cult film freak: WILLIAM CONRAD'S NEO-NOIR 'BRAINSTORM' WITH JEFFREY HUNTER

Written by James M. Tate / 11/22/2023 / No comments / dana andrews , jeffrey hunter , kathie browne , neo noir , sixties , thriller , viveca lindfors , warner archives , william conrad

WILLIAM CONRAD'S NEO-NOIR 'BRAINSTORM' WITH JEFFREY HUNTER

11/22/2023 | No comment

Title: BRAINSTORM Director: William Conrad Year: 1965 Rates: ****1/2

In 1965, the at-that-point veteran actor Dana Andrews was busier than his BRAINSTORM director William Conrad, who made three movies (including MY BLOOD RUNS COLD) the same year that Andrews appeared in eight...

As characters ranging from cameos to leads, heroes to heavies... in BRAINSTORM with a deep, smooth voice suiting a corporate (space age computer) tycoon that winds-up in a love triangle after his sharpest employee saves the life of — before falling in love with — young trophy-wife Anne Francis...

From the poster of William Conrad's BRAINSTORM

In previous Warner Brothers b-movies, Anne had played Dana's stewardess (THE CROWDED SKY from 1960) — then daughter (THE SATAN BUG, 1965)— and now a drunken, mansion-dwelling wife, whose young daughter and the fair-weathered, jazz-soaked-party pals fill an already empty, secretly-suicidal existence...

And one of her party's where the great-looking couple hook-up, and, by act two, Hunter's noir-inspired reluctant-guy-turned-smitten-sap will do anything to make this vulnerable dame his wife, leading to another hackneyed yet always-dependable noir plot-device — getting that cold, money-strapped husband out of the way, for good...

Jeff Hunter in BRAINSTORM

Here done in bizarre and compelling, creatively and ironically original fashion by Jeffrey Hunter (billed as Jeff Hunter and still best remembered as the original STAR TREK captain the same year)... rehearsing before pursuing insanity to acquire the raw guts for the final act's permanent crime that thrusts him into a seemingly-innocuous insane asylum, playing-out like another movie entirely...

At which point Anne Francis is basically out of the picture... as is Andrews, of course, which is why our eccentric leading man wound up from the sizzling frying pan (i.e. electric chair) into a slow-burn fire...

Viveca Lindfors in BRAINSTORM with Jeff Hunter

Where an ambiguous, parenthetically-manipulative grey-interior attraction to older, sophisticated, subtly-attractive shrink Viveca Lindfors exceeds that sun-shiny, borrowed-time genuine romance had with Francis...

And, like Dana Andrews, Lindfors is from Hollywood's Golden Age... invoking extended closure to an already edgy thriller that should be experienced again and again to learn new things, which is... for any good investigative noir... from OUT OF THE PAST and TOUCH OF EVIL before to CHINATOWN after... one in the same.