# Movie Identification: Young Innocent Man Goes to Corrupt Big City, Drowns, Brought Back to Life, Set around 1800s-1920

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-identification-young-innocent-man-goes-to-corrupt-big-city-drowns-brought-back-to-life-set-around-1800s-1920/962680>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [April 11, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-identification-young-innocent-man-goes-to-corrupt-big-city-drowns-brought-back-to-life-set-around-1800s-1920/962680 "2022-04-11T19:29:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-identification-young-innocent-man-goes-to-corrupt-big-city-drowns-brought-back-to-life-set-around-1800s-1920/962680/1 "2022-04-11T19:29:00Z")

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I was wondering if someone could identify this movie. It’s several decades old. It’s along the lines of a young innocent man going to the corrupt big city. Probably set from 19th century to 1920 or so. I remember one line roughly “the head of the Reform League is the biggest crook of them all” One plot element was that someone had developed a device to bring the dead back to life (perhaps by shocking them). But they tried it on someone who was executed (hung?) and it didn’t work. Our hero accidentally dies (drowning I think). They try the device again–and it revives him.

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-identification-young-innocent-man-goes-to-corrupt-big-city-drowns-brought-back-to-life-set-around-1800s-1920/962680/2 "2022-04-13T11:00:58Z")

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Some of the details (but not all) match **The Man With Two Lives**

> **[The Man with Two Lives](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_Two_Lives)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
> 
> Man with Two Lives is a 1942 American film directed by Phil Rosen and written by Joseph Hoffman.
> The story is of a man who is brought back from the dead and whose body is hijacked by the soul of an executed gangster, consequently making the deceased man a high-ranking criminal.
> At the beginning of the story, the happy couple Phillip Bennett and Louise Hammond are engaged to be married. A major bump on their planned road to the future emerges whe...

TCMF-2L