It'll be a cold day in Hell before I ever get involved with scientists again.
Over the past few decades, there have been multiple films that have gone out under the title Project X, including this year's found-footage comedy about high schoolers throwing a wild party and a 1987 Matthew Broderick vehicle where he bonds with a chimpanzee. The first one out of the gate, though, was a sci-fi spy thriller directed by William Castle in 1968 since he needed something to do after Roman Polanski took Rosemary's Baby off his hands. Set 150 years in the future, when all crime and violence has been eliminated and the only superpowers left are The West and the "Sino-Asians," this Project X is like a mash-up of several episodes of The Prisoner crossed with Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (later the basis for Total Recall), with a dash of Forbidden Planet tossed in for good measure, only more confusing than that. In fact, confusion reigns to such an extent that Castle has to stop the action dead on several occasions so the characters can explain what's going on to each other. It's possible the premises weren't so baffling in the two Leslie P. Davies novels that served as the basis for the film, but they definitely didn't translate to the screen with ease.
At any rate, the story revolves around noted geneticist and historian Christopher George, who has been cryogenically frozen ever since he got back from an undercover assignment in Sino-Asia, where he was looking into claims that they're mass-producing male offspring in a bid for world domination. Since George's mind has been erased (for reasons that would take too long to explain), cryobiologist Henry Jones has his work cut out for him when clear plastic-domed security head Harold Gould charges him with restoring George's memory. In order for this to be accomplished, George has to be outfitted with a new matrix (the film's fancy term for an implanted identity) and convinced that he's a bank robber on the run from the law in 1968. Helping Jones out with the subterfuge are his assistants (Phillip Pine and Sheila Bartold) and security man Ivan Bonar, who's the guy who has to have most of the technical stuff (some of which involves holograms which are projected into George's dreams) explained to him. There are a few people around to throw spanners into the works, though, including rogue government agent Monte Markham and meddling factory worker Greta Baldwin, who has no idea of the forces she's meddling with when she runs into George one fine afternoon.
I'm probably making this sound more straightforward than it really is. Trust me, it's as out there as films got in 1968. For one thing, all of the scenes of Jones monitoring George's mind are bathed in psychedelic overlays, and the Sino-Asian cities of the future are represented by uncharacteristically detailed Hanna-Barbera animation, aided in no small part by Alex Toth's production design work. Any good will that is built up over the course of the film is instantly dashed when George remembers his encounter with the enemy, embodied by Keye Luke in a Ming the Merciless cape. He even uses the word "inscrutable" to describe himself. Ouch. I guess stereotypes are still alive and well in 2118.