Il vagabondo e la ballerina

At a busy train station, handsome hobo Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (as Charles "Chic" Miller) finds an abandoned piece of luggage with a perfectly fitting suit and shave case. After changing and shaving, Mr. Fairbanks finds a wad of money in a suit pocket. He gets a good meal and decides to enjoy sex with a prostitute, mistaking pretty blonde chorus girl Joan Blondell (as Ruth Collins) for a train station whore. She's "been around," but is basically "decent," Ms. Blondell tells Fairbanks. Naturally, Fairbanks decides to help Blondell. She needed fare to get to Salt Lake City for a job, and is also being chased by a sleazy limping George Rosener (as Bernardi). Meanwhile, Fairbanks' scruffy companion Guy Kibbee (as Scrap Iron Scratch) finds a discarded claim check, which he gives Fairbanks to redeem - it's for a fiddle case full of cash...

Lurking around among the travelers are suspicious-looking Alan Hale (as Bushy Sloan) and agents David Landau and Earle Foxe. Everything comes together quite neatly and suspenseful, arguably with the exception of Blondell's pursuer, who could have been more fully examined. "Union Station" was reportedly inspired by the book "Grand Hotel" and came out before the movie. The setting is a rich playground for director Alfred E. Green, but it's not quite an "ensemble" of drama. Fairbanks is clearly the central figure and the film could have been titled "Gentleman for a Day" after one of his closing lines. He is excellent in the role, by the way. Co-star Blondell beautifully leads the Warner Bros. supporting cast of characters. The pace, performances and excitement levels head off some production creakiness. The ending is surprisingly effective.

******* Union Depot (1/14/32) Alfred E. Green ~ Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale

Here is a film set entirely in or very near a 1930's train station. Thousands of people moving in and through, each with a story. You would have to be as old as I am to understand that train depots, especially in big cities, were nearly as big and even busier than the airports of today. The film has a dark and harsh quality, which in many ways, is typical of the period. Here is an out of work chorus girl (Joan Blondell) desperate to get $54.00 for a ticket to Salt Lake City, almost willing to prostitute herself to get it; here is a pair of hobos (Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Guy Kibbee) willing to steal clothes and finding money therein. They run afoul of a counterfeiter, a sexual sadist and the law, and through a series of highly unlikely coincidences manage to keep the plot hopping. This film has some superb camera work, great editing, and some wonderfully underplayed acting, especially by Joan Blondell. It's no wonder she was such a workhorse for Warner's. She could pretty much do it all. It's well worth the hour or so spent watching.

Union Depot boasts an impressive cast of Warner Brothers regulars to supplement leads Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Blondell. I've always maintained that Warner Brothers film of the 30s and 40s were never quite complete unless either Frank McHugh or Alan Hale was in them. Union Depot has both in the cast.

Fairbanks in Union Depot is proof positive that clothes do make the man. He and Guy Kibbee are a pair of tramps who hang around the railroad station and this night is both their lucky night and nearly the finish of them. When a drunken Frank McHugh leaves his bag running for a train, Fairbanks gets it and he's got all kinds of stuff including a nice wad of cash. Although how he ever fit in one of Frank McHugh's suit I'm still scratching my head over. They're not exactly the same size and body types.

Nevertheless sporting a new look Fairbanks meets down on her heels Joan Blondell an actress stranded when her show folded. She's doing what she has to do to survive and this part of the film could not have been made when the Code came in place. Fairbanks now a bit flush is looking for a little action and that's abundantly clear. But instead the two fall for each other.

In the meantime Kibbee finds a lost claim check for one of the lockers. That leads to the meat of the story involving counterfeiter Alan Hale. I won't say more.

There are a whole lot of small subplots involving the people who inhabit Union Station. This and Grand Hotel are probably the first of these kind of films with interconnecting stories involving a large cast and both came out in 1932. Some of these vignettes like the one involving a Pullman porter bidding his wife goodbye as his train departs and her going into the arms of her boyfriend are really priceless. There are many like that.

Union Depot is one fine pre-Code drama with both Fairbanks and Blondell at the top of their game.

This film is highly entertaining and will probably keep your interest throughout, though it is far from cerebral or polished. Instead, it's a very good example of a drama spiced up with liberal doses of sex and violence during the "pre-Code era". Unlike a film that would have been made only a few years later, this film abounds with sleazy characters and plot lines as well as "colorful dialog" that would have been taboo once the more rigid and widely enforced Production Code was enacted due to pressure from low ticket sales and public outrage. As for me, I actually love to watch these films because they dare to be so different and because they are the antithesis of what people today think older films were.

So what were some of the pre-Code plot elements? First, the "hero" of the film, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is a hobo who steals, lies and even slaps around a woman who he thinks is a prostitute! In addition, subplots involve a dirty old man who is addicted to having a nice young lady (Joan Blondell) read him dirty stories, a woman who walks her husband to the train where he's a porter and leaves with her lover who is just getting off this same train, pickpockets, counterfeiters, attempted murder and actual prostitution! You name a sin, and it's probably alluded to in some way during the course of this breezy film! Now despite all these sleazy elements, the film is surprisingly well-written and integrates all these subplots into a fine coherent picture. TCM described the movie as being inspired by the book GRAND HOTEL (the movie of this book actually came out after UNION DEPOT) and while this is certainly true, this film also features far more subplots and pre-Code taboos than the film version of GRAND HOTEL--which was a lot more polished and refined. In many ways, the sophisticated GRAND HOTEL (from the more polished studio, MGM) is more like an upper-crust version of this film and UNION DEPOT is more a film for the common man and woman--and so it's not surprising it's a Warner Brothers film.

Interesting Pre-Code movie about a hobo (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) at a train station who finds a bag with money and clothes that he uses to transform himself into a gentleman, at least on the outside. He meets a woman (Joan Blondell) who's down on her luck and, after initially treating her pretty rough, decides to try and help her out. There are other characters with their own stories and eventually they all intersect.

Doug Fairbanks is good in a role that's hard to like at first. He has nice chemistry with Joan Blondell. Joan's both sexy and cute, playing slightly against the types of parts she was normally playing then. Guy Kibbee is fun as Fairbanks' friend Scrap Iron. Frank McHugh has an amusing bit as a drunk, Alan Hale is a counterfeiter, David Landau a tough cop, and George Rosener a perverted weirdo after Blondell. The movie moves along at a quick pace and gets the most out of its 67 minutes. Colorful characters and a snappy script with some laughs, drama, and even action. It's solid entertainment but also has some interest for those curious about Depression-era America.