Amor Violento

I do some court monitoring volunteering and a few years back I sat in on a murder case where a 19 year killed a 60 something man with whom he was having a sexual relationship with. During the course of the trial this kid gave certain answers to the court appointed scientist that he thought would help his case. As the perpetrator was high school drop out with a GED he wasn't fooling any shrink.

But that's what Jeffrey Hunter tries to do in Brainstorm. Hunter is a top scientist working for billionaire industrialist Dana Andrews. Hunter one nights saves Anne Francis who is the wife of Andrews from a suicide attempt. Risks his own life to do it.

Andrews is a cruel and vicious man and Hunter falls for Francis. Like the way Barbara Stanwyck lures Fred MacMurray into her murder scheme, Francis gets entrapped in her scheme and goes one better in that Hunter thinks it's all his idea.

Like my GED case Hunter being a most educated man figures he can game the insanity defense system. He does to some extent, but the end results are not what he bargained for.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film, mainly because Dana Andrews was doing a lot of mediocre films at this point so I wasn't expecting much from Brainstorm. But I found it refreshingly original, written and directed by actor William Conrad who had a nice sense of style. Jeffrey Hunter was really great in the part of the luckless lead. Kudos also go to Viveca Lindfors as a consulting psychiatrist.

The scenes with Hunter in the insane asylum are really freaky and bizarre. I expected to see Olivia DeHavilland and Dr. Kick come in the ward. The scenes were right of The Snake Pit. Strother Martin is one of the patients and he's memorable too.

And the ending is one for the books. Definitely if you're a fan of any of the players I mentioned you should see this film.

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 ****

This is probably the most complex role I ever saw Jeff (no - rey) Hunter ever undertake, and he's actually not at all bad. He is "Grayam", a man who comes to the aid of the slightly inebriated wife of his boss. "Lorrie" (Anne Francis) is considerably more grateful than her husband "Benson" (Dana Andrews) and it soon becomes clear that she has the hots for him and he, however reluctantly at first, is beginning to reciprocate. Pretty swiftly they are having an affair and rather curiously her husband seems to know all about it and care not a jot. He knows his wife will never leave her wealthy and confortable life - he plays a manipulative game and he plays it well. To thwart this, the two come up with a plan to eliminate "Benson" in plain sight and to cleverly orchestrate the scenario so as to allow his use of a plea of insanity. He sows the seeds well, gradually convincing all around him that he's not the full shilling before... What he didn't really reckon on though was the fickleness of "Lorrie" and the adeptness of the court-appointed psychiatrist "Larstadt" (Viveca Lindfors) who plays well here as the doctor who clearly knows how to play this game of intellectual cat and mouse every bit as well as her quarry. It's perhaps a little too long - too much time is spent on the establishment scenes, but Hunter, Francis and Lindfors are effective here as William Conrad gradually builds this into a sophisticated psychological drama that twists and turns nicely before a denouement that I found to be suitably pathetic. It's rarely seen these days, and may be a bit tame by 21st century standards, but it is a strong and characterful story that is well delivered and well worth a watch.

By the time "Brainstorm" was made, both Jeffrey Hunter and Dana Andrews had descended into B films. "Brainstorm" was one of them, costarring '50s starlet Anne Francis.

Directed by William Conrad, it's actually a good movie about an engineer who falls in love with the unhappy wife of a wealthy man (Andrews) and concocts a scheme to kill him and get away with it by faking insanity.

Hunter is very good in this dramatic role - he was a far better actor than some of his contemporaries but due to his personal demons, he never fulfilled his early promise. It's a shame because he played this kind of angry, edgy role very well, belying his staggering good looks. He gets good support from Andrews, Francis, and Viveca Lindfors, who plays a psychiatrist.

There is one scene that may be unintentionally funny - when Hunter is in the asylum, one of the inmates starts singing the beginning of a song over and over again. Hunter finally screams, "Either finish that song or SHUT UP!" Brainstorm is worth a watch, especially to see Hunter do a role deserving of his abilities, and one he no longer had an opportunity to play in A films.

Lots of small pleasures in this strangely compelling William Conrad-directed mid-60s noir sleeper. Among other things, the unusual cast is very game. Sci-Fi veterans Jeffrey Hunter (the first Captain of the Enterprise) and Anne Francis (the cause of Walter Pidgeon's "Monsters of the Id" from FORBIDDEN PLANET) team up in this effort to hoodwink the system by having Hunter feign insanity. Hunter, whose tragic life seems to mirror his desperate character here, is impressive in a demanding role requiring more emoting than he generally showed in his more typically laconic choices. Hammer veteran Viveca Lindfors is particularly effective in the analyst role, appearing to be sympathetic and caring but really only doing her own cold-blooded job. Cast is rounded out by noir vet Dana Andrews. It's a shame Conrad didn't really pursue directing much after this effort; the clever little script takes a different approach to psychotherapy and insanity which is well-suited to the low budget Conrad had to work with. The music, cinematography and fashions are all pure mid-60s, a compliment to a bygone era full of excesses but also occasionally blessed with productive experimentation. I would count this movie as one of the productive attempts, particularly worthy of your time if you're a noir or Star Trek Classic fan. Not a masterpiece, but certainly worthy of the cult status it has attained over the years. 8/10