Lady on a Train

 

Director: Charles David
Year:  1945
Rating:  7.5


In Lady on a Train Deanna Durbin is all grown up. That is established from the opening shot of her curled up on a train seat, reading a mystery novel, eating chocolates, with her dress pulled up to her knees and now very blonde. In the film she gets to wear glamourous clothes, sing a couple torch numbers and have the camera and lighting close in on her face like it is a religious icon. Yet Universal wasn't about to go too far from the things that had made Deanna a star for nearly nine years and her films box office hits. She is still as cheery as Christmas morning and as innocent as a rosebud. It is a good screwball murder mystery that is a great vehicle for Deanna allowing her to sing a few songs, show great comic timing and look like she is having a great time. She is surrounded by a terrific cast - Edward Everett Horton, Ralph Bellamy, Dan Duryea, William Frawley and Allen Jenkins. The film tries to find the correct balance between a comedy and a tense who dun it and perhaps leans into the comedy too much, but it is a fun ride.



When the train comes to a temporary stop, Nikki (Deanna) looks out the window and sees a man being murdered in a building across from her (did Agatha Christie get her similar idea from this?). She sees him clearly but the killer has his back to her. She goes to the cops and of course they don't believe her and so like the little train that could she sets out to investigate it on her own. Nancy Drew style. But with rocks in her head. She never really figures out anything but stumbles into everything. Including a house full of suspects of the wealthy dead man and is mistaken for a nightclub entertainer and has to sing two songs - one being the lovely Night and Day. Nice hearing her sing a pop standard for a change. She also sings Silent Night (it being Christmas Eve) to her father - wealthy of course - over the phone which is unintentionally kind of creepy because she sings like he is a faraway lover. A thug waiting outside her bedroom for her begins to weep and decides to leave her alone!



The murders pile up. She hooks up with the writer (David Bruce) of the mystery she was reading and he turns out to be no smarter than she is. They both live under a lucky star. He is also rich and has the thin snooty girlfriend that is expendable. The finale in which the killer is revealed is well-done and yet the lead up makes no sense at the same time. Certain plot points just don't connect. But audiences were there for Durbin, not a finely plotted film. And they get plenty of that. Durbin was to make five more films and then suddenly retire. She was 27 years old. She left Hollywood and never returned. She had had enough of the life and wanted her privacy. She married the director, Charles David) of this film - her third and final marriage - and they apparently went off to France and were hardly ever seen or heard from again.



I just want to mention that a lot of the fact gathering for my short look at Durbin's films was from the very good book by Jeanine Basinger titled The Star Machine in which she writes an essay on Durbin.