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Repeat Performance
Year - 1947
Studio - Bryan Foy Productions
Stars - Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer
Director - Alfred L. Werker
Writing Credits - Walter Bullock (screenplay), William O'Farrell (novel)
Music - George Antheil
Synopsis (AI Generated)
The premise: Just before midnight on New Year's Eve 1946, stage actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) shoots and kills her husband, alcoholic playwright Barney Page (Louis Hayward), whose career has been collapsing as hers rises. Dazed, she rushes to a party and confesses to her friend, the poet William Williams (Richard Basehart, in his screen debut). He suggests they go get advice from Sheila's producer and confidant, John Friday (Tom Conway). As they climb the stairs to Friday's apartment, Sheila laments that 1946 was a disaster and wishes she could live it over and fix her mistakes. She turns around — and William has vanished. She's been transported back to New Year's Day, 1946, given a chance to relive the entire year with foreknowledge of what's coming.
The replayed year: Determined to avoid the same fate, Sheila tries to change course — for instance, declining to star in a London production of the play "Saying Goodbye," which confuses Friday, who doesn't understand her sudden reversal. But fate proves stubborn. The same people drift back into orbit: Paula Costello (Virginia Field), a catty, self-interested playwright, begins an affair with Barney; Eloise Shaw (Natalie Schafer), a wealthy, predatory socialite, latches onto William as her latest infatuation; and Bess Michaels (Benay Venuta) rounds out Sheila's social circle. At a Thanksgiving party, a drunken Barney insults Sheila and is caught kissing Paula on the balcony, then suffers a fall and a kind of breakdown that leaves him incapacitated, so Sheila leaves the stage to nurse him back to health.
Meanwhile, William — the only other person who knows the year is repeating — is committed to an asylum after an unspecified incident involving Eloise Shaw. Locked away, he remembers Sheila's warnings about how the year will end and realizes he was actually released from the asylum on New Year's Eve the first time around.
As the year winds back down to Christmas and New Year's, Sheila returns to the stage while Barney, left alone, drifts back toward Paula, who arrives at the apartment ready to whisk him off to London. Sheila comes home and confronts Paula as she's leaving. That New Year's Eve, after finishing her performance, Sheila brings Friday back to the apartment — and finds Barney, now unhinged and consumed by resentment, waiting for her. He advances on her, intent on killing her.
Just as it seems history will repeat itself with Sheila as the killer, William — who has escaped the asylum, just as before — bursts in and shoots Barney dead to save her. Police arrest William for the murder instead of Sheila. The film closes back on New Year's Eve, with William looking up at Sheila's window from the street as he's led away, calling out "Happy New Year" — the tragedy still occurs, just with the roles of killer and killed rearranged.
Preview Clip
Can a Film Blanc also be a Film Noir? The film was restored by the Film Noir Foundation. As Flicker Alley, the distributor of the home video product says, "Think of it as Film Noir’s answer to It’s a Wonderful Life or a full-length precursor to The Twilight Zone."