Deanna Durbin
Edna Mae Durbin (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013), known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born actress and singer, who moved to the USA with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. With t ...
,
Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and ...
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound. Western star
Lash LaRue
Alfred "Lash" LaRue (June 15, 1917 – May 21, 1996) was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography Early life and education
Born Alfred LaRue in Gretna, Louisiana in 1917, he was reared in various towns th ...
played a waiter in the film, uncredited.
Plot
San Francisco debutante Nicki Collins goes to visit her aunt in New York. Her father's employee, Haskell, is to meet her and facilitate her stay. Before reaching Grand Central, Nicki's train makes a brief stop and, when she looks up from the book she is reading - a mystery by novelist Wayne Morgan - she witnesses a murder in a nearby building.
Upon arrival, she slips away from Haskell and goes to the police, but the desk sergeant, seeing the novel in her hand, assumes she imagined the crime. She decides that Wayne Morgan must be able to solve a murder, finds him, and pesters him to get involved. Following Morgan and his fiancee into a theater, she sees a
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...
about the "accidental" death of shipping magnate Josiah Waring—and recognizes him as the murder victim.
Unable to find the crime scene, Nicki sneaks onto the grounds of Waring's mansion. She is mistaken for Margo Martin, who was expected but has not come. Waring's will is read by his lawyer, Wiggam: Waring's nephews Arnold and Jonathan are not surprised to receive a token $1 inheritance, while the bulk of the estate goes to Margo Martin—his trophy fiancee and a singer at a
nightclub
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
he owns. Nicki snoops around the house and absconds with a pair of bloody slippers that disprove the story of an accident. Two conspirators in the murder try but fail to stop her: Saunders, who turns out to be the nightclub's manager and another heir, and the chauffeur, Danny.
Back with Haskell, Nicki makes another attempt to involve Morgan, phoning him and pretending a man is there attacking her—not realizing that Danny is there and is about to do just that. Before he can, she makes another call, to her father. While she is singing to him, Danny spots the slippers and departs, separately attacking Haskell and Morgan. Nicki subsequently assumes they mistakenly attacked each other.
For various reasons, everyone goes to the nightclub. Nicki speaks to Margo and becomes suspicious. She locks Margo in a closet, goes on stage, and sings in her place. When freed, Margo tells Saunders she was never interested in the plot and stalks off; she is later murdered.
Arnold and Jonathan make romantic overtures to Nicki, but Saunders has her called backstage. He and Danny admit their involvement in the murder and threaten her, but Morgan breaks into the room and Nicki takes the slippers back. A series of backstage fights follows. Nicki escapes, returns to the stage and sings again. Morgan learns that one of the people she is sitting with—Arnold, Jonathan, and Wiggam—must be the murderer and manages to warn her. Meanwhile, Morgan's fiancee, thinking he is two-timing her with Nicki, dumps him.
Danny shoots Saunders. Nicki and Morgan leave with the slippers, but are arrested in the morning, based on false information from Danny. Nicki tries to present the slippers, but Morgan's valet has them—and proudly reveals how clean they now are.
Arnold, Jonathan, and Haskell all arrive at the jail to pay Nicki's bail. Arnold says the Warings would like to meet her and drives her to their company's offices, but nobody is there. They talk about the case and he admits that he had motive, but so did Jonathan, Wiggam, and especially Saunders. Frightened, Nicki manages to get away from him.
Finding Jonathan in the building, she tells him that Arnold is the murderer. They hide in a room, which she realizes is the scene of the crime she saw from the train. Jonathan is the murderer. He confesses, bragging: next he will kill her, frame Arnold, and kill Arnold, supposedly while defending Nicki.
Arnold slips into the room and grabs Jonathan's gun, but then Morgan arrives and mistakes the situation, and Jonathan gets it back. As Morgan tries unconvincingly to tell Jonathan that the police will be coming, they do.
In the final scene, Nicki and Wayne Morgan are newlyweds on a train. She is enjoying his newest book so much she tells the porter not to make up their beds until she finishes reading, and Morgan promptly tells her how it ends.
Cast
*
Deanna Durbin
Edna Mae Durbin (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013), known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born actress and singer, who moved to the USA with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. With t ...
as Nicki Collins
*
Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and ...
as Jonathan Waring
* David Bruce as Wayne Morgan
*
George Coulouris
George Alexander Coulouris (1 October 1903 – 25 April 1989) was an English film and stage actor.
