Project X |
USA • 1968 • 97m •
  • Directed by: William Castle. • Starring: Christopher George, Greta Baldwin, Henry Jones, Monte Markham, Harold Gould, Phillip Pine, Lee Delano, Ivan Bonar, Robert Cleaves, Charles Irving, Sheila Bartold, Patrick Wright, Maryesther Denver. • Music by: Van Cleave.    A spy is brought back from cryogenic suspension after being almost killed in a plane crash returning from a mission to learn about a deadly new weapon being developed in the East. But the vital memories are being suppressed, so the authorities use ultra-advanced technologies to try to uncover the secret.
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Review:
This all takes place on an isolated farm that they build to replicate the past. But there are influences that threaten their plans. A co-passenger on the way back to America with George was Monte Markham, and they don't know what happened to him. There's a local factory and one of its pretty employees (Greta Baldwin) happens to wonder into George's life. George himself doesn't take readily to his newly-implanted memories.
The extensive special effects in the film are done well, making good use of color and double exposures. Mainly they involve our seeing into George's subconscious and seeing action through an imaginative rendering that uses color, dark settings, what look like dendrites, fogginess, and overlapping images. There is one sequence in which George's mind produces a red vortex. By delving into George's subconscious, we are told the back story in Asia. The scientific gadgetry looks convincing and not cheap. The sci-fi spirit of making the science seem plausible is honored.
The future is not shown explicitly, but we get a taste of it in the character of Baldwin and her experiences. We see that there is really an authoritarian order in the West. Baldwin is assigned to a job in a factory that transforms dairy into food pills. People are divided into those who may have children and those who may not. The number of children is controlled. The factory working women all sleep in a big room. The matron is like a prison guard. We are told that crime has been eliminated, but at what cost, one wonders. Meanwhile, Harold Gould plays a very bossy member of the security establishment, and his word goes. Plus, the thing driving the whole plot is the enemy relation between West and East.
"Project X" looks excellent in its widescreen DVD print, released by Olive. This is a sci-fi picture I'd never heard of or seen.
Review by msroz from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database