''Union Station'' is a 1950

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

directed by

Rudolph Maté Rudolph Maté (born Rudolf Mayer; 21 January 1898 – 27 October 1964) was a Polish-Hungarian-American cinematographer, film director and film producer who worked as cameraman and cinematographer in Hungary, Austria, Germany, France and the Unite ...

and starring

William Holden William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...

, Nancy Olson and Barry Fitzgerald.

Plot

Chicago Union Station Chicago Union Station is an intercity and commuter rail terminal located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The station is Amtrak's flagship station in the Midwest. While serving long-distance passenger trains, it is also ...

(though filmed at

Los Angeles Union Station Los Angeles Union Station is the main railway station in Los Angeles, California, and the largest railroad passenger terminal in the Western United States. It opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, replacing La Grande S ...

), Police Lieutenant William "Bill" Calhoun is approached by an apprehensive passenger named Joyce Willecombe who believes that two men aboard her train may be up to no good. The two men deposit a suitcase in a storage locker. When Bill retrieves it, Joyce recognizes the clothing as belonging to Lorna Murchison, the blind daughter of wealthy Henry Murchison, Joyce's employer. When Mr. Murchison is brought in, he admits Lorna has been kidnapped and held for ransom, but does not want the police to get involved as they might endanger his daughter's life. Bill and his boss, Inspector Donnelly, persuade him to accept their help. The railway station where Calhoun works has been chosen as the location to pay off the ransom. Bill and Donnelly race against time to save Lorna and bring the kidnappers to justice. When the kidnappers make contact with Murchison at the station, Joyce recognizes them. The police trail one of them, Gus Hadder, but he spots them and runs, only to die in an accident. The police prevent his death from being reported in the newspapers. Later, Joyce spots Joe Beacom, the leader of the gang, and sees a third kidnapper, Vince Marley. Beacom drives away (though Joyce memorizes the license plate number), but the police arrest Marley. When he refuses to talk, Donnelly tells Bill to kill him and make his death look accidental. When the policemen pretend to prepare to throw Marley in front of an arriving train, he breaks and tells them where Lorna is being held. However, Beacom and his girlfriend Marge Wrighter have already taken Lorna somewhere else by the time they break in. When a patrolman spots Beacom's car, a gunfight breaks out. The policeman is killed, and Wrighter is fatally wounded in the crossfire. In the hospital, she tells Bill and Donnelly that Beacom intends to kill Lorna after he gets the ransom. She also reveals that Beacom used to work at the station. Beacom, dressed as an employee, forces a parcel clerk at gunpoint to accept the suitcase with the ransom money and switch it with another one that looks just like it. The clerk tells the messenger who brought the ransom to take the second suitcase somewhere else. However, Joyce notices part of a coat sticking out of it. Bill tries to apprehend Beacom, but is shot in the shoulder. Beacom flees to the municipal tunnel underneath the station, where he left Lorna, with Bill in hot pursuit. Bill manages to shoot and kill Beacom and rescue Lorna. Afterward, Joyce (who has developed an attraction to Bill, and vice versa) notices Bill's wound.

Cast

as Lt. William Calhoun * Nancy Olson as Joyce Willecombe * Barry Fitzgerald as Inspector Donnelly *

Lyle Bettger Lyle Stathem Bettger (February 13, 1915 – September 24, 2003) was an American character actor who had roles in Hollywood films and television from the 1950s onward, often portraying villains. One such role was the wrathfully jealous elephant ...

as Joe Beacom *

Jan Sterling Jan Sterling (born Jane Sterling Adriance; April 3, 1921 – March 26, 2004) was an American film, television and stage actress. At her most active in films during the 1950s (immediately prior to which she had joined the Actors Studio), Sterlin ...

as Marge Wrighter *

Allene Roberts Emma Allene Roberts (September 1, 1928 – May 9, 2019) was an American actress. Early years Born in Fairfield, Alabama, Roberts was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Roberts. In 1941, she won the "America's Most Charming Child" contest ...

as Lorna Murchison *

Herbert Heyes Herbert Harrison Heyes (August 3, 1889 – May 31, 1958) was an American film actor. He appeared in nearly 100 films between 1915 and 1956, including the famed 1947 film '' Miracle on 34th Street'', in which he played an ahistorical "Mr. Gimbel ...

