Repeat Performance is a 1947 film directed by Alfred L. Werker.
The story opens seven minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve, 1946. Sheila Page, an actress (Joan Leslie) shoots and kills her husband Barney (Louis Hayward). Sheila, in a daze, flees her apartment and soon makes her way to a bar where her friends, including poet William Williams (Richard Basehart in his film debut) are ringing in the New Year. Sheila tells William that she just killed Barney. William suggests that they go to John Friday, a theater director and a mutual friend, for advice.
As Sheila and William are mounting the stairs to Barney's apartment, Sheila says disconsolately that 1946 was a miserable year for her, that everything went wrong with Barney, and that if she could do the year over again, she could fix all her mistakes. She turns around—and William isn't there. She knocks on John's door, and he lets her in, but he gets confused when she starts talking about her role in a play that as far as John knows, doesn't exist. It turns out that it isn't Jan. 1, 1947, it's Jan. 1, 1946. Sheila has traveled back in time a year! She rushes back home and finds Barney very much alive. She can fix all her mistakes!
Or can she? Sheila decides that the first thing she'll do is not go to London, where Barney met Paula Costello, the playwright who had an affair with Barney and wrecked Sheila's marriage. But moments later, Paula, a total stranger to Sheila now that the timeline has been reset, crashes Sheila and Barney's New Year's party. As the year goes on, Sheila struggles to avoid her tragic fate...
Tropes:
- Adaptational Heroism / Adaptational Villainy: In the source novel Barney is the protagonist who kills his lover and tries to fix his mistakes, and the character of Sheila is an abusive alcoholic. This was changed, supposedly because the producers didn't think Joan Leslie would be credible as a villain.
- The Alcoholic: Barney admits this, initially refusing a drink at New Year's because "I'm the guy who can't take just one." Later dialogue establishes that his long-term Writer's Block is what drove him to drink. He falls Off the Wagon.
- Book Ends: The film begins on New Year's 1946/7 and, after Sheila repeats the whole year of 1946, ends at the same time. It also begins with a pan down from the starry night, and ends with a pan up to the starry night.
- Dramatic Irony: As everybody drinks in the new year, Bess says "Don't wait for Barney, he won't show up on time." Sheila and the audience know that Barney won't show up because he's lying dead in Sheila's apartment.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the opening scene William says that he would have been happy to shoot Barney for her. In the end, after Sheila replays 1946, that is exactly what Barney does.
- When Sheila tells William all about her time loop, he says that not everything is the same this time around: this time Barney is temporarily paralyzed, while last time he wasn't. This foreshadows William's realization that while you can't fight fate, you can tweak the details.
- Glasses Pull: Paula does this as a come-on, taking her reading glasses off and making a suggestive comment to Barney as they go over his new play. It works.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Rain is pounding against the windows throughout the sequence where Sheila fetches Barney from the hospital and takes him home, after a drunk Barney, openly flaunting his affair with Paula, fell from a box at the theater.
- Handshake Refusal: Paula says that she's broken things off with Barney and then awkwardly offers her hand. Sheila ignores her.
- He's Dead, Jim: It takes a policeman about two seconds to verify that Barney is dead.
- Love Triangle: Sheila, Barney, and Barney's girlfriend Paula. Eventually Paula dumps Barney, which is what leads Barney to try to Murder the Hypotenuse.
- Naked in Mink: Not naked in mink because this film was made in 1947, but Sheila rushes out of her apartment wearing a fur coat with nothing more than a slip underneath. This is plot-relevant moments later, when Sheila realizes that somehow she is wearing a dress, and realizes that she's traveled back in time a year.
- Narrator: Apparently the producers were worried that 1947 theatergoers would get confused. So there's narration (by an uncredited John Ireland) in the opening scene about how Sheila Page is going to get a chance to change her fate, and more narration as Sheila is coming to the door of John's apartment, specifically stating that she's traveled back in time a year. ("She made a wish—a tragic one, at a tragic time.")
- New Year Has Come: The film opens with Sheila killing Barney minutes before midnight, New Year's 1946/7. After Sheila repeats the whole year of 1946, the film ends on New Year's again. The last line is William looking up at Sheila's apartment and saying "Happy New Year."
- Noodle Incident: It's crucial to the plot that William is locked up an insane asylum. But the film never says why William was committed, only that it was because of something that happened while he was out and about with Mrs. Shaw, his bitchy patron. The reason for this is that in the source novel, William was a cross-dresser who went by the name "William and Mary Williams." There was no chance of getting away with this in 1947 under the Hays Code.
- Off the Wagon: Barney, an alcoholic, falls off the wagon on New Year's, and more decisively falls off the wagon later in the year. This is a major factor in the collapse of Barney and Sheila's marriage.
- "Pan from the Sky" Beginning: The first shot is a camera panning down from the stars to the city of New York, as a narrator muses about fate and how Sheila Page will get a chance to change her life.
- "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The last shot in the movie has the camera panning up to a starry night, after William has been arrested.
- Pool Scene: How does the film show that Sheila and Barney have relocated to Los Angeles like Sheila wanted? By having Barney walk past a fool festooned with bathing beauties, of course. Barney does a Double Take at two hot women in swimsuits that walk past him.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Barney, who is angry and drunk, claps sarcastically when he comes home and sees John holding Sheila's hand. (John is only trying to talk Sheila into starring in the new play.)
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Once Sheila gets her magical time reset, she spends the whole year of 1946 trying to fix everything that went wrong. She fails, because You Can't Fight Fate.
- Throwing Off the Disability: Per movie tradition, Barney, who was paralyzed after his fall in the theater, eventually starts walking again. In this case it's at least Hand Waved in universe by a doctor saying that sometimes, people with paralysis like Barney's do recover.
- Time-Passes Montage: A quick one has the theater marquee announce July 4 and Labor Day showings of Sheila's play, interspersed with scenes of Barney and Paula doing romantic stuff.
- Writer's Block: Barney wrote a hit play eight years ago, which also made Sheila a big star. He hasn't been able to write anything since.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Discussed, and played with. It seems that mostly, you really can't fight fate. Sheila decides to not go to London to avoid meeting Paula, only for Paula to show up to Sheila's party uninvited. Sheila and Barney go to Los Angeles because Sheila is hoping to avoid any more contact with Paula, only for John Friday to send her Paula's play anyway. Everything plays out more or less the same, but as William points out to Sheila, some of the details are different. William proceeds to take the gun in Sheila's apartment and shoot Barney himself, rather than Sheila doing it. As he's being taken away William says to Sheila, about Fate, that "I don't think she cares about the pattern as long as the result is the same."
