Turn Back the Clock (1989)

This telefilm remake of the 1947 suspense fantasy Repeat Performance stars Connie Sellecca as a fading TV star who commits a murder on New Year's Eve before being given a chance to relive the last year and prevent the murder from occurring. The script is tarted up with a high-gloss veneer and some added sexual indiscretions, as Sellecca's husband (David Dukes) has an affair with an Eve Harrington-like scriptwriter (Wendy Kilbourne), and her best friend (Jere Burns) sleeps with a wealthy harridan (Dina Merrill). Only a cameo by Joan Leslie, star of the original film, can cut through its air of a glitzy soap opera disguised as a thriller. Director Larry Elikann specialized in this sort of nonsense, being responsible for the overwrought Out of Darkness, the stultifying A Letter to Three Wives, and -- inevitably -- Peyton Place: The Next Generation. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi