Dead Again

Newspapers detail the murder of Margaret Strauss in 1948, noting a robbery and a missing anklet. Roman Strauss is found guilty and condemned to death. Before his execution, Gray Baker visits him and asks if he killed Margaret; Roman whispers an answer that Baker keeps to himself.

Forty-three years after the 1948 case, a mute amnesiac woman appears at the orphanage where Mike grew up, plagued by nightmares. Mike takes her in and asks his friend Pete Dugan to publish her photo and his contact information. She bears a striking resemblance to Margaret and Roman, hinting at a deeper connection.

Antiques dealer and hypnotist Franklyn Madson approaches Mike and proposes hypnosis as a memory aid. During the first session, the amnesiac speaks in the third person about Margaret and Roman, and she gradually regains speech but remains amnesiac. The experience hints at unresolved memories tied to the couple’s past.

Mike nicknames the woman Grace and falls in love with her. A man named Doug appears pretending she is his fiancée Katherine, but Mike quickly realizes he is lying and chases him off. The supernatural mystery deepens as Mike's personal life becomes tangled with the memory investigation.

During hypnotic regression, Grace recalls Margaret and Roman's world in the third person. She notes Roman's writer's block and his belief that Margaret was flirting with Baker, while their trust frays under suspicion. The memories suggest long-buried tensions that echo through the present.

Grace's memories include a moment when Margaret catches Frankie (Inga's son) spying through her jewelry box. She urges Roman to dismiss Inga, but Roman refuses, claiming Inga saved his life in Nazi Germany. The scene foreshadows the housekeeper's role in past events.

Grace sees Mike standing over Margaret with scissors and fears he will kill her. Mike insists he would never hurt Grace, but under the regression he realizes the past-life truth: he is Margaret and Grace is Roman, leaving him unable to confess.

Pete Dugan reveals that Grace is actually Amanda Sharp. Amanda's memory loss stems from a mugging, and she accompanies Dugan and Madson to her apartment, where her art focuses on scissors. Madson gives her a gun to protect herself from Mike.

Mike visits Gray Baker in a nursing home; Baker insists Roman said nothing but kissed him, and maintains that Roman did not kill his wife. He urges Mike to find Inga for the real truth and reveals that Inga and Frankie started an antiques shop, hinting that Frankie is Madson.

Mike breaks into Madson's shop and questions Inga, who recounts 1948 in which she loved Roman but was rebuffed. Frankie blamed Margaret, killed her with scissors, and stole her anklet; Roman was found covered in blood holding the murder weapon.

After Roman's execution, Inga takes Frankie to London, where he learns hypnotherapy and past-life regression. Returning to Los Angeles, Frankie believes Margaret's spirit seeks revenge and hires Doug to separate Mike and Amanda and set up Amanda as the target.

Inga asks for forgiveness and gives Mike the anklet, then is smothered by Frankie. Mike tries to tell Amanda the truth, but she shoots him when frightened. Frankie reveals his true identity, attempts to frame Amanda, and a brutal confrontation ensues in which Amanda stabs Frankie and Madson dies in the chaos.

A closing montage shows Mike and Amanda embracing, superimposed over happier memories of Margaret and Roman. The final image ties together the living present with the long-buried past, offering a resolution to the mystery.