Alfred L. Werker

(On Cable TV, January 2022) Crime noir crashes into supernatural fantasy in Repeat Performance, a suspense film in which a woman having murdered her husband wishes she could do it all over… and finds herself reliving the events of the past year, an aghast witness at how history seems fated to repeat itself. Not much of a rational explanation is ever provided for the do-over (other than wishing really, really hard) and the film does have a few challenges in selling its premise. There are also some built-in problems in beginning the story as close to the murder as possible, then having to constantly establish who’s who and how their new role in this repeated year differs (or not) from what happened before the film began. Still, this is a wonderfully weird and different film noir—the fantastical elements add a lot to the usual elements of a neo-gothic thriller and it’s not as if they are tangential: remove the do-over and the whole thing becomes meaningless, and the film doesn’t really try to pretend that this is all taking place in the lead character’s head. Much of the plotting is driven by irony, as events keep falling into the same configurations despite the protagonist’s attempts to change the course of the future. Joan Leslie is not bad in the lead role, with director Alfred L. Werker handling everything in unobtrusive matter-of-fact fashion. Deservedly rescued by the dregs of oblivion by the Film Noir Foundation, Repeat Performance isn’t an all-time classic, but it’s sufficiently different to be worth a look for either film noir buffs or time-loop fans: a classic Hollywood film that plays with elements that would pop up more distinctively in later movie eras.