| Project X (1968 film) | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | William Castle |
| Produced by | William Castle (executive) Dona Holloway (associate) Joseph Barbera (special sequences) William Hanna (special sequences) |
| Written by | Edmund Morris (screenplay) L. P. Davies (novels) |
| Starring | Christopher George Greta Baldwin Henry Jones Monte Markham Harold Gould Phillip Pine Lee Delano Ivan Bonar Robert Cleaves Charles Irving |
| Music by | Nathan Van Cleave |
| Editing by | Edwin H. Bryant |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Project X is a 1968 science fiction film directed by William Castle from the novels The Artificial Man and Psychogeist by L. P. Davies. The script was written by Edmund Morris and had special sequences animated by Hanna Barbara. The story echoes some geopolitical themes of the times such as overpopulation, emerging genetic engineering, biological warfare and fear of Asian dominance, and mixes in science fiction concepts such as holographic devices, memory manipulation and viewing, and virtual environments to create a story of futuristic espionage.
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Hagen Arnold (Christopher George) is an American spy in the year 2118. The geopolitical climate of Earth has changed significantly over the years with Sino-Asia (China) being the only other superpower and enemy of the United States. Overpopulation is a looming issue. Arnold is able to send a message to his handlers in the U. S. stating that "The West will be destroyed in fourteen days." He then takes an anti-torture drug that renders him an amnesiac.
Hagen is safely brought back to the USA and placed in cryogenic preservation until the government can devise a way to get the information out of him. With the key to discovering the secret weapon the Sino-Asians were working on locked inside his mind the American scientists resort to using a holographic memory reading device that can see inside his mind while he is asleep. The scientists also create an elaborate historical reenactment of the 1960s as a means to create a role playing mechanism that may coax the information to the surface of the unsuspecting Arnold. To keep his suspicions down in the 60s mock-up, they also create a 60s personality matrix to implant in his mind. He is led to believe he is a criminal hiding out at a farmhouse and cannot leave lest he be arrested.
As the days tick down until the East destroys the West, Hagen comes into contact with a futuristic factory worker named Karen Sommers (Gretta Baldwin) who causes slight anachronistic errors with the 1960s facade. An unseen sniper scares her off, leaving Hagen suspicious but none the wiser about the facade he is experiencing. The government finds and detains Karen but tension mounts as not only has Hagen not divulged the secret they need but another agent, the unseen sniper, a man known as Gregory Gallea (Monte Markham), enters the scene in an attempt to coax the memories out of Hagen. His intention is to obtain the prized info so he can double-cross the US government. Gallea has been gone for two years and presumed dead, apparently killed in action while keeping tabs on Sino-Asia. It was he who helped Hagen escape Sino-Asia.
The memory viewing and holographic machinery unleashes a mental power in Hagen. The mental power creates an energy field that kills Gallea in a spectacular display of light and fury. His death however becomes the key the scientist were looking for. They extract Gallea's brain, and, while keeping it alive in a nutrient tank, perform the same brain reading exercise on it as they did with Hagen. Gallea's memories show how the Sino-Asians plan on destroying the West. Gallea injected Hagen Arnold with a myriad of medieval diseases which will, in fourteen days, make him a living plague bomb capable of spreading the diseases throughout the US, thus effectively destroying it from within. The lead scientist, Crowther, recalls that Arnold was in cryo-suspension most of the fourteen-day period so there is still time to immunize him and save the West. They do so while he is unconscious and then implant a third identity into him, one in which he is living in the future, and happily married to the beautiful Karen Sommers.
Arnold wakes up in a bright and happy new future, a married man who will be allowed by the state government to have two children with his new wife.
One of the unique visual aspects of this film was that animated sequences representing certain action scenes were used instead of live action photography for film. These sequences were shots of a futuristic VTOL style jet that was to represent the escape plane Arnold Hagen uses to escape Sino-Asia. Another scene that was animated was a reuse of a shot from Jonny Quest where an underwater elevator terminates into a submarine on the ocean floor. The scenes were further enhanced with haze and other optical effects.
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