Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

In the 1930s and 40s, Monogram Pictures made quite a few low-budget horror films—and, amazingly, a lot of them were about resurrections of the dead that turned out very badly! Among the ones I've seen, "The Man With Two Lives" is probably the worst. Part of it is because the plot idea is silly and part of it is because the ending is just awful.Edward Norris stars as Philip Bennett—a nice young man from a rich family. However, just before his marriage, he has a bad car accident and is killed. HOWEVER, being a resurrection of the dead film, it just so happens that his father has been working on a process to revive the dead! He's done it on animals, so why not try it out on his son? After all, the guy's body is in one piece—he just died from shock.One Philip is revived, the film gets really, really odd (even by the standards of the genre). It seems obvious to everyone but the characters in the film that after Philip died, he somehow switched souls with a serial killer who was just executed. However, there really is no explanation for any of this! I must admit, seeing Norris running amok killing folks with little provocation was pretty funny---but the WHY never was explained. This is a big problem with the film—but the ending, yecch! It turns out in the end that it is all a dream!!! Philip was in a coma from the accident and dreamed everything!!! Now, he's awake and just swell!!!! It's like the Patrick Duffy death on "Dallas"—it was all just a bad dream!! Talk about wimping out and leaving the audience hanging! Overall, an entertaining film that ends so badly I really wish I'd seen something else! Shame on you, Monogram!

"Black Friday" did this plot so much better, which is why it is remembered and "The Man With Two Lives" is just a forgotten potboiler. "Shed No Tears" was it's working title and it would have been a better one as he was a thoroughly evil character for most of the film.Philip Bennett is newly engaged when he is involved in a traffic accident. Dr. Clark (Edward Keene) has been involved in some experimental operations on animals - bringing them back from the dead. His colleagues urge him to try his operation on Phillip, who has died. As he is operating , a dangerous criminal, Wolf Panino, is going to the electric chair and trans migration of the soul occurs. When Phillip awakes from the operation, he has the soul of Panino. He is a changed person, he is rude to his family and starts to hang around Panino's old haunts. He takes over Wolf's old gang - going by the name of Philip Bennett, he also romance's Wolf's former girlfriend - who smells a rat. Bennett, as Wolf, is determined to even up scores and starts to eliminate his enemies.Bodies pile up, including the girlfriend and a policeman, then his own family begins to fall victim.But - I HATE those "bad dream" movies - you always feel let down. This film would have been better if he had stayed in character as Panino and had a final shoot out. Eleanor, his fiancée, would have ended up sadder but wiser with his brother. Edward Norris, the star, had a big career mostly in B movies.Not really recommended.

Well, it is a Monogram quickie from the dreaded period of the '40s when poverty row studios put out a good many "horror" films that are almost unimaginably dull... So I was expecting the worst. The story concerns a doctor who has been working on a way to restore life to the dead through the use of a room full of non-utilitarian electrical devices which spark nicely. There is a dog's heart hanging under a bell jar and twitching fitfully, which we are informed is proof that his method is perfected.A brief discussion of the metaphysical implications and mention of an important plot point precede the inevitable death of a young man who is revived in a rather undramatic sequence - undramatic even with the sparks. The important plot point is that a convicted murderer is being executed just at midnight, which turns out to be exactly when the young man is revived. It is no surprise that the young man is very different after his experience; apparently amnesiac and with a strange desire to visit the haunts of the underworld and become acquainted with certain gangsters...It's hard to explain why this all is not completely unwatchable, but perhaps it suffices to say that it's mildly interesting and contains several murders and a couple of interesting characters. Towards the end it even begins to move along with a bit of real tension and a confrontation that is downright Hitchcockian. SPOILERI have to warn of a very, very bad ending. A tagged on unnecessary, pain in the ass sorta ending. After the plot resolves rather effectively...You know the sort of thing... It's all a dream. Never happened.

I started watching movies on TV around 1948. First one I can recall was The Ghost Goes West (1936). Another early one was The Man With Two Lives. My brother and I, around 11 and 8 years old respectively, watched it a few times because 1) there wasn't much else on that would appeal to us the way execution and "transmigration of souls" would and 2) they repeated it a few times. Even at that age we were not highly impressed, but it was better than the Small Fry Club and Howdy Doody. Another favorite (?) of ours was one in which a doctor, I believe, became afflicted with acromegaly, causing his fingers and other body parts to swell; the tip-off was when he became unable to play the piano. That one was scary enough to give me a healthy respect for dread diseases, and I was confirmed in this years later when, with a college education under my belt, I looked up "acromegaly" in the dictionary and found the film's depiction of it was truthful. Now what was the name of that film....