FIRST OFF . . .

A crew member from “Project X” claimed trainers for chimpanzees used in the movie beat the animals with “clubs, blackjacks and their fists.” Paul Mueller, who operated a flight simulator during the film’s production, made his charges Thursday at a Los Angeles Press Club news conference called by game show host and animal rights activist Bob Barker and the Society Against Vivisection. Barker and his group offered notarized supporting statements from others discussing the condition of the five chimps. “Project X,” which stars Matthew Broderick, is about a young Air Force pilot who saves a group of chimps from a terrible experiment. Producers Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker denied Barker’s charges when he first made them in April. Animal trainer Hubert Wells told reporters after the news conference that animals were never mistreated, that trainers do not use clubs or blackjacks and that the allegations were unfounded. But Nancy Burnet of the Society Against Vivisection said there are at least six witnesses to acts of animal abuse on the set who are afraid to come forward because they fear being blackballed in the movie industry. A spokesman for the American Humane Assn. said its representatives observed no abuses during their 81 days on the set.