Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

1950's "Union Station" offers a fascinating look at LA's famed title structure in its busy heyday, built in 1939. Time and travel have moved on over the years, but here the exact locale is deliberately unspecified, rather appearing to be New York or (especially) Chicago. In the wake of their previous teaming in "Sunset Blvd." William Holden and Nancy Olson play the investigator and the secretary who puts him on the trail of vicious kidnapper Lyle Bettger, holding a helpless blind girl (Allene Roberts) in exchange for $100,000 from her wealthy father (Herbert Heyes). Best of all is lovable Barry Fitzgerald as the veteran Inspector Donnelly, teaming nicely with Holden while showing an intentional disregard for suspects refusing to confess. In only his second film, Lyle Bettger shows why he became such a popular movie villain for two decades, in a truly terrifying characterization, while longtime veteran Robert Cornthwaite makes his screen debut in the emergency room, one line of dialogue with his back to the camera (soon to star in "The Thing from Another World"). In regards to its lone appearance on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, paired with second feature "She Demons" (Jan 10 1970), that was the one season which saw adult oriented dramas and comedies as the first part of the weekly double bill, running 32 consecutive weeks before returning to the usual horror/sci fi format. It must be said that "Union Station" at least supplied its share of suspense for viewers that night, which no one can say for its notorious Richard Cunha co-feature!

Nancy Olson, pure of features and heart, spots two suspicious, gun-bearing men boarding the train she's on. She reports this to the conductor who pooh-poohs it but notifies the cops in Chicago anyway. This initiates a pretty good story that moves quickly and seldom stumbles.The two serious goons detrain in Chicago and Olson is met by the man in charge of security at Union Station, Bill Holden, and the local police, led by Barry Fitzgerald. The authorities quickly uncover a plot centering around the railroad station. The blind daughter of a tycoon has been kidnapped by perennial bad guy Lyle Bettger, whose very NAME sounds villainous. He treats his blond girl friend like dirt. Since neither Holden nor the cops know what the two kidnapping thugs look like, Nancy Olson is kept around in order to identify them in case they show up in the main concourse, where I once got a pretty good haircut from an amiable Italian barber and visited a curiously seedy nearby bar where the numbers runners ran openly in and out. I noticed a shelf jammed with oddments and tchotchkes behind the bar, including an anomalous textbook on physiology. Upon my asking the inn keeper if the object were for sale, he removed it from the shelf, slammed it on the bar, and replied, "You wanna buy it? Everything's for sale." But that's enough talking about Union Station and environs. Back to the movie. There isn't really much of it. A ransom of a zillion dollars is demanded of the tycoon, all to be packed in a suitcase and stashed in a locker at the station. Holden and Fitzgerald deploy Olsen to spot any of the kidnappers, as well as a horde of plainclothes cops, standing around, leaning against pillars, smoking cigarettes, pretending to read newspapers and eying every passerby with suspicion; in other words, acting exactly like plainclothes cops who are on the alert for skullduggery.It's really a B movie except for the stars. Rudolph Mate's direction is pedestrian. We never get any idea of the history or layout of Union Station. There is an underground chase, for instance, that is full of promise, if anyone remembers the chase through the sewers in "The Third Man" or "He Walked By Night." But we don't know where the tunnels are or where they lead to. Mate turns it into a rather ordinary scene of two people running through ancient, dripping caverns and shooting one another. The two men are Holden and the sneering, defiant Bettger. Guess which survives.Holden is tight-lipped and efficient throughout. He smiles once or twice at Nancy Olson, with whom he made several films, but there is nothing romantic going on. It's hard to see how he could resist her -- she's so damned NICE. She was a physician's daughter and represented her class with grace and sincerity. Fitzgerald is a little rougher in his attitudes than he was in a similar role in "The Naked City" but he gets to use that lovable smile, faith and begorrah, and cock his fedora in the movie's last shot. If that blind hostage had staggered and sscreamed one more time, I wouldn't have blamed Bettger if her body had washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan two days later.

Union Station is directed by Rudolph Maté and written by Sydney Boehm and Thomas Walsh. It stars William Holden, Nancy Olsen, Barry Fitzgerald, Lyle Bettger, Jan Sterling and Herbert Heyes. Music is by Irvin Talbot and cinematography by Daniel Fapp.When a sharp-eyed woman spots a man with a gun on a train she alerts the railroad police. This is merely the start of the events that lead to the kidnapping of a blind heiress by a ruthless thug...A film of two excellent stages. The first two thirds of the movie is concerned with setting up the crime and fully introducing us to the key characters involved on both sides of the law. Relationships are formed or destroyed and as the railroad police work with the regular police, we the viewers get an in-depth look at the procedures involved in crime solving and averting panic in a busy rail station. Callous violence infiltrates the narrative, with deaths and threats the order of the day (the detectives as well as the perps are not beyond strong arm tactics here), and the bustling station and grimy stockyards locales are superbly utilised as backdrops to the drama.Then the last third arrives and we enter into the stark reality of the crime and mindset of kidnap leader Joe Beacon (Bettger). Dubious morality and the cheapness afforded life is pungent in the air, and then we shift locations underground to the municipal tunnels where Maté and Fapp use the unique settings for a clinically noir world of jeopardy and fret that builds to an exciting and suspense filled cat and mouse finale. The direction is smooth, the editing also seamless, while Holden, Olsen, Bettger and Fitzgerald lead off a roll call of enjoyable performances.Jan Sterling is short changed with a stereotyped character that doesn't get nearly enough screen time, while it's a bit of a stretch to accept the plausibility of Olsen's character's involvement in the unfolding investigation/manhunt. But small quibbles aside, Union Station is a tough, tense and often ruthless crime thriller that's constructed with great skill by the makers. 8/10

Having had experience with crime prosecution and investigative work, I rate this movie very realistic--Holden does a customary superb performance, would like to see this movie viewed more frequently, and at more viewable times. It is interesting to see the depiction of Police activities in the pre-'Miranda' days--The Scenes of railroad travel, the 1950's era motor vehicles in the movie present a realistic view of how things were then--The very realistic progression of the cases solution, the suspenseful blending of the events all make the film a great pleasure to enjoy.Holden, as I remember his 'Stalag 17' performance is a constant magnet for entertaining viewing.Respectfully,Lou Turi, aka 'Kisco Kid 23'E-mail address-- [email protected]