every time i go from one level to the next I get the black screen of death. if i hit the space bar i make it to the next level. so what is going on ? if I don't i have to go back and redo from my last save ,there are only 6 saves.

The quick answer would be that the developers did something when calling up cut scenes and returning control to the player afterwards that worked back in 2002 but doesn't work so well now.

so can I just keep going on with the game in level 3 ??

Sure. Skipping the cut scene at the end of the chapter shouldn't affect the game.

thanks for the reply, off and running.