THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD (1975)
Article 3309 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-20-2010
Posting Date: 9-5-2010
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Featuring Michael Sarrazin, Jennifer O’Neill, Margot Kidder
Country: USA
What it is: Reincarnation thriller

A man, suffering from recurring dreams and unexplainable pains, comes to the conclusion that he is having memories of a previous life. He decides to investigate the details of his previous life… and why he was killed.

I remember the ads for this movie when I was in my teens, but I don’t remember it lasting very long in the theaters and it never showed up locally. I don’t know what I would have thought of it had I seen it then; watching it now, all I can say is that the story seems to be a little better than the presentation. In some ways, it seems like the story itself is the obvious approach to a reincarnation drama – a person digs up the story of his previous life but gets embroiled in the events surrounding it and ends up reliving it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this movie is the way that sex plays into the story; sex surrounds the murder and plays a role in the attempt to discover the truth, with hints of incest entering the picture. Unfortunately, the movie is overlong and a bit dull; after awhile, we get tired of the repetition of events that is supposed to convince us of the reincarnation angle when it is something that we take for granted in watching the movie. As a result, the movie is only so-so, and is a bit forgettable. It appears to be in the process of being remade, though IMDB lists two Bollywood movies based on the same story.