starring Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie
directed by Alfred L. Werker
91 minutes
Actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) shoots and kills Barney (Louis Hayward) on New Year's Eve 1946. He had been having an affair with another woman. Paula Costello, the other woman, wrote the play in which Sheila was currently appearing on Broadway. Paula and Barney had been getting together behind Sheila's back for months by the time New Year's Eve rolled around.
Sheila wishes that she could have the past year to live over again. Her wish is granted although she doesn't understand how or why. Sheila does what she can to change her actions so that she won't be driven to kill Barney again. She has some success in doing things differently but most things stay the same no matter how hard she tries to change them.
Paula Costello still enters their life. Barney and Paula still have an affair. Things finally seem to break in Sheila's favor when Barney falls from a balcony and injures himself badly, something that didn't happen the first time around. He is confined to a wheelchair but he regains the use of his legs and decides that he wants to leave his wife and stay with Paula.
Things don't work out exactly in the end as they did the first time around.
Natalie Schafer has a small role in this movie. I know her best from Gilligan's Island where she played Mrs. Howell.
I found the end of the movie to be a little too quick and not terribly interesting. Sheila wants to take control of her life but in the end it is the actions of someone else that resolves her dilemma. She seemed more in control when she killed Barney even though it was done in a fit of passion.
I like the premise of this movie more than I like the film itself. None of the performances by the cast really blew me away. There were a few moments of melodrama that made me laugh. I kept waiting for the characters to do something interesting but those moments were few and far between.
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