Water And Oil Don’t Mix And Warblers And Crime Novelists Don’t Either-Deanna Durbin’s The Lady On The Train (1945) -A Film Review Of Sorts

DVD Review  

By Leslie Dumont

The Lady On The Train, Deanna Durbin and a bunch of guys sniffing around her door. And they aren’t looking for songbirds,  1945 

Rule number one: don’t let a warbler, meaning in this case a female warbler, meaning a singer, night club singer usually, a torch singer like Miss Peggy Lee or Miss Helen Whiting, the queen being Miss Billie Holiday, within ten miles of a murder investigation (nobody can help it and nobody should be tagged with a foul if a warbler is within ten miles of a murder which is how the rule came about in the first place). Rule number two: no murder mystery writer should go within ten miles of a warbler who decides to ignore rule number one even if she was within ten miles of a murder. That warbler had a name, although if we wanted to keep her privacy intact at this long remove we could stick with “lady on the train” which is how she got within that ten miles of that nefarious murder which she could not as a devoted, maybe fanatic is better, crime novel reader pass up investigating. For convenience sake let us give her a name, Nicky, Nicky Collins from San Francisco back in the day, back during World War II but it could have been anytime when murder fouls up the air. And before you say it yes that is the same Nicky Collins who father (and previous other forebears) made about seven different killings in various markets and owned half of that town. As far as anybody could tell Nicky was only heading to New York during the Christmas season for coffee and crullers when she witnessed that murder from her first-class train window which will establish rule number one.          

Maybe the blame should go in the NYPD who have had so many homicide cases, solved, unsolved, cold cased when some out of town dame, warbler yells bloody murder they are seriously non-plussed. I am sure when crime novelist Wayne Morgan gets over his honeymoon ecstasies he will be filing some kind of law suit against the NYPD for dereliction of duty or something. Some offense against rule number two. See when Nicky gets nada from the coppers she, devoted to the crime novel genre calls on Mister Morgan for some assistance. No go, forget it he is betwixt and between working up the outline for his next book AND he has a Fifth Avenue fiancé who keeps a good-looking guy like him in check especially when some good-looking femme comes sniffing at the door. Done.     

Well not quite done since Nicky decided to fly solo and see what shook out. Plenty once by a very fortuitous development she found out whose murder she had witnessed from that slow boat to China train even if she could not figure out where the dastardly event took place. It turned out the deceased was one Eric Waring and yes before you ask that is the Waring from Waring Industries whose company will after World War II grab the attention of about six Congressional committees looking into the shoddy work done during the war, the no-bid contracts and the ridiculous bribes, pay-offs and other back room deals so maybe he was better off under the ground, especially when those Army Air Force guys had a name to go with the suicidal airplanes they had to ditch that Waring put out to speak nothing of the transport ships that went under the North Atlantic without any assists from German U-2 boats.

Nicky is nothing if not a snooper, a spook, a holy goof but abandoning all sense she goes out to the vast half of Long Island Waring estate looking for clues. It is a toss-up whether that was a mistake or not since she got her breakthrough clue there. The press releases, the Waring publicity department, the flak-catchers in general had the death of Waring down as an accident out at the hacienda while Waring was trimming the Christmas tree. No way. She grabbed a tell-tale pair of men’s slippers soaked with blood which said otherwise and along the way fell privy to an in-house conspiracy to do any Waring relatives out of anything in the will. All proceeds going to one warbler, Margo who worked out of the Circus Club and yes before you ask that is the same Margo, no surname needed not if you heard that voice although not in this escapade who used to headline at the Circus when the Circus was place number one to be in the city during the war years. I mentioned this was an inside job and it was, a beauty although I think there were too many moving parts. The guy who ran the Circus, the front man anyway was thick as thieves with this warbler Margo (although we did not hear song number one from Margo and got three from amateur night Nicky (doing by the way a very forgettable version of a  Cole Porter tune Night and Day which they  should never let anybody but Billie Holiday do especially not a white-bread like Nicky who anybody could see was only slumming).

One thing Nicky did have figured right was that the guy, stooge really, running the Circus was not the mastermind behind everything. He was some half-bright guy who maybe would be number three or fourth in an organization, another one of those gangs that could not shoot straight operations but this scam took a more vengeful guy, a planner not a thuggish knockoff artist. Nor skipping the romantic ne’er do well interludes was Nicky’s first choice for fall guy, Arnold a spendthrift nephew of Waring’s who had the beady eyes to do the deed but not the evil heart. If I didn’t know better I would have suspected this Morgan maybe going off the rails trying to come up with a new plot for his next book but that was too convenient. Anyway, then you would have an extra rule with no purpose since Nicky led this guy a merry chase letting him take the knuckles no lady would get even from serious bad guys.

No if you want to wrap this one up, if you want to see who was the  devil incarnate who not only wasted old man Waring, but that song-less warbler Margo, and a few others as well not counting who he wanted to eliminate to clear his path was Arnold’s milksop brother, Steve, the so-called good boy to Arnold’s bad boy again but who harbored many resentments against his uncle which caused to go down that slippery slope road to the big step off, the price for failure. You can see why the rules were set up the way they were set up.