Lady on a Train

Deanna Durbin made many movies, mostly bad. But the ones that are good make all the others palatable, including "Lady on a train". She was a unique personality. Almost impossible not to like. For example, It's like watching John Wayne walk through one boring, formulaic plot after another and not minding because you just like John Wayne. So to be thoroughly charmed by Deanna Durbin, you have to inoculate yourself against the dumb plots she was given later in her career. First dose should be with one of the best stories. "It started with eve" That should win you over for anything to come later. Then it's good to go to the beginning, her first picture, "Three Smart Girls" when she was a little girl and won everyone's hearts ( but be warned the story and direction are bit creaky). Your third dose should be "Three smart girls grow up" by this time your ready to take on and enjoy any of her movies regardless of plot. I do admit to fast-forwarding past some of her singing in her later movies, but that's because they're badly placed in the story and tend to slow things down to a crawl. Bottom line, she's something special and not to be missed.

Deanna Durbin was truly a Hollywood phenomenon. Never comfortable as a film star, she exuded just enough conflicting emotion to make her screen persona fascinating.

In film after film, regardless of the part or situation, Durbin was never entirely at home before the camera or in her roles. True, she put up a great front, and by her mid teens was the highest paid female in the world.

Audiences loved her, supported her films, bought Durbin dolls, and reveled in her fan clubs. But Durbin herself apparently couldn't have cared less.

"Lady on a Train" is a case in point: her fifth to final film made at age 24 just 3 years before she retired at age 27, is a quirky hybrid of murder mystery, musical, and comedy. It gives Deanna a chance to flex her adult acting chops, while offering ample opportunities to warble vocal selections.

Durbin's dichotomy of between being on camera while wishing she were somewhere else is what provides her personality intrigue. Despite her infectious smile and gorgeous natural voice, Durbin's persona was negative.

What saved her was that she was a very good actress, and in fact became the saving grace of Universal Studios. Finally finding salvation in marriage to her "Lady on a Train" director, she kissed everything goodbye and left filmdom at the peak of her powers.

I'm sure she found what she was looking for in that quaint Parisian suburb, and that she may have significantly extended her longevity in the process. In the meantime, she left her public with some very pleasant films to enjoy.

...that turns briefly into a noir thriller near the end, and takes place almost entirely on Christmas Eve. Of course the plot is manipulated to make time for a couple of songs, including Cole Porter's "Night and Day," when she has to pretend she's a night club singer during her investigation.

The film begins while her train is pulling into New York, and during a brief pause before continuing to Grand Central Station it pauses long enough for her to see a murder being committed in a warehouse window across the tracks. Naturally since she's been reading a murder mystery, so nobody believes she saw a real murder, so she tries to enlist the author of her book to help her solve the crime. Somehow she stumbles into the reading of the will for the dead man and is mistaken for his nightclub mistress, who is the sole heir. It's too bad Durbin did not continue her career, as she does a great job playing an adult role with a winning blend of comedy, drama, romance and still a bit of music.

This was the first Deanna Durbin film I've seen, and while it's much different than her other films, it seems a great place to start! The first thing that struck me was how likable Ms. Durbin is in the lead role. She keeps the tone light and airy, and the film flies along at a joyous speed! The photography is amazing (the snowy Manhattan sets and Ms. Durbin's close-ups are wonderful!) Deanna's vocals on "Night and Day" hint at a sensuality that wasn't present in her other pictures, and her rendition of "Silent Night" is divine.

I won't summarize the plot, as it has been done in other comments, just suffice to say that this hilarious whodunit is perfect viewing while curled up with a hot drink on a snowy winter evening!

Talents as diverse as Deanna Durbin's charm and singing ability, Edward Everett Horton's flair for screwball comedy, and Dan Duryea's knack for portraying impish, enigmatic characters, are brought together here in a pretty good comic mystery. Neither the mystery story nor the comedy would have been enough to sustain a movie by itself, but they fit together well, with the help of an assortment of interesting characters and some well-chosen settings.

The mystery story is rather like a simplified (and less plausible) version of an Agatha Christie-style plot, and it seems likely that the similarity was intended. As you watch, you do want to see how it comes out, but in itself it's relatively insubstantial. The settings and characters provide more of the material for the cast to use. A couple of the settings were done quite nicely, especially the night club/dressing room set, which allowed for some interesting possibilities, and which also fits in pretty well with the story.

While it is true that nothing about "Lady On A Train" is exceptional, at the same time it has a lot of small strengths that add up to an enjoyable movie.