Repeat Performance (1947)

I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

Captivating movie !

Beautiful, moving film.

The first time I watched REPEAT PERFORMANCE was on Nickolodeon in the late 1980s, circa 1987-1988, when the cable channel was still showing old movies in the wee hours of the morning. I was caught up in the trials and tribulations of glamorous actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) who shoots her philandering horndog of a husband (Louis Hayward) in a fit of passionate rage on New Year's Eve and hears police sirens off in the distance, and wishes that she could live the past year all over again. She does. Will Sheila shoot her husband again? You'll have to find out for yourself. I can't spoil it for you. I can say this, however: REPEAT PERFORMANCE was one of the first movies put out by Eagle-Lion Films after the name change from Producers Releasing Corporation; it had been purchased by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation based in England with the purpose of making bigger-budgeted films. I had this movie on tape, taped over it for some unknown reason, and now it's hard to find. Darn. Anyway, fine movie. Ahhh, one more thing: Joan Leslie made a cameo appearance in the television remake TURN BACK THE CLOCK (1989) with Connie Sellecca and William Russ.

I've had a VHS copy of this for years from the early days of the Z channel. I had seen it even earlier than that and it was memorable. I've always found it fascinating, with an unusual plot line. Great Broadway background. I'm glad it's finally been restored. The old print badly restoration. I can't wait to see this released on DVD. Excellent performances all around. A real stunner for Joan Leslie who was never better. Hopefully she can provide a commentary track and how she got involved with this project. I'd heard about the restoration as there must be a lot of fans. See this one. Apparently I have to write ten lines so I hope this suffices.

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.

WhenI was a kid in the 50's, this film was always shown on TV on New Year's Eve. I would look forward to it and always enjoyed it. As New Year's Eve approaches this year, I just happened to think about it for the first time in years and could not find it on TV, VCR or DVD. I was happy to read the very positive user comments on the quality of the film and lamenting its lack of availability. I note that Leaonard Maltin even dropped this film from his 2006 edition of his guide, perhaps because there is no tape or DVD version. I hope someone, somewhere, with rights to this little gem does release it for home viewing or a TV channel like TCM or PBS finds it in their library and decides to show it, perhaps on a New Year's Eve.