life. A desperate Grayam plans to escape. He confides in Dr. Larstadt, now believing her to be the only one who truly understands him, and even professes his love for her. The doctor, however, is only making sure that she was correct in her assessment that Grayam is unbalanced. Hospital security guards carry him away. Cast Jeffrey Hunter (credited as Jeff Hunter) as Jim Grayam Anne Francis as Lorrie Benson Dana Andrews as Cort Benson Viveca Lindfors as Dr. Larstadt Kathie Browne as Angie DeWitt Production Brainstorm was made as part of a two-picture contract that star Jeffrey Hunter had with Warner Bros. that also included the series Temple Houston for Warner Bros. Television. William Conrad had also directed Hunter in the pilot episode of that series. Hunter and Anne Francis had previously acted together in the movie Dreamboat (1952), and in an episode of Temple Houston. Hunter and Viveca Lindfors previously worked together in King of Kings (1961) but did not appear in any scenes together. Francis had a surge of new popularity in 1965 owing to the premiere of her television series Honey West. She made two films during the year, but the TV show was dropped after one season. Victor Rodman, formerly of NBC's Noah's Ark, made his last screen appearance in Brainstorm in the uncredited role of a prison inmate. Veteran character actors Strother Martin, John Mitchum and Richard Kiel are among the sanitarium's patients. Reception In June 1965, critic Howard Thompson of The New York Times called Brainstorm "a so-so package of suspense... Up to a point the story cuts ice. Then it slips into absurdity." Judith Crist called the film "a sub-B potboiler for those who find comic books too intellectual"; Leslie Halliwell called it an "overlong thriller which starts off agreeably in the Double Indemnity vein, but goes slow and solemn around the half way mark." Some critics held the film in higher regard with the passage of time. The editors of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (1979) described Brainstorm as "a minor masterpiece of the 1960s": Along with films like Psycho, Brainstorm is one of the best examples of the 1960s counterpart of 1940s film noir. At the core of the film's quality is a complex, compelling plot. Like Nightmare Alley and Double Indemnity, which in a narrative sense it closely resembles, Brainstorm follows a typical noir pattern