This forgotten 1947 noir featured one of the era’s best and most complex gay characters
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, were revisiting the 1947 noir Repeat Performance, which features what the Criterion Channel calls “one of the era’s most sensitive depictions of a queer character.If you had a second chance at redoing an entire year of your life, would you do it?
Unless something extraordinarily good happens—like winning an Academy Award, finding the love of your life, or suddenly coming into millions of dollars—there are probably few people who wouldn’t.
The power that a “what if” holds over a person’s life is too big not to be taken seriously, and that is why it’s always been such a rich narrative device.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.This week, we’ll take a look at a little-seen movie from the first half century of Hollywood, the 1947 supernatural thriller melodrama Repeat Performance, in which an actress gets the chance to relive the last year of her life, which ended in great tragedy.
However, she soon realizes that no matter how much she wants to change things, some events will still happen the same way, and she may well end up in the very place she wanted to avoid.The film is notable for its blend of supernatural fantasy, heavy noir influences against a backstage melodrama, and for featuring one of the most sympathetic and complex portrayals of a queer character for its time.Repeat Performance follows Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) a famous stage actress who shoots and kills her husband on New Year’s Eve.
