Project X *** (1968, Christopher George, Greta Baldwin, Henry Jones) – Classic Movie Review 10,032

‘It Happened In This Universe A Long Time Ahead, The Year 2118.’

Cult producer-director William Castle’s 1968 sci-fi mystery movie Project X weaves a complex tale of Hagen Arnold (Christopher George), an American spy in the year 2118 who is brought back from cryogenic suspension and hypnotised with a drug to believe he has travelled back in time after surviving a plane crash so that his superiors can recover the deadly weapon chemical formula hidden deep within his psyche. Still following?

Project X is a highly inventive but confused blend of sci-fi, futuristic espionage and psychology, featuring an endearingly 1960s animated sequence by Hanna-Barbera, illustrating George’s mind unleashed.

It is one of Castle’s last and most idiosyncratic features before he turned to executive producing and acting. It was made the same year he produced Rosemary’s Baby. He made one other film as director, Shanks (1974). His final screen appearance is a cameo in John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust as a movie director dealing with a set collapse during the filming of a war movie.

Edmund Morris’s screenplay is based on Leslie P Davies’s novels The Artificial Man and Psychogeist.

Also in the cast are Greta Baldwin as Karen Summers, Henry Jones as Dr Crowther, Monte Markham as Gregory Gallea, Harold Gould as Colonel Holt, Phillip E Pine as Lee Craig, Lee Delano as Dr Tony Verity, Ivan Bonar as Colonel Cowen, Robert Cleaves as Dr George Tarvin, Charles Irving as Major Tolley, Sheila Bartold as Sybil Dennis, Patrick M Wright as Stover, Maryesther Denver as Overseer, Keye Luke as Sen Chiu and Ed Prentiss as Hicks.

Project X is directed by William Castle, runs 97 minutes, is made by William Castle Productions, is released by Paramount, is written by Edmund Morris, based on Leslie P Davies’s novels The Artificial Man and Psychogeist, is shot in Technicolor by Harold Stine at Placerita Canyon, California, is produced by William Castle and scored by Van Cleave.

William Castle was born William Schloss, so he simply translated his real name.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,032

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