editor's note: not anymore - new projectors were installed in January 1998]. The cue is a small, black dot that appears in the upper-right corner of the picture a few seconds before the switch must take place.

Sounds easy, except when the on-screen scene is black, as was the case with the changeover point in Woody Allen's "September." "The people were in a room where the lights had gone outand there was nothing but darkness for about a minute," Mork recalled. "You had to sit there and guess when the changeover point was going to come. Woody Allen even wrote a letter warning us that this was going to happen and included it with the film so it wasn't a total surprise."

"It's an interesting job," Mork said. "It's long stretched of tedium punctuated by these moments of panic. It seems when things go wrong, they always go wrong a lot."

Recently, a brittle print for "Bashu, The Little Stranger,"an Iranian film, caused many moments of panic. "It would break every show at least once," Mork said. "Most films are OK but once in a while you get one that's really damaged and it gives you problems and there's nothing you can do but grit your teeth and be prepared for it and hope the film ships out the next week."

The care and feeding of six screens leaves Mork little time to watch films at work, except for the changeover points. On his off days, however, he often takes in movies - always on a big screen and preferably in a second-run, "old junky cinema."

"I don't have a VCR," he said. "I'm sort of afraid of getting one. I'm afraid it could be like unleashing a monster. I'd do nothing but rent videos and become a total vegetable."

And if the sound is bad or the picture is poorly framed, the projectionist can rest assured that Mork will complain.

"When I go out and see something wrong, I'll definitely let somebody know. ...I'm aware of stuff like that."

"I care a lot about the film medium and I want it to survive," he said. "I think a lot of people want to go out to the movies, even after the so-called video revolution has taken a cut of the audience. There's still an audience that wants to go out and be entertained and see films on the big screen, and you've got to keep them satisfied. There are always a few diehards who'll put up with anything, but I don't think they should have to."

"This job can make you a little bit crazy," he added. "After working a shift here I'll sometimes be driving home in my car and looking at the scenery out my window and thinking, 'I can get the focus a little bit better. It's a little bit off.'"