‘Lady on a Train’ or — High Speed Entertainment?
Debutante Nicki Collins (Deanna Durbin) is travelling from San Francisco to New York but just as her train is about to arrive at Central Station she witnesses a man being murdered in a passing warehouse from her carriage window, yet with the police refusing to believe her story she sets out to solve the crime herself.
Sounds like a pretty nothing plot with not much going for it, and you’d be right as taken as a murder/mystery ‘Lady on a Train’ (1945) is a profoundly slight and flimsy affair. As a comedy, however, the film’s an exceptional delight that’s as funny as it is fast and as enchanting as Durbin herself whose amateur sleuth Nicki comes across as a wonderful cross between Nancy Drew and a Giallo protagonist (there’s a few similarities here with Mario Bava’s 1963 ‘The Girl Who Knew Too Much’).
The story, by Leslie Charteris, might be somewhat unremarkable but Edmund Beloin and Robert O’Brien’s script is so smart, witty and tight that any deficiencies in the plot mechanics hardly matter and it’s this quick humour that hits from the get-go with the film opening with both a scare and a laugh as Nicki witnesses the murder straight after reading about a horrible killing in her mystery novel.
As the cops won’t believe her she tracks down the novel’s author, Wayne Morgan (David Bruce), to seek his help and many of the film’s funniest scenes are generated by a determined Nicki’s constant attempts to bulldoze her way into Wayne’s life and pissing his fiancée (Patricia Morison) off in the process.
And Durbin’s performance as the intrepid Nicki is a joy as she perfectly balances pluck, brains, tenacity and style (some of her headpieces are spectacular) as well as possessing a real gift for comedy, possibly best demonstrated in the scene where, on having to quickly evade capture, she disguises herself as a chair (the reveal of Nicki having done so is sublime in its execution).
Durbin also sings with ‘Lady on a Train’ containing several musical numbers including a rather sweet version of ‘Silent Night’ and a cool rendition of ‘Night and Day’, although it’s just as well Durbin has such a beguiling voice as it distracts us from the deafening creaking noise of these numbers being forcibly crow-barred into the plot.
Director Charles David keeps everything moving with tremendous energy and the result is a film without an ounce of fat or superfluous waste. There’s also a tonne of invention and style, particularly during the nightclub scenes where there’s the clever use of a one-way mirror plus the almost Welles-ian crane shot down through the roof that’s reminiscent of ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) when Nicki goes into her Cole Porter number. Although the film’s most audacious flourish is when Nicki finally meets the villain behind it all, a villain so powerful he literally walks THROUGH her image. And all this is ravishingly filmed by cinematographer Woody Bredell.
Ralph Bellamy, Dan Duryea and Edward Everett Horton are their usual excellent selves and composer Miklós Rózsa delivers an outstandingly colourful score that’s as furiously fast-paced as the script. Not only that but, to top it all off, as well as being a comedy, a thriller, a murder mystery, a musical, a love story and a noir it’s also a Christmas movie, and a great one at that.
‘Lady on a Train’ is sheer bliss. It’s an insanely stimulating and invigorating watch that in terms of pure entertainment blows many “masterpieces” out the water. It’s the sort of film that turns its fans into smitten devotees who regard it as a special, secret, hidden gem. How do I know? Because I’m now firmly one of them myself.
