"THE POWER".......AN UNSTABLE GENIUS.......CORRUPTED ABSOLUTELY.....

The Power (1968)    We wish like hell we could fully embrace and love this movie.......instead of settling for mere modest admiration for its high points.

               It's loaded with brilliant little moments, the kind of fanciful magic us baby boomers fully expected from a film produced by George Pal ("The Time Machine", "The War Of The Worlds", "When Worlds Collide", "The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm").

                Pal had to produce his wondrous sci-fi/fantasy films for nickels and dimes.......in the low budget ghetto that studios reserved for such films.  (We'd like believe.....if there's a heaven, Pal's looking down, smiling at the sight of studios making comic book movies with budgets that would fund third world nations for decades,,,,,,, or finance 1,000 more Pal movies)

               "The Power" was Pal's adaptation of a Frank M. Robinson novel about a group of scientists who discover there's a futuristic intellect among them.......someone who's skipped over eons of evolution, possessing a superhuman brain equipped with vast (and potentially lethal) telepathic and telekinetic powers.

                  A brilliant idea, one that cries out for a striking visual style to go along with its compelling, imaginative premise.

                 Sadly, it didn't happen. The film, directed by one of Pal's sci-fi veterans, Byron Haskin, is staged and shot like an extra long TV episode........in flat, bright Technicolor......and populated with a host of instantly familiar character actors.....(Arthur O' Connell, Richard Carlson, Earl Holliman, Aldo Ray, Barbara Nichols, Suzanne Pleshette, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie.....)...

                  So it's an entire movie made up of 'very special guest stars' and headed up by MGM's  resident pretty-boy, George Hamilton.....the Rob Lowe of the 1960's. (To his credit though, Hamilton's not bad and nimbly suffers through a fair amount of physical punishment similar to Cary Grant's in 'North By Northwest'.

                  Despite its bursts of imagination, overall it's plays like an extended episode from the crappy third season of "The Man From Uncle"......everyone goes through the motions.....Pleshette wanders through it like she's in another Bob Newhart sitcom, only with some nasty violence

                 So let's concentrate on the really good stuff.......starting with a ripe, rip roarin' score from the masterful Miklos Rosza.........music that actually incorporates the storyline. The mysterious SuperBrain turns out to have come from a family of Gypsies, so Rosza flavors his score with the Gypsy-sounding cimbalom, a middle-European dulcimer played with two thin hammers......(the instrument make a stunning appearance in the main titles and throughout the film......)

                  The Mysterious SuperBrain, not wanting his/her identity exposed, starts eliminating the scientists and forcing Hamilton to go on the lam, in a cross country trek to uncover the all powerful fiend.

                 As we said, every so often (not nearly enough), the film bursts into some fanciful sequences.........SuperBrain messes with Hamilton's head as our hero staggers down a busy downtown street.......making Hamilton think he sees the 'Don't Walk' traffic light start flashing 'Don't Run'.....SuperBrain, who doesn't strike us as someone with a sense of humor, even turns toyshop toys into stop-motion George Pal Puppettoons, all to the better to torment our hero.......

                   This all leads, naturally, to a climactic showdown with SuperBrain........and a more than expected, easily guessed twist. (And fair warning:  don't hold your breath waiting for SuperBrain to reveal any endgame here...…..we've no idea how SB planned to use such massive intellect......other than win a boatload of cash on Jeopardy...…)

                  As much as we enjoy "The Power" for all its sporadic pleasures........we sigh at the thought of how dazzling this movie might have been.........if Pal had only found himself a fresh visionary director for the material.......in the same way (in that same year) that Paramount mogul Robert Evans recruited Roman Polanski to direct "Rosemary's Baby".....

                  For sci-fi fans, a 3 star (***) must-see-at-least-once........(and speaking of the source material, we'll get around to posting on another Frank M. Robinson fave, "Watching", in which he imagines an entire species of super-intellects, who've been incognito among us since prehistoric days......stay tuned....)