BRAINSTORM (1965)
Written by Mann Rubin Directed by William Conrad

Computer scientist Jim Grayam (Jeff Hunter, as he’s billed here) is driving home from work one night when his path is blocked by a car stalled on a railroad track. The driver (Anne Francis) inside the locked car doesn’t respond to his repeated taps on her window. When a train approaches, he breaks the window and drives the car off the tracks moments before the train rushes by. Searching her purse, to his dismay he finds that she is Lorrie Benson, wife of his boss Curt Benson (Dana Andrews). Thus is set up a fatal triangle. This widescreen Hitchockian suspense thriller was one of three that William Conrad directed for Warners in the mid-Sixties (the other two being MY BLOOD RUNS COLD and TWO ON A GUILLOTINE). It’s been decades since I’ve seen the other two, but BRAINSTORM is definitely the best of the three, a tricky thriller than suffers only from the fact that Conrad isn’t Hitchcock - something I can’t fault him for, as he does a fine job here. To reveal any more of the plot would be to spoil the pleasures of the film, which is tautly scripted by Mann Rubin (who wrote many TV scripts, as well as stories for DC Comic’s “Strange Adventures” and “Mystery in Space”), with a good score from George Duning and excellent work from the supporting cast. Anne Francis gives perhaps her best performance, her Lorrie Benson being a much more complex, emotionally vulnerable character than she was usually called upon to play and she rises to it beautifully. Dana Andrews is icy cold as her wealthy husband, used to getting his own way but still human enough to blink when facing the gun of a madman. Viveca Lindfors is totally convincing as a psychiatrist, who may - or may not - be on Andrews’ payroll. Special mention must be made of Victoria Meyerink, who plays the daughter of Andrews and Francis in a completely natural manner, with none of the false notes often struck by child actors; the scene where she sings “I Went To the Animal Fair” is oddly chilling. Steve Ihnat, Strother Martin and Richard Kiel make impressions in small roles. But it’s Hunter’s film all the way, and he delivers a tour de force performance. A sort of mash-up of a number of Hitchcock films, DOUBLE INDEMNITY and SHOCK CORRIDOR, it stands on its own merits as a minor but effective thriller. (Viewed on TCM, which showed the same transfer now available on DVD from Warner Bros Archives.)

— Robert Deveau, The Doomed Farmer