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Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

mrb1980 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.

sol1218 ****SPOILERS**** A tale of murder and madness involving the brilliant if not a bit mixed up electronic and computer genius Jim Gayam, Jeffery Hunter. Jim who after saving Lorrie Benson's, Anne Francis, life from getting pulverized by an express train in a failed suicide attempt falls crazily in love with her. Jim soon plans to murder Lorrie's abusing husband Cort, Dana Andrews, and use the insanity defense to get away with it.It's Cort who's in fact Jim's boss at Benson's Industries who considers him to be his most talented employee calling him the young Einstein who feels without Jim help his company would go bankrupt. It's later when Lorrie and Jim start having an affair behind his back Cort plans to make both lovebirds lives a living hell and in Lorrie's case leave her both without her high flying and spending lifestyle and the couple's daughter Julie,Victoria Paige Mejeknik. As for Jim Cort does everything possible to discredit him by planing stories that he's nuts and getting nuttier as well as being phone freak calling womens all hours of the day and night and propositioning them for freaky sex. One of those stories that is in fact true,compared to those that Cort made up, is that as a collage student Jim ended up in a mental institution from the results of a nervous breakdown at age 19. This is to show that all the stories about his violent actions and creepiness is true.In planning to get Cort out of his and Lorrie's lives Jim concocts this hair brain scheme of offing Cort and making it look like he was legally insane when he did it. Doing that Jim would end up in a mental asylum for a few years and then after showing that he's recovered from his insanity be released and marry Lorrie who'd be withing for him on the outside. Blowing Cort away at a stock holder meeting Jim's arrested for his murder and now puts on this crazy act to prove that he was insane at the time he did Cort in. With the help of world renowned psycho analyst Dr.Larstardt, Viveca Lindfors, whom the boyishly handsome Jim makes a play for he ends up being certified insane by Dr. Larstardt and a number of fellow psychiatrists at his trial and sent straight to the funny farm, mental institution, just like he planned. ***SPOILERS*** Well things did't exactly work out the way that Jim planned it in that being put in a place with insane people he himself started to lose it and become just as nutty as any of them. Meanwhile Jim's lover Lorrie that he did all this for left him high and dry and took off with her late husband's butler feeling that he's in fact too crazy to marry and bring up a family with. In a desperate attempt to prove that he's normal Jim later breaks out of the loony bin and heads straight for Dr.Larstadt place in a last effort for her to prove that he's as normal as you or I.By then it's obvious to Dr. Larstadt and anyone else watching the movie that Jim's as nutty as a fruitcake as the movie ends with the men in the white suites and asylum security guards taking a very uncooperative Jim away to a padded cell where he can spend all him time reviewing his now shattered life and how he and only he was responsible in making a complete mess out of it. The movie is a lot like the Samuel Fuller 1963 classic "Shock corridor" where in one faking insanity he or she can in the end become insane without even knowing it.P.S Check out the films director William Conrad and 7 foot 2 inch tall Richard Keil in the movie as asylum inmates.

moonspinner55 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 ****

Jalea What I found most interesting about this movie was the idea of Jeffrey Hunter's character feigning insanity. I wondered was he really faking or just deluded? Because, the idea of pretending to be insane to the nth degree sounds, well, insane. I thought the movie was well cast. However, Jeffrey Hunter steels every scene he is in as he seemed to revel in this role. It was good to see Jeffrey Hunter in a role he could sink his teeth into. He did a good job in communicating his desperation. It would have been nice to see him in more character roles. If you want to see Jeffrey Hunter in a role that is out of character then this is a movie worth checking out.