Maidexpl
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Tayloriona
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
Tymon Sutton
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
MartinHafer
Whether you like or hate "I've Lived Before" will depend entirely on what you think of the notion of reincarnation. I myself think it's a lot of crap....but I cannot simply dismiss a movie because I disagree with the premise. But if the film is trying to convince the audience, it's got a lot more to do.John Bolan (Jock Mahoney) is an airline pilot. During what would seem to be a routine flight, he loses his mind and tries to smash the plane into the ground!! If it wasn't for the co-pilot slugging him, everyone aboard would have died.John is sent to a sanitarium and a psychiatrist (John McIntire) works with him to determine if he's mentally ill, psychotic or normal Well, he obviously isn't normal...so he, along with John's fiancee, work to determine what happened...and the ultimate answer is that in a previous life he must have been a WWI pilot! The problem with this film isn't so much the subject matter but that there is some poor acting (the fiancee was a weak character and often seemed poorly written) and a tendency for characters to go off on long and annoying monologues. Not a terrible film but one that really lacks the polish and believability to get its subject across effectively.
django-1
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.
William J. Fickling
A year or two before this film was released, the biggest best seller in the US was a book called "The Search for Bridey Murphy," a book about reincarnation. In that book a modern woman supposedly knew intimate details of the life of Bridey Murphy, an obscure Irish woman who died in the 19th century and of whom she had never heard. This silly film, in which a contemporary (1956) man remembers details in the life of a WWI pilot who was killed in action, was obvious intended to capitalize on "Bridey Murphy"'s success. It's not a good movie.There is one reason, and only one, to see this film, and that is to see the gorgeous Leigh Snowden. She made very few film and retired from acting before she was 30, after she, truly a woman of the 50s, married accordianist Dick Contino and dedicated herself to raising a family. If her career had been better managed, or if she had been more committed to acting, she might have rivaled some of the blonde sex symbols of the 50s, such as Monroe and Mansfield. But it was not to be. Since this film isn't on video, the only chance you'll have to see it is if you're lucky enough to catch it on cable, most likely during the wee hours. Otherwise, your best opportunity to see the Lovely Leigh is in "All That Heaven Allows," an excellent Douglas Sirk soaper. Leigh, alas, will never be seen again; she died of cancer in 1982.
bux
An interesting concept-reincarnation-is poorly addressed in this psychological drama. The bad acting and poor direction are extremely disappointing, considering the brief glimpse of genius Director Bartlett showed in earlier efforts-"The Silent Raiders"(1954) and "Silver Star"(1955). The stiff acting, and lack of direction, combined with preachy dialogue, deliver a picture reminiscent of an Ed Wood production.