Repeat Performance (1947)

That was an excellent one.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

(Flash Review)Not sure if the poor quality Amazon picture transfer degraded or distracted my enjoyment of this as the picture was far from sharp. Anyway, this has a clever little plot for a Film Noir. The film opens with the heroine standing over a man she has just shot and then wishes she could rewind the past. Poof, the story rewinds back one full year yet she can remember what will happen in the future year. Will she be able to avoid last year's life choices that lead her down the path of murder? I may need to try a Netflix DVD for a rewatch but at first pass the film didn't have enough suspense to feel gripping and the pacing felt slower without enough tension to keep me fully engaged.

I watched the very first screening of 35 mm restoration of this movie at Noir city film festival at San Francisco and I am glad, i did that.This is a story of Broadway actress Sheila Page, who gets to live one year of her life on new year eve of 1947 in the roaring city of New York to correct a mistake she just committed. Movie depicts the misery of a failed writer, who lives under the shadow of his famous actress wife and the efforts that actress does to save her marriage. Director beautifully captured the night life, party culture of New York city enjoyed by high society of late 40s era. One scene makes it quite obvious that women were still considered a second class citizen in front of men during that period of time. Also, There are many one liner funny dialogs in the movie that keeps viewer entertained along with well paced movie plot. Overall, this is a funny, entertaining and quite well made mystery movie.

I just saw this film play in a 16mm copy last Friday night ~Jan 25 '08. The brochure stated that there were no usable 35mm prints good enough for playing on a big screen.It played at The Castro Theatre in San Francisco. Also playing with another unreleased to DVD Joan Leslie movie "The Hard Way"This well thought out movie has it all. It doesn't sell out the possibilities that could go wrong or against you if you were living it.The main actors in this stylish film noir romp all were credible in their motives and actions. Seeing Natalie Schafer from Gilligan's Island fame was funny playing a scheming and controlling diva of the arts world. Tom Conway as "everybody's big brother" had a part that he owned. Louis Hayward as the cheating husband and Virginia Field who was playing along with the dangerous and cheating fun. You could tell that there were sparks between them. Those same sparks were missing in the married relationship with Joan.Basehart was great in his first film role. There were some outrageous corny lines of dialogue that had the audience laughing along with the scene when it wasn't supposed to be funny on screen. But, overall he nailed it in a crucial part.I hope that this comes to DVD soon while Joan is still around. It would be even more astounding if she herself gave a running commentary to it!!!

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.