I've Lived Before

It's not a good film, but it's an interesting subject. How they treat it could be discussed indeed, and it's not very well.

The story is this. A passenger airplane pilot sees an elderly lady as a passenger he has never seen before but recognizes her and gets confused for not being able to place her. In the confusion in charge of the plane he suddenly becomes another person and almost crashes the plane. When he wakes up at the hospital he still believes he is a crashed war pilot of world war one. Of course, this creates a problem, especially since he doesn't even recognize the girl he is going to marry.

The whole rest of the film is only discussions, so it gets monotonous, but Ann Harding as the elderly lady makes a fascinating performance - she commands every scene she appears in, and it's actually her case the whole story is about.

It becomes something like a metaphysical detective story. The doctor's explanation of the phenomenon is that it's all about telepathy. All doubters are of course, like always, eventually proved stupid and wrong.

Phenomena like these occur, there are always doubters and deniers trying to explain them away, the insistent maniac who is too aware of the truth to be able to compromise with it is always proved right, sometimes not without martyrdom, but here the most important issue is left unanswered. Will the pilot ever again be admitted to fly? Many questions are discussed at length and answered, but this only important one is carelessly and irrationally neglected.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Richard Bartlett; Produced by Howard Christie, for Universal-International Pictures. Screenplay by William Talman and Norman Jolley; Photography by Maury Gertsman; Edited by Fred MacDowell and Milton Carruth; Music by Herman Stein. Starring: Jock Mahoney, Leigh Snowden, Ann Harding, John McIntire, Jerry Paris and Raymond Bailey.

Curious little film concerning reincarnation: Flyer Jock finds himself reliving experiences he is sure have occurred to him before. He is then compelled to track down his previous existence.

****SPOILERS**** Have we lived before? Is reincarnation a fact that can be proved scientifically as well as believed philosophically? This mystery of life after death, or death before life, has baffled the most renowned minds and thinkers since the dawn of recorded history; from the Orient to ancient Egypt and Greece and to the great philosophers of Europe from the middle ages to modern times.

John Bolan, Jock Mahoney, is a commercial pilot who had a fascination with flying since he was a little boy back in Schenectady New York. At the age of 12 in 1931 young Johnny got into the cockpit of a bi-plane and few and landed it like a seasoned pilot. It was the first time that Johnny ever was on a plane much less fly it.

One afternoon when he was about to fly his plane to New York John sees an elderly woman passenger and all of a sudden his mind fills up with memories of a past life that he led. John sees himself as a Let. Peter Stevens a WWI US Army pilot who was shot down over Villars France on April 29, 1918. It's that tragic memory almost causes John to crash his plane with him and all on board now in 1956.

Hospitalized John's thoughts of a life before has him leave and go investigate if there really was a Let. Peter Stevens who was killed in an air battle over France in 1918. Seeing his good friend and lawyer Robert Allen,Simon Scott, about the matter Robert checked out the information that John gave him and comes back with a hit; there was a Let. Peter Stevens and he was shot down over France in April 1918.

John now finds out who that passenger who brought back those memories of WWI and finds out that her name is Jane Stone, Ann Harding, and goes to Philadelphia where she lives. He's determined find out from her if she knew Let. Peter Stevens and, to John's surprise,is informed by Jane that not only did she know Peter Stevens but was engaged to marry him! This revelation by John being Peter, in another life, leaves Jane almost in shock and asks John to please leave.

John who never believed in, or even thought about, reincarnation now is firmly convinced that he lived before and lived the life of Peter Stevens. Nothing that the doctors or psychiatrists at the hospital say can convince John otherwise other then the unproven fact that, like the movie says, "He lived before". The only thing that can positively prove that he was Peter Stevens in another life is for the reluctant Jane Stone, who's persuaded by John's fiancée Lois Gordon (Leigh Snowden), to come to New York. John needs Jane to confirm events between her and Peter that only she knows about. With that John as well as Jane can put the case of Peter Stevens to rest one way or another and see if the theory of reincarnation is in fact a fact or not a fact.

Intelligent film about a mysterious subject, reincarnation, and trying to be not too obviously for or against it. Even though the end of "I've Lived Before" does make a strong case for rebirth it does it in an honest and un-sensational way. Whenever I think about the fact or myth of reincarnation I'm always reminded of the quote by the celebrated 18th century French author and philosopher Voltaire who said of the theory of reincarnation: "It is not more surprising to be born twice then once".

This film was released during the short-lived "Bridey Murphy" reincarnation craze of the mid-1950s. As such, I expected it to be somewhat exploitative, but it actually turned out to be a serious, well-intentioned study of reincarnation that presented alternate viewpoints, explored psychological explanations, and told the story of someone whose reincarnation story appears to be true. Jock Mahoney, usually associated with western and jungle films, does a fine job as a pilot who has strange, unexpected flashes of memories and unexplained knowledge from the life of a World War I pilot who died in 1918. My teenaged daughter, who was working on the computer in the same room where I was watching this film, stopped her work a few minutes into the film, and soon after came over to the couch and watched the rest of the film, riveted. I should state that this is a low-budget B-movie and contains a lot of talky sequences and serious-minded soliloquies--the kind of things that are not too popular with today's jaded, ironic screenwriters-- but those who would enjoy a serious (although in some ways naive) examination of reincarnation on a b-movie level should find this film worth seeking out.

Made on a shoestring budget ,this movie was,at the time of its release , ahead of its time ,predating such works as "bid time return" "Audrey Rose" " fearless" and many more .Time warp was rarely used then ("portrait of Jennie" (1949) was a notable exception though)

An aging Ann Harding is the stand -out : she who was young in "Peter Ibbetson" (1935) ,a masterpiece of the fantasy genre , is ideally cast as this war fiancée who lost her sweetheart when his plane crashed in 1918.

The movie is shrouded in mystery ;clues are given to the viewer: a twelve-year -old drives a plane without having learned to do it ,the strange chemistry between the captain and his passenger ,the strange words the survivor utters when he regains consciousness .

The movie may be too talky for some, but it proves that a fantasy tale does not need a ton of special effects to impress the viewer ; it may be,according to your own sensitivity a Christian movie (soul is immortal) or a mystery science will later explain (the pychiatrist).