Both kinds of gaslighting are in fashion in 2026. The 1965 movie Brainstorm involves gaslighting someone to drive them insane, not lying to spread chaos and confusion ala Team MAGA. In Brainstorm, everyone is gaslighting everyone else. These characters make Charles Boyer in Gaslight look like a piker.

As always I use the actor’s names in lieu of character names. It’s easier to keep things straight that way.

The movie begins with Jeffrey Hunter rescuing Anne Francis from her car on the railroad tracks. Suicide attempt or drunken folly? The movie keeps that ambiguous. It turns out that Francis is married to Hunter’s boss played by Dana Andrews.

Hunter is a brainiac research scientist who falls hard for Francis, which causes Andrews to gaslight Hunter into thinking he’s mad. This tiny computer screen could drive anyone nuts:

Hunter flips the script on Andrews and begins acting like a lunatic. He plans to whack Andrews to be with his spouse after being found not guilty by reason of insanity. Not everything goes to plan.

He shoots and kills Andrews:

He is found not guilty by reason of insanity BUT his time in a state hospital for the criminally insane drives him mad.

Making things worse, Anne Francis dumps Hunter’s handsome ass because she’s weak and can’t bear to be alone. Hunter should have listened to the tiny computer screen in his dreams.

The only one who cares about our star is his psychiatrist played by Viveca Lindfors:

That’s all of the plot I’m willing to share because this feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers.

As you may have noticed Brainstorm combines some familiar elements into a new story:

• A  wealthy domineering husband with a needy spouse.
• A scientist with a checkered mental health history.
• A man besotted by a married woman.
• A man who thinks he’s always the smartest guy in the room but is not.
• A man who’s institutionalized and goes crazy.

Screenwriter Mann Rubin does a fine job of weaving these elements into a cohesive and entertaining whole.

The picture below is of Hunter and all his shrinks as he unravels at the film’s climax.

Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors is outstanding as his head shrink. There seems to have been a rule in Hollywood that if there was a woman psychiatrist in a flick, she must be played by a beautiful Scandinavian woman such as Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound or Audrey Totter in The High Wall.

Jeffrey Hunter is superb. There’s an oddity in his credit:

Hunter only went by Jeff in one other movie. Both occurred after he played Jesus in Nicholas Ray’s King Of Kings. The role is a notorious career killer: Hunter went from one of John Ford’s favorite actors to scrambling for parts. Brainstorm is the best role Hunter had after his time as the holiest Joe of all. It should have reignited his career but it didn’t and he died in 1969. Hunter also passed on Star Trek after playing Captain Pike in the pilot. I hope Shatner sent him a thank you note.

Brainstorm was directed by actor William Conrad. He’s best known as a noir villain and for his belated stardom as TV’s Cannon, one of my guilty pleasures. If his acting career hadn’t reignited-there’s that word again-he might have made a name for himself as a director. His work on this picture is that good.

Grading Time: Brainstorm is often mislabeled as a horror film when it’s really a neo-noir psychological thriller. I give it 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of B +.

Now that we’ve pondered two of my favorite players, Jeff Hunter and Bill Conrad, let’s get all arty and shit.

We begin with side-by-side longs sheets of the American and Italian posters:

What’s a poster array without a quad?

My brain hurts after all this brainstorming. Let’s all go to the lobby for some relief.

I needed that break. I feel well enough to peruse some lobby cards in glorious black and white.

Jeff Hunter looks vexed in that last photo. Did someone call him Jeffrey?

Let’s hop aboard the trailer:

The 1983 movie Brainstorm only shares a title with this week’s film. It co-starred Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood. It was her last film role. Its trailer gets the last word: