When she wakes up, Lorrie makes it clear that she had parked the car on the tracks on purpose, a suicide attempt, and resents Grayam for saving her.

Impressed that he didn't rescue her for his own advancement, the hard-drinking and wild-partying Lorrie recruits him for a scavenger hunt, then begins a romantic affair with him.

When the relationship turns serious, Cort Benson begins to sully Grayam's reputation at work, making it appear the valued employee is having a nervous breakdown, similar to one from his youth.

He will kill Cort, but not before studying how to give the appearance of insanity, so that he will be sentenced to a psychiatric institution rather than to the gas chamber for murder.

In the weeks to come, however, the other inmates' behavior drives Grayam slowly out of his mind and when he finally is visited by Lorrie, he discovers to his horror that she now has another man in her life.

Victor Rodman, formerly of NBC's Noah's Ark, made his last screen appearance in Brainstorm in the uncredited role of a prison inmate.

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.

"[6] For the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of the top ten films of all time, critic Jack Stevenson included Brainstorm in his list.