Repeat Performance

Repeat Performance needs urgent rescuing from the black hole it has somehow fallen into. A superior Poverty Row production from Eagle-Lion Studios, it's imaginatively scripted, played with gusto and never less than fascinating – a curio, film noir in a sci-fi time loop.

On New Year's Eve, 1947, Joan Leslie shoots and kills her husband, Louis Hayward. She wishes she hadn't, and her wish comes true – suddenly she's back in New Year's Eve, 1946. This proves to be no mere shuffling around of the narrative; she's been given the year to live over again in hopes of a happier ending. But of course the gimmick serves as a flashback, too, retracing the sequence of events that led (or will lead?) up to the shooting.

The title also drops a clue about the picture's fang-and-claw milieu, New York's theater world. Leslie's a star on the Rialto, having come to prominence in one of her husband's plays. He turned out to be a one-shot wonder, however, resorting to the bottle in resentment of his failure and his wife's success (there are parallels to A Star Is Born and to All About Eve). Other characters in this backstage story include Leslie's producer, Tom Conway; Virginia Field, as a haughty English playwright; Richard Basehart (looking, in his debut, like a young Harrison Ford), as an unhappy poet but loyal friend; and Natalie Schafer, as a viperish patroness of the arts.

When Leslie suddenly finds herself in last year's gown, she tries to renegotiate her way through the year, this time in possession of an advance copy of the script, gingerly avoiding its fatal pitfalls. She comes to learn (as do we all) that destiny writes in cement. Luckily for her, it hasn't quite hardened.

On the first New Year's Eve, Howard's resolution not to drink doesn't even make it to midnight; he turns sullen and abusive. A spring sojourn to sunny California, while shopping for a new vehicle for Leslie, doesn't improve his moods. Her next prospect comes from the pen of Field, and Howard browbeats her into accepting it; he, meanwhile, takes up with its author. Basehart finds himself in the clutches of Schafer, who ends up having him committed to an asylum, while Howard suffers a drunken fall that paralyzes him. As the year winds to its close, Leslie desperately tries to extricate herself from what she knows is to come....

Despite being an unlikely hodge-podge of noirish, soapish and paranormal elements, the movie never seems stretched or thrown together. The less than luminous cast rises to the occasion, with each member allotted a place in the spotlight. Accept the flaw in the warp or weft of the fabric of time, and Repeat Performance zips along smoothly and convincingly. It's buried treasure – proof, albeit obscure, that rough magic could sometimes occur even on the outer fringes of the movie industry.

Interesting noir that issues from an imaginative premise-- suppose we had a year that we could live all over again. So who wouldn't want that opportunity. Naturally, we could change our own actions to better optimize outcomes, but what about others-- would their actions have to change too.

The premise may even require the entire world to live that same year over so as to fit into the changes that ripple out from our own changes. Conceptual questions aside, the premise is simplified here into a rather clever soap-operish plot— namely, can sympathetic Sheila (Leslie) avoid killing her louse husband (Hayward) a second time around. That is, can she maybe just ignore his many provocations, given a second chance.

Instead of playing up occult aspects, the screenplay concentrates on revolving relationships among sophisticated show-business types. It's a good cast, especially an agreeably addled Richard Basehart. However, I'm not sure the sweetly gentle Leslie has the gravitas for a difficult role, especially for the wronged woman part. Still, she certainly wins our sympathy. Director Werker films in noirish style lending the visuals a suitably twilight quality. The ending too is appropriate, without obvious cheating on the premise.

The movie seems more obscure than deserved and I'm not sure why. It certainly made an impression on me on first viewing many years ago. I suspect the obscurity is because of a B- movie cast-- no matter how accomplished—and a non-studio pedigree. But whatever the reason, the film remains a thought provoking 90-minutes even this many years after.

the problem is, i cant locate a copy of this movie. i have looked for literally years, ever since vcrs became popular, and it is nowhere to be found. for some reason i remember the plot of a woman getting to relive the past year with incredible fondness. it was indeed a delightful movie, and i would so much love to see it again.

This one is a real sleeper from Eagle-Lion. If you get a chance to see this on TCM or on Amazon please see Repeat Performance by all means. It's a melodramatic fantasy about a Broadway actress who is given a chance to live the last year of her life all over to see if she can avoid the terrible way she ended the year.

What Joan Leslie did is no less than shoot her husband, playwright Louis Hayward on New Year's Eve. But while running to tell her friend and producer Tom Conway of the tragedy when she opens the door she realizes quickly enough that it is last New Year's Eve, but she knows how the year is to end. Or does she? Can she avoid the oncoming tragedy of her killing her spouse?

Louis Hayward is someone whose work is worthy of a second look that he's not likely to get. He freelanced and didn't have the benefit of a major studio building him up as they did for Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn for example. But Hayward got to play a variety of parts that their studios would never let Power or Flynn play. Hayward did the swashbucklers as well as Power or Flynn, but did considerably more. He's wonderful as the dissolute husband of Leslie.

Richard Basehart made his screen debut here as the friend and confidante of Joan Leslie. Had this been made today Basehart's character would be most definitely gay. He's a poet and he acquires a patroness in rich Natalie Schaefer.

It certainly isn't Schaefer's fault, how could she know that she would wind up playing THE millionaire wife 20 years later taking a cruise on the SS Minow. But seeing her I wonder if this was how she was spending Thurston Howell's money. She's different here than the rich patroness of the castaways.

Virginia Field plays another playwright who starts paying attention to Louis Hayward and puts the Hayward/Leslie marriage on the rocks. This role is the typical Gail Patrick/Helen Vinson part of the other woman and Field plays it with gusto.

Repeat Performance is a great sleeper of a film and absolutely catch this one if broadcast.

Basehart's introduction to film has him appearing in a memorable supporting role here. This is well acted by all and superior to the remake, decades later. It hold suspense, with good performances managing to shy away from being overly melodramatic. A woman tries to avoid a terrible destiny when she is given a chance to relive the last year of her life.