Slight Squall

Brainstorm begins with a small, safe idea, carefully contrived to spur concern for the right people. Driving home from work one night, a sober young research analyst (Jeff Hunter) comes upon a locked limousine stalled on the railroad tracks, with an irresistible blonde (Anne Francis) asleep inside. Of course, he saves her from an approaching train. Of course, she upbraids him for spoiling her attempted suicide, and of course she turns out to be the wife of his employer (Dana Andrews), the ruthless tycoon who heads Benson Industries.

Some plot surprises eventually do turn up in Brainstorm, but none sturdy enough to compete with Producer-Director William Conrad's unsettling cinematic mannerisms. He recklessly jump-cuts from scene to scene, using gimmicky transitions or linking one sequence to another with trick dialogue. Between times, the plot turns upon Jeff's illicit love for Anne and his rash notion that he can murder her sadistic mate and get away with it by feigning insanity. The deed accomplished, all goes well until his encounter with a strikingly theatrical psychiatrist (Viveca Lindfors) who hints as tactfully as possible that Jeff's brainstorm was basically unsound. Any competent script doctor would second the diagnosis.

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