Lady on a Train *** (1945, Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce, Edward Everett Horton, Dan Duryea) – Classic Movie Review 12,000

Director Charles David’s 1945 American whodunit film noir crime thriller Lady on a Train is based on an original story by Leslie Charteris, and stars Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce, and Edward Everett Horton.

Former child actress Durbin was seeking more grown-up, sophisticated, non-musical roles, and this was part of producer Felix Jackson’s attempt, along with Christmas Holiday to expand her range, but these films were not as successful at the box office.

There is also an exceptionally fine star support cast in George Coulouris, Allen Jenkins, Dan Duryea, Patricia Morison, Jacqueline deWit, Elizabeth Patterson, Maria Palmer, Samuel S Hinds, William Frawley and Barbara Bates. You can’t argue with that cast.

Lady on a Train is a pacey, highly entertaining comic suspense thriller about a murdered millionaire and his oddball family. Deanna Durbin plays the Lady on a Train, who just happens to be reading a mystery novel when train makes a brief stop and she looks up at a nearby building. When she sees a murder (but not the killer) in the next block from her train window while chuffing into Grand Central Station to meet her lawyer (Edward Everett Horton), dippy songbird Nikki Collins (Durbin) is the key witness.

Calling the cops, Durbin is shocked that they cannot find a corpse and dismiss her story, so she investigates herself, with the help of popular crime novelist Wayne Morgan (David Bruce), the writer of the book she was reading.

Gags, songs, a nice set of actors, a good New York flavour, zesty handling and a genuine whodunit story (courtesy of The Saint writer Leslie Charteris), all keep this train-set mystery right on track. Ralph Bellamy as Jonathan Waring and Dan Duryea as Arnold Waring are also good value.

It follows Durbin’s non-musical role with the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944).

It is produced by Durbin’s frequent collaborator and second husband Felix Jackson, whom she divorced in 1949. Durbin married the producer-director Charles Henri David in 1950 and they retired to a farmhouse near Paris.

He died in 1999 after almost 50 years of their marriage.

Deanna Durbin [Edna Mae Durbin] (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013). After her retirement she used her name Edna and asserted her right to privacy.

Charteris adapted the screenplay as a novel, published by Shaw Press in 1945 as his first novel without the Simon Templar character since the early 1930s and his last ever.

Second unit location work took place on the New York subway in November 1944 but main filming did not start till 17 January 1945.

Westerns star Lash LaRue, though uncredited, plays a club waiter.

The cast are Deanna Durbin as Nicki Collins, Ralph Bellamy as Jonathan Waring, David Bruce as Wayne Morgan, George Coulouris as Circus Club Manager Mr. Saunders,  Allen Jenkins as Danny, Dan Duryea as Arnold Waring, Edward Everett Horton as Mr. Haskell, Jacqueline deWit as Miss Fletcher, Patricia Morison as Joyce Williams, Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Charlotte Waring, Maria Palmer as Margo Martin, Samuel S Hinds as Mr Wiggam, William Frawley as Desk Sgt Brennan, Thurston Hall as Josiah Waring, Kathleen O’Malley as Photographer, Lash LaRue as a club waiter, Maria Palmer, William Frawley, Barbara Bates, Charles Cane, Ben Carter, Nora Cecil, George Chandler, André Charlot, Chester Clute, Joseph Crehan, Tom Dugan, Eddie Dunn, Sarah Edwards, Clyde Fillmore, Mary Forbes, Thurston Hall, Mike Lally, George J Lewis, George Lloyd, Sam McDaniel, Matt McHugh, Bert Moorhouse, Ralph Peters, Addison Richards and Bert Roach.

Agatha Christie’s 1957 novel 4.50 from Paddington has an identical opening premise in which a woman witnesses a murder from a train window and is disbelieved because she was reading a murder mystery novel.

It is speculated that Lady on a Train may possibly have inspired The Girl on the Train.

The scenario of a woman witnessing a murder from a train was used by writer John Kruse as the basis for the Return of the Saint TV series episode Signal Stop.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,000

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