...why would Ruth Collins (Joan Blondell) take desperate measures - and in the case of women in 1932 that could mean only one thing - to get that 64 dollars? The setting is a train station - "Union Depot" - during the Depression. At the beginning the camera goes back and forth over travelers that ultimately do not have much to do with the story - immigrant families speaking in foreign languages, a mother walking along with her four children tied together like a caravan, a sailor trying to make it with a street wise girl and getting nowhere, a woman saying goodbye to her Pullman porter husband and when he is out of sight embracing her lover with the good news - he's gone for a week! Into this hustle and bustle walk two hungry vagrants - Scrap Iron Scratch (Guy Kibbee) and young Chick Miller (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Scratch has retained his sense of humor but you can tell he has given up on life giving him a break. Chick is a quick thinking good looking fellow that in better times could have gone up any corporate ladder, but this is the Depression and it's all about your next meal and survival for these two and many others.
They, along with Ruth, have a one day adventure at the station that involves G-Men on the look-out for counterfeiters, the counterfeiters themselves, a violin-case stuffed with fake cash, and just for good measure, a villain in the classic sense - Dr. Bernardi that doesn't have anything to do with these other villains. He's a dirty old man with failing eyesight and a bad leg, yet he thinks he's up to physically overpowering a young healthy woman like Ruth? Despite Clint Eastwood's timeless true warning that a man's got to know his limitations, the villain still pursues her.
There's plenty of action in a place that is dangerous for any kind of action - Union Depot's train yards as locomotives exit and enter at high speed, and there's that great Depression slice of life that Warner Brothers was so good at during the pre-code years. Also look out for Frank McHugh in a small but important role as a man who in his drunken state can't tell a member of the armed forces from an information desk manager and whose forgetfulness in leaving his bag behind in the men's washroom - complete with new suit and shaving kit - is a piece of good luck for Chick. Or maybe it's ultimately bad luck? Watch and find out which. It will definitely hold your interest.
