Brainstorm (1965)

So much average

Expected more

Best movie of this year hands down!

Blistering performances.

I've always liked Jeffrey Hunter's work, especially in "No Down Payment" but also in a lot of other 1950s and 1960s films. His death at an early age in 1969 ensured that he never reached the older-age parts for actors in their 50s and 60s, but his body of work is very good nonetheless. "Brainstorm" is a very, very good drama from 1965 and Hunter is excellent.Young, brilliant, and rather nerdy systems analyst Jim Grayam (Hunter) leaves work one night to find a woman (Anne Francis) asleep in a car astride railroad tracks. After a frantic rescue, Grayam discovers that the woman is Lorrie Benson, wife of his company's CEO Cort Benson (Dana Andrews). Lorrie Benson and Grayam start an affair, much to the displeasure of Cort Benson, who tries everything to discredit and destroy Grayam. After murdering Cort Benson, Grayam ends up in a mental institution, which he planned so he can be released early to be with Lorrie. The only problem is that Lorrie leaves him, and after an escape from captivity, Grayam is recaptured, now really crazy due to his experience in the hospital.Efficiently directed by William Conrad, "Brainstorm" showcases Francis and Hunter quite well. Hunter's performance is top-notch, Francis is nearly as good, while Dana Andrews does his evil rich guy character a good turn. Viveca Lindfors is very convincing as a psychiatrist, as well. Maybe the best performance is provided by Stacy Harris, who does a wonderful job as Grayam's dedicated and honest boss. This B&W film isn't for everyone's tastes, but you must tune in for the railroad crossing scene at the film's beginning...it'll give you butterflies and white knuckles.

This excessively melodramatic thriller has everybody yelling over ridiculously bombastic music to the point where even extra-strength Tylenol can't help make sense of this mess. Starting off O.K. (with Jeffrey Hunter rescuing the allegedly suicidal Anne Francis from an on-coming train), it goes haywire once you meet her extremely cruel husband (Dana Andrews) whom this James Cain ripped off couple plot to kill with the intention of him getting an insanity plea. Toss in a subplot involving Hunter's scientific research, his therapy with the beautiful psychiatrist Viveca Lindfors, and Hunter's eventual sentencing to a mental institution, and the result is a curvy road map of a plot that runs out of gas long before it gets to its destination. Even if you make it to the end, you may have left it behind psychologically long before that.

Interestingly, this film was produced and directed by William Conrad--THAT William Conrad. Yes, the one who played Cannon on TV back in the 1970s! "Brainstorm" stars Jeffery Hunter (here billed as 'Jeff Hunter'), Anne Francis and Dana Andrews. It begins with Francis attempting suicide and a stranger, Hunter, saving her and bringing her home to her husband--a man of is extremely rich and powerful. Soon after, Francis begins contacting Hunter. She's bored and wants him to play with her! He resists at first but soon they become lovers. This is a problem since she's married and because when Andrews learns about this, he appears to be a clever and vindictive man and makes Hunter's life very, very difficult. So, Hunter concocts a plan--since Andrews is making people think he's crazy, let's go all the way--fake being crazy so he can then get away with killing Andrews! While all this might sound a bit hard to believe, stick with this film. It's so well-written and directed that towards the end you start to realize that there's FAR more to the movie. I could say more but it could spoil the film. Let's just say that Hunter does a great job and all the loose ends seem accounted for and well done. A nearly perfect suspense film. Just stick with this one, as it only gets better and better as the film continues. Excellent in every way.

After being seduced by the unstable wife of his millionaire boss, a brilliant young engineer concocts a crackpot plan for the two to be together: murder her husband and then convince a panel of psychiatrists that he is clinically insane (the rationale being, I assume, that incarceration in a mental asylum is much preferable to prison!). Warner Bros. potboiler with a television budget--another in a string of pulpy, somewhat-sleazy yarns to be directed by William Conrad--is engrossing and enjoyable, even as it fails to come to much. Conrad works well with his actors while concentrating firmly on his narrative, however his scene transitions are amateurish and his work is not helped by the TV drama-styled editing (not to mention the melodramatic music cues). Jeffrey Hunter (curiously billed as Jeff Hunter) begins the film behaving like a staunch, overgrown Boy Scout, but by the second-half really goes out on a limb with the tics, cold sweats, and stammers of a man driven half-mad by desire. Screenwriter Mann Rubin preys upon the viewer's fear of insanity by setting our hero up as a dupe, a willing 'Gaslight' victim who may not be one-hundred-percent in the head anyway. There are no surprise twists to the plot, nor do Conrad or Rubin mean this to be a cautionary tale for would-be illicit lovers. It's rather a squarely straightforward tale with incidental characters (such as Viveca Lindfors' sweetly smiling doctor) who are never fully explained and a finale that is meant to be highly shocking. **1/2 from ****