Union Station (1950)

Director:

Rudolph Maté

Writers:

Sydney Boehm (writer)
Thomas Walsh (novel)

Release Date:

1951 (Chile)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Drama

Plot:

Secretary Joyce Willecombe grows suspicious of two men boarding her train and is referred to 'Tough Willy' Calhoun...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Based On Novel | Actor Shares First Name With Character

Cast

William Holden	...	Det. Lt. William Calhoun
Nancy Olson	...	Joyce Willecombe
Barry Fitzgerald	...	Inspector Donnelly
Lyle Bettger	...	Joe Beacom
Jan Sterling	...	Marge Wrighter
Allene Roberts	...	Lorna Murchison
Herbert Heyes	...	Henry L. Murchison
Don Dunning	...	Gus Hadder - Hood Trampled in Cattle Pen
Fred Graff	...	Vince Marley
James Seay	...	Det. Eddie Shattuck
Parley Baer	...	Det. Gottschalk (as Parley E. Baer)
Ralph Sanford	...	Det. Fay
Richard Karlan	...	Det. George Stein
Bigelow Sayre	...	Det. Ross
Charles Dayton	...	Howard Kettner

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #14462) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

There were 2 former mayors of Mayberry in this movie: Parley Baer (Mayberry mayor Stoner) was a cop and Dick Elliott (Mayberry mayor Pike) was a powerhouse workman.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: The exterior is clearly Union Station in Los Angeles. The elevated railway segment is in Chicago. In addition, there were no elevated railways in Union Station in Los Angeles.

Quotes:

Marge Wrighter: Gonna send that kid home, aren't you, Joe? I mean after we collect.
Joe Beacom: She'll go home...they ever fish her out of the river. Let's have the coffee, huh?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Depots are for More Than Trains Only

Back when America took the train for out-of-town travel, depots were full of hustling, bustling travelers, rather like today's airports. Judging from the opening scenes of this movie, you might think half the folks in those stations were petty criminals and the other half were there to catch them. Actually, the movie's a pretty good thriller. The railroad cops are led by Holden who's after a kidnapping gang who've grabbed a blind girl (Allene Roberts), while Barry Fitzgerald heads the local cop contingent.

There are some good imaginative touches, such as the stockyard scene, and the final chase through an underground tunnel. These, along with some good location photography and a documentary style approach, help build a general air of suspense. However, the documentary style is also interrupted by rather obvious studio sets, a none-too-convincing romance between Olson and Holden, and the un-cop like musings of Fitzgerald as comedy relief. Thus we're also reminded at critical points that this is, after all, only a movie.

The film has gone down in history books for one particularly memorable scene. In the train station, the cops have caught a gang confederate and need to make him tell the where-abouts of the kidnapped girl. At first, the suspect feigns innocence. Now, in standard films of the day, sentencing pressure would have been brought to bear-- how the guy risks execution should harm befall the girl, along with maybe some mild pushing around.

Not here. Instead, the guy is hauled into a back room and rather brutally beaten-- already a big departure from the norm. When he still refuses to talk, he's dragged out onto the tracks, where Holden and company dangle him before an on-rushing locomotive. Wild now with fright, the suspect spills his guts. To my knowledge, this is either one of the only films of the time, if not the only one, to show cops not only beating a suspect, but torturing him as well. It comes as a startling departure from what audiences had come to expect from the forces of law and order, and how it got past the censors is beyond me.

Of course, we already know the guy is a gang member, so we may want to excuse the extreme police methods. But keep in mind that movies are inherently a medium of manipulation. A good film-maker can make an audience root for almost anything or anybody if he loads the deck correctly. Suppose in this case the movie hadn't tipped us off early about the guy's guilt, and suppose the guy turned out to be innocent instead. Would we feel the same way about the police methods. I doubt it, but however you respond, this remains an entertaining 90 minutes with a particularly fine performance from Roberts as the trapped blind girl.