| Lady on a Train | |
|---|---|
DVD release of Lady on a Train |
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| Directed by | Charles David |
| Produced by | Felix Jackson |
| Written by | Edmund Beloin Leslie Charteris (story) Robert O'Brien |
| Starring | Deanna Durbin Ralph Bellamy David Bruce George Coulouris Allen Jenkins |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | Elwood Bredell |
| Editing by | Ted J. Kent |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 3, 1945 |
| Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Lady on a Train is a 1945 comedy film noir, starring Deanna Durbin and based on a story by Leslie Charteris.
Contents |
Debutante Nikki Collins, an enthusiastic reader of detective stories, witnesses a murder in a building while passing by on a train entering New York's Grand Central Station. She goes to the police, but is frustrated to find that no one believes her. The police think that her story is the product of an overactive imagination.
Undaunted, Nikki approaches mystery writer Wayne Morgan (David Bruce) to help her solve the mystery. She identifies the murdered man as Josiah Waring, a ruthless millionaire businessman, after seeing him on a cinema screen. She is then mistaken by the 'grieving' family (who all hated him) as Margo Martin, a nightclub singer and his fiancee, who stands to inherit the bulk of his fortune.
But the real Margo is murdered and Nikki must stay one step ahead of two disinherited cousins out to kill her.
In 1957, Agatha Christie's 4.50 from Paddington was published, using a story markedly similar to that of Lady on a Train. In 1990, Charteris's story was adapted for the pilot episode of the television series Over My Dead Body.