Union Depot starts with an exterior crane shot that slowly zooms into the train station from above, with no noticeable break as camera goes through the wall into the lobby of the station. Alfred Green, the director of this and many other Warner Bros. movies in the 1930s, keeps things hopping as two homeless men, played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Guy Kibbee, come into some money accidentally. Joan Blondell, always a welcome addition to any movie, enters the picture as jobless young woman who meets Fairbanks while at the station, running away from a sex maniac played by George Rosener, usually a screenwriter. Someone figured he looked right for the part. Union Depot, with its cynical view of life and its casual approach to sex, stands up better than the synthetic movies made after the strict Production Code took effect in July, 1934. The stars, the off-beat story and Alfred Green's fluid direction make this dated movie fine entertainment.
Review of Union Depot
