By Lee Pfeiffer
A truly under-appreciated and little-seen gem, Power Play has recently been released on DVD through the Scorpion label. Like other niche market titles that have been surfacing in droves, this one has so much to recommend about it that it seems almost criminal so few movie fans have seen the movie. The 1978 thriller takes place in an unnamed central European country where the repressive government is employing increasingly harsh crackdowns on the general population and utilizing torture against dissidents. Fearing the breakout of civil war, Dr. Jean Rousseau (Barry Morse), an intellectual with ties to the military, persuades key army officers to plan a coup. They are led by Col. Anthony Narriman (David Hemmings, who co-produced the film), a rather pacifist soldier who reluctantly agrees to head the plot in order to save the nation he loves. The tight-knit group carefully approaches other officers they suspect may be in sympathy. Among them is a wild card: tank commander Colonel Zeller (Peter O'Toole), a flamboyant and egotistical man whose forces are essential to the operation.As the plotting proceeds, the story becomes quite suspenseful as the group deals with an almost paranoid obsession that their activities are being uncovered by Blair (Donald Pleasence), a murderous government bureaucrat who will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo.