''Union Depot'' is a 1932 American
pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...
melodrama film directed by
Alfred E. Green for
Warner Bros., starring
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years.
Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on a film career, estab ...
, and based on an unpublished play by
Joe Laurie Jr.,
Gene Fowler, and
Douglas Durkin. The film, an ensemble piece for the studio's contract players, also features performances by
Guy Kibbee,
Alan Hale,
Frank McHugh,
David Landau, and
George Rosener. In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
it was released under the title ''Gentleman for a Day''.
["Union Depot (1932)"](_blank)
Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 27, 2018.
Plot
Charles "Chic" Miller (
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is a
hobo released from jail for
vagrancy
Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, waste picker, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western ...
, along with fellow drifter "Scrap Iron" Scratch (
Guy Kibbee). The two men walk to the local railroad station to hop a train out of town. Through a series of chance encounters at Union Depot, Chic becomes, in his words, a "gentleman for a day".
At the depot Chic finds in a public washroom a suitcase left by a drunk passenger. In the suitcase are toiletries and a nice double-breasted man's suit with cash in one pocket. After changing into the suit, Chic uses the money to buy a much-needed meal at the depot's diner. Soon he meets Ruth Collins (
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years.
Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on a film career, estab ...
) sitting on a bench in the terminal. She tells him she is an out-of-work chorus girl and is desperate to raise $64 for train fare to Salt Lake City, where a job is waiting for her. Initially, he thinks she is a prostitute, although he begins to believe her after she shows him a telegram with her job offer. She then confides to him that she is worried about a "madman" following her, a Dr. Bernardi (
George Rosener), who resides in the same
boarding house
A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...
she recently left. She adds that the strange doctor has "bad eyes" and once paid her to read to him in the evenings. Now feeling sorry for Ruth, Chic tells her he will give her the money she needs "with no strings attached".
Back inside the depot, a crook named "Bushy" Sloan (
Alan Hale) is impersonating a German musician and is carrying a violin case full of counterfeit money. Bushy checks the case into the station's temporary storage for baggage, but a
pickpocket soon steals his wallet, which contains the baggage-claim ticket. The pickpocket discards the wallet in an alleyway after removing its cash. While waiting for Chic outside the depot, Scrap Iron finds the wallet with the ticket. Later he gives the ticket to Chic, who reclaims the violin case. Initially, Chic plans to
pawn the case until he opens it and is stunned to see it is full of money, not realizing it is counterfeit. He hides the case and most of the bogus cash in a small
coal bin near the depot, and he instructs Scrap Iron to guard it while he leaves to ponder what to do. Chic sees Ruth again and gives her some of the counterfeit cash to buy new clothes at a shop in the station. She too is unaware that the money is not genuine.
While Chic is away, Dr. Bernardi sends Ruth a passenger ticket and a message to meet him in the train's designated compartment. Believing the ticket is from Chic, Ruth goes there and begins screaming when she sees Bernardi. Chic has returned to the dress shop to discover from the saleslady about the ticket Ruth was sent. He rushes to the train, but the counterfeiter tries to stop him. He boards the rail car, hears Ruth screamin and breaks through the train car's locked door, but Bernardi escapes. As he runs across an adjacent railroad track, he is struck by a passing train and killed. Meanwhile, the dress shop clerk who sold clothes to Ruth becomes suspicious of the cash she used and takes it to the station master. Both Ruth and Chic are then taken into custody by government agents (
David Landau,
Earle Foxe) searching for criminals exchanging phony money. Unfortunately, the investigators have no description of Bushy, but they believe Ruth might be his associate. To clear her, Chic goes with one of the agents to retrieve the hidden violin case. The men are followed by Bushy, who shoots the agent and flees with the case. Chic chases and catches the crook. All is reconciled and Ruth has a bittersweet parting from Chic as she boards the train to Utah. The film ends with Chic and Scrap Iron walking together along a railroad track, away from Union Depot and back to their lives as hobos.
