The first representatives of the isoquino[2,3-a]quinazoline system were obtained quite recently [2, 3] and they included 5-aryl-substituted derivatives [2,4]. However, by contrast to 5-oxoisoquino[2,3-a]quinazolines, the properties of the latter were not studied. The already existing data for the biological activity of isoquinoquinazolines [5, 6] and 4-arylquinazolines condensed along the a edge [7-9] points to the potential of such an investigation.We have previously proposed [4] a method for the synthesis of the 5-aryl-7,12-dihydroisoquino-[2,3-a]quinazolinium salts 1a-c consisting of reaction of o-(bromomethyl)phenylacetonitrile with o-aminobenzophenones 2a-c and subsequent cyclization of the initially formed 2-aryl-3-imino-1,4-dihydroisoquinoline hydrobromides 3a-c in the presence of perchloric acid. In this work the reaction was subjected to closer study with the aim of optimizing the method of synthesizing the isoquinoquinazolinium salts 1 and to study the spectroscopic and chemical properties of the products.We have found that the outcome of the reaction of o-(bromomethyl)phenylacetonitrile with benzophenones 2 depends markedly on both the reaction conditions and on the nature of the substituent in reagent 2. Hence heating in acetonitrile, in some examples (2b,c) gave a mixture of the isoquinolineimine bromides 3 together with an unknown product. Addition of catalytic amounts of acetic acid to the reaction mixture virtually suppresses the formation of the side product. When the reaction is carried out in 2-propanol the unknown material is the sole product. And in the case of the benzophenone 2d gives the unknown material _______ * For Communication 28 see [1].