When I was 16, I would spend every weekend down at a small, used video store that was a few blocks away from my house.  One afternoon, I was looking for a video to rent when I came across a battered VHS box.  On the front of the box, Peter O’Toole smoked a cigar and sat on top of a tank.  The back cover described the film as being about revolution and promised exciting action.  A critic was quoted as saying that the movie was “an intelligent political thriller!”  Because I was obsessed with politics, that caught my attention.  I rented the movie, took it home, and watched it twice.

The name of the movie was Power Play.

In an unnamed Eastern European country, a corrupt and despotic dictator rules with an iron hand.  Dissidents are regularly arrested and executed.  Corrupt government officials live in luxury while the rest of the country is trapped in poverty.  After a friend’s daughter is tortured and murdered by the secret police, Colonel Narriman (David Hemmings) teams up with Dr. Rosseau (Barry Morse) to plot a coup.  In order to the overthrow the government, the conspirators have to hide their plans from Blair (Donald Pleasence), the sadistic head of the secret police, and convince Colonel Zeller (Peter O’Toole) to join them and bring his tanks over to their side.

Power Play may be forgotten today but it made a big impression on me when I first watched it.  Power Play not only showed what it was like to live in a totalitarian society but also attempted to realistically portray what it would take to overthrow a dictatorship.  Power Play spends as much time on the plotting of the revolution as it does on the revolution itself, with special attention given to Rousseau’s attempts to secure international support for the coup.  David Hemmings is great in the main role and Donald Pleasence is Himmleresque as Blair.  Even Peter O’Toole’s infamous 1970s hamminess seems appropriate for the character of Col. Zeller.  Power Play is a must see for aspiring revolutionaries every where.

Incidentally, Power Play opens with one of the conspirators being interviewed by Dick Cavett, meaning that Power Play can be added to Annie Hall and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on the list of films in which Dick Cavett has played himself.