as Henry L. Murchison * Don Dunning as Gus Hadder * Fred Graff as Vince Marley *

James Seay James Seay (September 9, 1914 – October 10, 1992) was an American character actor who often played minor supporting roles as government officials. Early years Seay demonstrated an interest in acting at an early age, as he and his mothe ...

as Detective Eddie Shattuck *

Parley Baer Parley Edward Baer (August 5, 1914 – November 22, 2002) was an American actor in radio and later in television and film. Despite dozens of appearances in television series and theatrical films, he remains best known as the original "Cheste ...

as Detective Gottschalk (as Parley E. Baer) *

Ralph Sanford Ralph Dayton Sanford (May 21, 1899 – June 20, 1963) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 180 films and in at least 200 episodes on television between 1930 and 1960, mostly bit parts or supporting roles. Sanford frequently ...

as Detective Fay * Richard Karlan as Detective George Stein * Bigelow Sayre as Detective Ross * Charles Dayton as Howard Kettner *

Jean Ruth Jean Ruth (September 10, 1917 – September 18, 2004) was an American actress and radio personality. As an actress, she is best known for appearing in the Martin and Lewis film ''At War with the Army'' (1950). Her radio broadcasts during WW ...

as Pretty Girl * John Crawford as Hackett (uncredited) * George Lynn as Detective Moreno (uncredited)

Background

The film was based on ''Nightmare in Manhattan'', an

Edgar Edgar is a commonly used English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Eadgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the later medieval period; it was, however, rev ...

-winning novel by Thomas Walsh. Sydney Boehm's script for the film version was nominated for an Edgar in the screenplay category. Aside from changing the setting from New York City's

Grand Central Station Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

to Chicago's Union Station (though the

was the actual filming location), and changing the kidnap victim from a little boy to a blind, teen-aged girl, the script was quite faithful to its source material. William Holden and Nancy Olson also appeared in ''

Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in t ...

'' the same year.

Filming locations

Filming locations include:

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Also, it looks like it was filmed on Chicago's South Side El from 1892 to Indiana station, where the train is uncoupled to go on the Stockyards Branch, which ran until 1957. Normally, the branch ran as a shuttle. It terminated at Exchange station, which was the terminal after 1956.

Reception

The staff at ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' gave actor William Holden a good review, writing, "William Holden, while youthful in appearance to head up the railway policing department of a metropolitan terminal, is in good form." Channel 4's film review notes, "Despite the barely believable plot, the film has a real edge. Made in 1950, it obviously can't push to the extremes of ''

Dirty Harry ''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates ...

'' but it shares the same mean spirit. Maté capitalizes on the story's setting by using innocent passengers and the station's dramatic spaces to heighten the feverish atmosphere." Critic Jerry Renshaw lauded the film and wrote, "On the surface, ''Union Station'' is a fairly routine action film for 1950, with its high level of suspense, strong-arm police procedural tactics, and caper-film trappings. However, a definite ''noir'' outlook is belied by the fact that the police play as rough as the bad guys, blurring the lines of good and evil. Audiences are used to seeing Barry Fitzgerald as a kindly Irish priest in most roles; during the scene on the empty platform, though, Fitzgerald's Inspector Donnelly tells the cops in his most charming Father O'Flaherty voice, 'Make it look accidental.' That's one of the more chilling moments of ''noir,'' more suited to

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, sta ...

than Fifties Hollywood. Director Maté also helmed the classic ''

D.O.A. DOA may refer to: * Dead on arrival * Dead or Alive (disambiguation) Film * ''D.O.A.'' (1949 film), a ''film noir'' * ''D.O.A.'' (1988 film), a remake of the 1949 film * '' D.O.A.: A Rite of Passage'' (1980 film), a documentary on the gene ...

'' in 1950."Renshaw, Jerry
''

The Austin Chronicle ''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...

,'' film review, 1999. Last accessed: January 16, 2008.

References

External links

* * * * {{Rudolph Maté 1950 films 1950 crime drama films American crime drama films American crime thriller films American black-and-white films Film noir Films based on American novels Rail transport films Films set in Chicago Paramount Pictures films Films directed by Rudolph Maté 1950s crime thriller films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films