Repeat Performance (1947)
Director:
Alfred L. Werker
Writers:
Walter Bullock (screenplay), William O'Farrell (novel)
Stars:
Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field
On New Year's Eve, Joan Leslie runs desperately out of a penthouse apartment and into the Times Square crowd. She has reason to flee--she has just shot and killed her husband. Through a freakish wrinkle in time, Leslie is transported back to the last New Year's and is allowed to relive the past year all over again. This time she is forearmed with the knowledge of the murder and does everything she can to avoid the deed--a task made difficult by such antagonists as her nasty husband and her emotionally disturbed brother (Richard Basehart, in his film debut). Events lead inexorably to the murder...but will she do it this time? Cleverly assembled, and with a more expensive cast and budget than was usual for pinchpenny Eagle-Lion studios, Repeat Performance is a brisk and absorbing semi-fantasy. It was remade for television as Turn Back the Clock (89), with the original film's star Joan Leslie in a brief cameo role.