Early life
Coulouris was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, the son of Abigail (née Redfern) anNicholas Coulouris a merchant of Greek o ...
as Mr. Saunders, Circus Club Manager
* Allen Jenkins as Danny
*
Dan Duryea
Dan Duryea ( , January 23, 1907 – June 7, 1968) was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and second ...
as Arnold Waring
*
Edward Everett Horton
Edward Everett Horton Jr. (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television, and voice work for animated cartoons.
Early life
Horton was born in Kings County ...
William Frawley
William Clement Frawley (February 26, 1887 – March 3, 1966) was an American vaudevillian and actor best remembered for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the American television sitcom '' I Love Lucy'', "Bub" O'Casey in the television comedy ser ...
as Desk Sgt. Brennan
*
Thurston Hall
Ernest Thurston Hall (May 10, 1882 – February 20, 1958) was an American film, stage and television actor.Aylesworth, Thomas G. and Bowman, John S. (1987). ''The World Almanac Who's Who of Film''. World Almanac. . Pp. 186-187.
Career Stag ...
as Josiah Waring (uncredited)
*
Kathleen O'Malley
Mary Kathleen O'Malley (March 31, 1924 – February 25, 2019) was an American film and television actress, who was the daughter of vaudevillian and actor Pat O'Malley. Her screen debut came during the silent film era as a thirteen month old bab ...
as Photographer
*
Lash LaRue
Alfred "Lash" LaRue (June 15, 1917 – May 21, 1996) was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography Early life and education
Born Alfred LaRue in Gretna, Louisiana in 1917, he was reared in various towns th ...
as a club waiter (uncredited)
Production
In October 1943 Leslie Charteris was reportedly working on the story as a vehicle for Deanna Durbin. Charteris worked on it immediately after his honeymoon. The film was part of an attempt by producer Felix Jackson to diversify Durbin's image, that also included ''Christmas Holiday''.
In September 1944 Charles David, who has just directed ''The Faries Tale Murder'' was assigned to direct.
Donald Cook, Robert Paige and Franchot Tone were discussed as possible leading men. In January the job went to David Bruce who had played support in Durbin's previous two films. Felix Jackson says Bruce was cast on the strength of his work in ''Christmas Holiday''.
There was some second unit location work done on the New York subway in November 1944. Filming was to have begun December 15, 1944 but did not start until January 17, 1945.
The cast also included Dan Duryea and Ralph Bellamy, who was borrowed from Hunt Stromberg.
Soundtrack
* "
Silent Night
"Silent Night" (german: "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht", links=no, italic=no) is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an ...
" (
Joseph Mohr
Josephus Franciscus Mohr, sometimes spelled Josef (11 December 1792 – 4 December 1848) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and writer, who wrote the words to the Christmas carol " Silent Night."
Early life and education
Mohr was born in ...
, Franz Gruber, John Freeman Young)
* "Give Me a Little Kiss" (Roy Turk, Jack Smith, Maceo Pinkard)
* " Night and Day" (Cole Porter)
Novelization
A novelization by Leslie Charteris adapting the screenplay was published by Shaw Press in 1945. It has the distinction of being the first fiction novel by Charteris that did not feature
Simon Templar
''The Saint'' is the nickname of the fictional character Simon Templar, featured in a series of novels and short stories by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books un ...
to be published since the early 1930s, and the last such publication of his career as (except for some non-fiction) he only published books featuring Templar thereafter.
4.50 from Paddington
''4.50 from Paddington'' is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in November 1957 by Collins Crime Club. This work was published in the United States at the same time as ''What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!'', by Dodd, Mead. Th ...
'' which was published in 1957 borrows an identical opening premise from ''Lady on a Train'' where a woman witnesses a murder from a train window and is initially disbelieved because she was reading a murder mystery novel at the time. In 1990, Charteris's story was adapted for the pilot episode of the television series '' Over My Dead Body''.
The scenario of a lady witnessing a murder from a train was used as the basis for the ''Return of the Saint'' episode "Signal Stop"—the character of Simon Templar having been created by ''Lady on a Train'' writer Leslie Charteris. The executive producer of ''Return of the Saint'', Robert S Baker, said that Leslie Charteris was surprised on reading the "Signal Stop" script, noting its similarity with ''Lady on a Train''. It is not known whether "Signal Stop" writer John Kruse had seen the film prior to writing the episode.Robert S Baker revealed Charteris' surprise with the Signal Stop script in the DVD commentary of the episode.
It is possible with all the similarities that this film may have inspired the writing of The Girl on the Train, although that has never been addressed to date.
Awards and nominations
* 1946
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...