Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents
#901: The Projected Man
Our second Sci-Fi season stampedes to a start with a rip-roaring tale of politics in the grantmaking world!Overcoming a crippling lack of screen presence, a scientist named Paul has very nearly perfected technology that will allow the world to transport mice from one side of a laboratory to another. His boss Mr. Blanchard wants him to fail; something having to do with blackmail by a guy with the largest eyebrows in Europe. Accordingly, Blanchard sabotages a demonstration in front of a Teutonic dignitary named Lembach who controls mouse-transporting funding decisions; in a hasty rage, Paul tries to project himself into his boss's dining room and messes up. He becomes sort of a half-something, maybe it's a rat now that I think of it, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. Whatever he is, he has big teeth and even more pockmarks than before.
So, he starts killing people even though he still seems like sort of a rational guy. His old girlfriend (also a pale scientist; everyone in this movie is a pale scientist or a pale grantmaking bureaucrat) tries to talk him out of it, as does his lab assistant, but they're too busy falling in what passes in England for love to make much of an impact on his spiral into the pits of semi-rat hell. He's dead by the end, and you know what? I was basically fine with that.
Prologue: The crew careens through another time & space wormhole, and after some trepidation as to where they're gonna end up this time, they find themselves back on present-day Earth. "We can see Ethan Hawke movies again!"
Segment One: Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy are moving into an old castle, a castle which Pearl finds strangely familiar. There's an organ; she plays it expertly, with the SOL folks clapping in baseball park unison. Then, of course, she sends them a movie.
Segment Two: The 'bots "project" various treasured items of Mike's into some sadly unspecified location, never to return. (It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're just being mean.)
Segment Three: On the SOL, Mike on the phone tries to get Lembach to stay (it has to do with the movie). In the castle, Pearl discovers a book, an ancient history of her family: "I have a feeling I'm on to something here, Nelson. Some power, some force beyond my control. And it doesn't look good for you!"
Segment Four: Crow gets the touch of death and kills Mike - or does he!?
Segment Five: On the SOL, Mike turns down Servo's grant request and okays Crows poorly-conceived one. This upsets Servo, as you can imagine. In the castle, Pearl exults in her newfound castle; Bobo and Brain Guy march and chant.
Stinger: The former girlfriend: "Lembach is staying in London for another few days!"
Paul, played by Bryant Haliday, is of course familiar to MST viewers as the guy who played "The Great Vorelli" in last year's Devil Doll. I guess Haliday was considered to be someone who could carry a film. I don't know much about movies, but in mid-1960's England they must have been about three million years behind the music.
I believe this is the first movie we've ever done in which the monster's name was Paul. And believe it or not, it won't be the last.
- Paul Chaplin
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