What would you do if you could live again the year that has just passed? What would you change? Would you prevent anything bad from happening? Would you live more intensely the great moments you had or would you try and alter what made you suffer or the things you messed up?
Guess most of us can't really say "Je Ne Regrette Rien" like Edith Piaf. After all, we are human and therefore prone to committing mistakes and subject to a good, favourable, adverse or tragic fate.
Living again the year that has just passed is what Sheila (Joan Leslie), the main character in the 1947 noir film Repeat Performance directed by Alfred L. Werker wishes she could do.
The film was adapted from the eponymous 1942 novel by William O'Farrell: the film changed the original story where the girl was the villain because it was felt Joan Leslie could not play such a role (the other major change regards Richard Basehart's character, poet William Williams, who in the original novel was a cross-dresser).
When the film opens, a narrator asks "How many times have you said: 'I wish I could live this year over again?'" and then introduces us to Sheila, a Broadway actress, who has just shot and killed Barney (Louis Hayward), her husband.
It is the end of the year and people are partying outside in the streets. Scared, Sheila goes to see her friends to ask for help and starts regretting things. If only she could have the chance to live the previous year over again, she tells her friend, poet William Williams, she would certainly do things differently.
Surprisingly, her wish is granted and she discovers it when she removes her lavish fur coat revealing not the nightgown she was wearing when she killed Barney, but the same elegant white gown she donned on 31st December the previous year.
It is worth remembering that Oleg Cassini was the costume supervisor for this film: the designer worked at Paramount Pictures and established his reputation by creating costumes for films and gowns for Jacqueline Kennedy while she was First Lady of the United States (he was her exclusive couturier in 1961; she dubbed him her "Secretary of Style").
Sober yet very glamorous, the gown that turns back the clock for Sheila features a bodice with sequined half-moon shaped swirls (Sheila also wears a hairclip with a similar shape) and a minimalist long skirt with a sculptural draped motif.
Everybody compliments her about the gown: "That is a stunning dress," producer John Friday (Tom Conway) tells Sheila, "I have to take a better look at it", he adds as he switches on the lights. Her husband tells her the gown is "beautiful and lucky". Sheila asks why it is lucky, he replies "to have you inside it."
From that moment on, Sheila attempts to relive the year without making the mistakes she and her friends committed throughout 1946, but doesn't seem to be able to prevent certain things from happening.
Sheila is not the only glamorous woman in the film, her rival, playwright Paula Costello (Virginia Field) and friend Bess (Benay Venuta) also wear fetching gowns and lavish furs with massive shoulders (à la Mildred Pierce). Paula (who wears a peculiar fur jacket-cum-cape that wouldn't look out of place in a modern collection if it were reinvented in faux fur View this photo) has also got a passion for striking hats, while Sheila is more into elegant coiffures (courtesy of hair stylist Eunice).
Cassini's designs in the film at times feature dramatic décolletages; there is one dress that Sheila wears in a few scenes that is characterised by a striking neckline enriched by a pleated insert. The neckline forms a Baroque decorative motif that perfectly frames Sheila's face and bust.
The fact that Sheila is in the hands of fate is symbolized by the gown she wears when she lives again Christmas 1946, that features an ingenious triple collar covered with golden embroideries and gems and a decorative motif around a pocket forming a reverse horseshoe (while wearing it she asks her husband: "Wish me luck" before leaving to go to the theatre for her performance).
The final glamorous gown we see her wearing, black with a band of sequins highlighting the waist and a complex bejewelled hairstyle forming almost a crown on her head, is more of a costume for the actress as Sheila reveals Paula she didn't have the time to change at the theatre, but went straight back home at the end of the show.
It is unlucky poet William, who will discover the truth about the possibility of changing one's destiny – you can indeed change the dynamics, but not the outcome and fate will eventually catch up with you.
So, since turning back the clock may not allow you to change anything, as the new year arrives, leave everything behind and enter 2023 with no regrets, but with one resolution - next year try to be a better human being.
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