The Power

One by one members of a special project team are being murdered by means of telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone . Research team discovers one of their members is an evil super-genius with poerful abilities who starts killing the others. The race is to find out which of the remaining team members is the true murderer and how to stop a hostile organization . Biologist Jim Tanner (George Hamilton) is part of a select government research team that includes beautiful geneticist Margery Lansing (Suzanne Pleshette) , among others . Anthropologist Henry Hallson (Arthur O'Connell) discovers what he believes is evidence of a person among them with psychic abilities including telekinesis. There are various suspect people . Who's the killer ? You feel it until you can't feel anything at all! Drives men to madness and murder! When it reaches out for you. You'll never stop screaming! One Man Has It...No Man or Woman Can Resist It. You feel it...and then you can feel nothing else!

Interesting film with plenty of thrills , shocking scenes , suspense , intrigue , plot twists and being slightly entertaining , well-paced with some slow-moving scenes and receives a rather plodding treatment , at times . It contains action enough with formidable special effects and nice make-up . It's all in fun , and entertaining enough. Resulting to be a dazzling , hypnotic entertainment that poses a challenge to its viewers , it was deemed extremely graphic for its time with some eerie scenes at the end . Occasionally confusing but otherwise notable film , portraying a peculiar ring with psychical powers , a clear precedent to ¨David Cronenberg's Scanners¨. Hightlights of the picture are the creepy final confrontation among protagonists and the shocking scene in which a role's heart blows up . Main and support cast are pretty good . Secondary actors formed by a lot of Hollywood familar faces , such as : Richard Carlson , Yvonne De Carlo , Earl Holliman ,Gary Merril , Ken Murray, Barbara Nichols , Arthur O'Connell, Nehemiah Persoff , Aldo Ray, Vaughan Taylor , Miiko Taka and Michael Rennie.

It packs colorful and luminous cinematography in Panavision and Technicolor by cameraman Ellsworth Frederick . Thrilling musical score by Miklós Rózsa , this great composer creates a pounding and astounding score . This well-budgeted motion picture by George Pal was competently directed by Byron Haskin with originality enough , delivering a great sense of wonder and tension . Haskin was a good craftsman who worked in Warner Brothers Special Effects department . He returned to filmmaking , and was responsible for Walt Disney's first live-action film , the adventure cult-classic Treasure island (1950). In the mid-1950s Haskin began a rewarding association with producer George Pal, for whom he filmed what is probably his best-known film , the science fiction classic War of the worlds (1953) and a catastrophe movie , The naked jungle (1954). Haskin was expert on Sci-Fi genre , as he would collaborate with Pal on other films , such as Conquest of Space (1955) , Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) and The power (1968). He also directed some Western as Denver Rio Grande and Silver City . The Power (1968) rating : 6.5/10. The yarn will appeal to science fiction, fantasy and fancy imagination buffs , well catching .

I loved this movie as a kid and an adult.

I thought it was well done and for the negative reviewers who said it was confusing, I understood it as a child. Are you dense or something?

Good acting, subtle death scenes, great action, albeit slow, but worth viewing. A nice build up and to the reviewer who said he knew who the bad guy was: Duh!

I'm so tired of you losers not taking into account when a movie was made. What movie about telekinesis compared to this then. Um, none. Enjoy a movie for when it was made and take in the effects as well. So many people say laughable effects in old movies. I hate this. They worked with what they had and did good with them.

I loved it in '68 and still love it!

George Pal's/Byron Haskin's version of "The Power" (based on the good novel by Frank Robinson, not the baseball player) is actually pretty entertaining and thrilling despite the relatively poor production values - quite a bit of 1960s cheesiness - but still the cast of stalwarts gives it all and it is probably the best George Pal film after 1960's "The Time Machine." Acting kudos go to Michael Rennie, Aldo Ray (!!!) and even, who would have thought it, star George Hamilton. This is one of those films whose concept far exceeds its execution but I still feel somewhat generous as I remembered it fondly from my youth and seeing it about 30 years later found out that it held up pretty well.

And a great score by Miklos Rozsa too.

I haven't seen this film since it came out in 1968! I remember liking it, and I remembered very distinctly, for some reason, the scene where the team attempts to move a piece of paper with just their minds. Curious how I would remember that.

Watching it again in 2023 I was prepared to be hugely disappointed, but in fact, I really liked it.

The premise is a group of scientists are involved in research on human's capacity to withstand pain and discomfort, in order to better understand what traits in what kind of people to look for when considering people for dangerous jobs such as space travel. In essence, what makes some people able to endure, and some not able to at all?

This is intriguing, but events take a wild turn when it is discovered that one of the scientists--and no one knows who it is, nor do we-- has an incredible "power" to be able to control others and their actions, and even kill them telepathically. The plot shifts to a whodunit, and whoisdoingit.

The film moves right along, with a splendid cast including George Hamilton, Suzanne Pleshette, Michael Rennie, plus Richard Carlson, Earl Holliman, Arthur O'Connell, even Gary Merrill!

There is plenty of suspense, and although directed by Byron Haskin, this is a George Pal production. There is a bit of his animation and effects in the film, some charming, some a bit off the mark, but all fun.

One other point. The folks behind the art direction and set design appear to be folks that were told to "pull all the stops out", and they did. I LOVE the look of this film. The big globe outside the science building. The mid century modern motifs running throughout. The snazzy Chrysler cars. And the use of color, with some scenes having saturation beyond belief. The canary yellow of Hamilton's car, the blood red emergency lights of the centrifuge, desert blue skies, and the party scene with yellow, bright green, purple elements. The totally 60s pastels of Yvonne De Carlos' mobile home. Even the office interiors had bright colored binders, furniture, and interesting architectural tidbits.

Don't take it too seriously and have some real 1960s fun.

This interesting sci fi film stars George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette, and features some former stars/near stars who had seen better days: Yvonne DeCarlo, Richard Carlson, Aldo Ray, and Gary Merrill (in a real stepdown from All About Eve). Among the older stars, Michael Rennie has a larger supporting role.

The cast, a good budget, and an intriguing script make for an entertaining film about the attempt of one megamind to ferret out who's a threat to him among a group of scientists.

One of them has telekinesis, and after the murder of the whistle-blower, played by Arthur O'Connell, Hamilton tries to find O'Connell's old friend, whose name was written on a piece of paper, suspecting him of somehow being involved.

This is a neat drama, all the more interesting in seeing the young stars, Hamilton and Pleshette, play against the older Hollywood types.