The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

1975 "Suppose you knew who you had been in your previous life. Where you had lived...whom you had loved and how you had died. What then?"
6.4| 1h45m| R| en| More Info
Released: 25 April 1975 Released
Producted By: Bing Crosby Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

When college professor, Peter Proud begins experiencing flashbacks of an earlier life, he's mysteriously drawn to a place he's never been to, but which seems familiar and where he soon finds his previous incarnation's wife.

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Bing Crosby Productions

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Reviews

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Anni Smythe Recurrent dreams of your murder that may signify your reincarnation! Others who've noted the superior cinematography and soundtrack are correct in identifying the elements that glue one to Peter Proud's predicament. I was an usher when this first showed up in'75--we always got 'gasps' from the audience at the preposterous climax! An opening screenshot saying "L.A. 1975" would make the film appear undated and retrospective. Otherwise exciting and a must-see especially for film students and aficionados.
AaronCapenBanner J. Lee Thompson directed this adaptation of Max Ehrlich's novel that stars Michael Sarrazin as Peter Proud, a college professor who is plagued by nightmares of a violent death in a place he's never been, but is able to track down to a city in New England where he believes he lived in a past life. He meets Marcia Curtis(played by Margot Kidder) who recognizes his voice and manner as that of her late husband, but can't believe it, though when Peter shows romantic interest in her(their?) daughter Ann(played by Jennifer O'Neill), she must take a similar drastic action just like before... Interesting premise, and nicely filmed in real New England locations, but film is ultimately too lurid, seamy, and unsatisfying to succeed, though has a most ironic end. Not yet on DVD for some reason, though is on YouTube.
zonkerjohn While I am typically a tough critic of movies, I just found this one riveting from the start. I particularly liked the way the revelations slowly unfolded (Marcia recognizing the tapping of the glass, his mother from a previous life recognizing him, etc.) I liked the way the producer did the flashbacks. The music was great. I did not like the ending, but rationalized it as 'hey somebody has to write bad endings, because if they were all good, then we would not appreciate them' I actually put this movie right up there with the omen and others (on my top list, anyway). surprised more of these type have not been written. it seems the possibilities are endless as to how creative one can be.
The_Void Reincarnation is undoubtedly an interesting topic and I'm fairly sure that this is the only film that I've seen which handles the topic in a 'mystery thriller' kind of way, but the fact that the topic is interesting really only serves in making this film more disappointing as The Reincarnation of Peter Proud fails to capitalise on it's central idea. Instead of creating something interesting out of the story, director J. Lee Thompson (who has a handful of interesting and important films to his name) seemed to prefer to make it another formulaic 'lost memory' style thriller and the result is a film too unlike too many others to really enthral the viewer. The film focuses on Peter Proud; a college professor who suffers from lucid nightmares. Some investigations go on and Peter soon discovers that he has been reincarnated and so goes to Massachusetts to meet his wife and daughter from his previous life. It's not long before he's integrated into his old family and in a relationship with his previous daughter, but his former wife holds a dark secret.It almost seems like the scriptwriters didn't know how to handle this idea properly as the central idea of the lead character being reincarnated is basically just sprung on the audience and it's difficult to work out how the lead characters actually realised it. The film is not helped by some entirely wooden performances. Lead actor Michael Sarrazin in particular seems very uninterested in the material (cant really blame him) and only Margot Kidder stands out from the support cast, although she has given better performances than this one. The only real thing of interest in the film is the implications of a man who has been reincarnated having a relationship with the grown-up girl that he fathered in his previous life; but in the context of the film it almost seems mundane and the idea is not capitalised upon. Even so, I cant really say that the film is a complete dead loss; despite not capitalising on most ideas, it doesn't get too boring and we do get something of a surprise ending; but I have to say overall that The Reincarnation of Peter Proud is not as good as it's title.