Small Moments

By J.C.

THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD

Directed by J. LEE THOMPSON Screenplay by MAX EHRLICH

There is no reason to expect it, but a remarkable scene occurs somewhere in the middle of this befogged exercise. An old woman named Anne Ives plays the mother of a murdered man who has been reincarnated inside Michael Sarrazin. Now Sarrazin himself has some doubts about this nagging notion of double identity. It afflicts him, for one thing, with an annoying case of dej`a vu, which recurs like a migraine. Quite understandably, he would prefer not to be lieve that he is a gentleman who distressed a great many young ladies some decades ago. There is no fooling Mother, however, who is as surprised to recognize her son as Sarrazin is alarmed.

Ives is an unfamiliar face, which seems a shame. While everyone else involved with The Reincarnation of Peter Proud falls victim to the prevailing foolishness, Ives moves gamely ahead.

Against all odds -- and Director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns ofNavarone, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) makes sure there are plenty -- she makes a quick, heartbreaking sketch of the sad, saving reveries of age. She has all the unplanned grace and unguarded, surprised emotion of a nonprofessional, and it is a pleasure to salute her.

It must also be said, however, that her appearance takes up about two minutes of what is otherwise a woeful enterprise. The nominal stars of the show, besides the zealously mediocre Sarrazin, are Jennifer O'Neill, who always looks freshly daubed, Margot Kidder, who drinks heavily and masturbates in the bathtub, and Cornelia Sharpe, struggling to speak words over a single syllable. Ives is perhaps a half-century older than these women, but they do not have a thing on her.

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