Cast

*
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Charles "Chic" Miller
*
Joan Blondell
Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years.
Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on a film career, estab ...
as Ruth Collins
*
Guy Kibbee as "Scrap Iron" Scratch
*
Alan Hale as "The Baron", Bushy Sloan
*
David Landau as Kendall, government agent
*
George Rosener as Dr. Bernardi
*
Earle Foxe as Detective Jim Parker
*
Frank McHugh as The Drunk
*
Adrienne Dore
Adrienne Dore (born Elizabeth Himmelsbach; May 22, 1907 – November 26, 1992) was an American actress, model (profession), model, and beauty pageant winner. She was first runner-up in the Miss America 1925 pageant, competing as Miss California, ...
as Sadie
Uncredited:
*
Mary Doran as Daisy
*
George MacFarlane as train caller
*
George Chandler as panhandler who asks for a dollar
*
Irving Bacon as waiter in private room
*
Charles Lane as baggage handler
*
Charles Coleman as Rev. Harvey Pike
Production
Production on ''Union Depot'' began in mid-October 1931.
The high cost of constructing the large, elaborate train-station set for ''Union Depot'' proved in the long run to be worthwhile for Warner Bros., which had purchased First National Pictures several years prior to the production of ''Union Depot''. An article on the
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...
site notes "...the film did leave one legacy at the studio. The impressive train station set built for this picture would resurface in Warners' films for years to come, helping keep production costs down in the time-honored Warner Bros. fashion."
Because ''Union Depot'' was produced prior to the rigid enforcement of the
Motion Picture Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the Cinema of the United States, United States from 1934 to 1968. It ...
, the film's storyline contains many topics that would have, by the latter half of 1934, jeopardized the certificate of approval needed for a production's release in the United States. Some of these forbidden topics in ''Union Depot'' include the following:
* Ruth reads what is implied to be very lewd or "off-color" stories to Dr. Bernardi.
* Though Chic stops short of taking advantage of Ruth's plight, she makes it clear that she has "been around" and is willing to do whatever is necessary for the price of a train ticket. Despite this, she emerges unscathed, which ran counter to one of the Hays Code's requirements that "sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of the crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin".
* Chic, who demonstrates that he is a thief, liar and someone quite willing to purchase sexual services, is ultimately neither held accountable for his actions nor "punished" in any way by the end of ''Union Depot''; in fact, he emerges as the film's hero.
Critical reception
The film had its
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
premiere at the
Winter Garden Theater on January 14, 1932. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' movie critic,
Mordaunt Hall, characterized ''Union Depot'' as an "ingenious, rather than artistic" melodrama recalling the contemporary Broadway play ''Grand Hotel'', which was later
adapted for the screen. He noted that some of the dialogue was at times unnecessarily "raw" and that Fairbanks appeared to have "taken a leaf from
James Cagney's book, judging by his talk and the way he slaps a girl's face". He also questioned the realism of a hobo speaking with Fairbanks' excellent elocution.
[ Hall, Mordaunt (January 15, 1932]
"All Aboard!" (review)
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. Retrieved February 27, 2018
The entertainment trade publication ''
Variety'' complimented the performances of Blondell and Fairbanks in what it described as a "bing-bing, action melodrama".
["Rush" (January 19, 1932]
"Union Depot" (review)
'' Variety''. pp.25,29. Retrieved February 27, 2018. ''Variety'' also praised the "capital bit of technique" employed in the series of brief scenes at the beginning of the film to establish the plot's tongue-in-cheek attitude toward human behavior.
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References
Informational notes
Citations
External links
*
*
*
The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry (1930-1968)
{{Alfred E. Green
1932 films
1932 drama films
American black-and-white films
American drama films
American films based on plays
Films directed by Alfred E. Green
Films with screenplays by Kubec Glasmon
First National Pictures films
Rail transport films
Films about counterfeit money
1930s English-language films
1930s American films
English-language drama films