Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Robert J. Maxwell 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.

George Wright This film from 1950 is a highly entertaining police story where the police plot their strategy to outsmart the criminal as they tenaciously pursue him. The criminal is played by Lyle Bettger, who gives an excellent performance. Barry Fitzgerald once again plays the Irish cop with the twinkle in his eye. Barry Fitzgerald's acting seemed to define the stereotype of the Irish cop and he was by far the best of the lot. The sustained action, the excellent acting and on-location shooting still give this movie great entertainment value some 62 years later. William Holden, playing the lead, is convincing as the tough cop who develops a romantic interest in Nancy Olson, the secretary to the wealthy father of a blind girl who figures in the plot. The action is almost non-stop as the movie rolled along. The location of the movie is a question mark; some say New York, others Los Angeles. I took the location to be Chicago because of the elevated railway, the stockyards, and even a Union Station - although the one here was actually in Los Angeles. Regardless of location, this is a very good story and although dated, I would gladly watch it again.

evanston_dad Everyone remembers William Holden for his two big-time and Oscar-nominated movies in 1950 -- "Sunset Boulevard" and "Born Yesterday." But ask anyone about Nancy Olson -- the heroine of "Union Station" who plays Holden's his-girl-Friday -- and see if you get more than a blank stare. How ironic then that she played Holden's love interest in "Sunset Boulevard" and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress."Union Station" takes place almost entirely in the titular Chicago train port and boasts a somewhat memorable finale set underneath the station, but the movie as a whole is forgettable. It's a disposable entry in the police procedural noirs that were so popular at the time, and spends a lot of its time explaining the logistics the Union Station security team follows in catching the kidnappers of a business tycoon's daughter.The film isn't very exciting, but it didn't exactly try my patience either, mostly because it's only 81 minutes long. Still, you can find a hundred other similar movies that are more worth your time.Grade: B-

GManfred Viewers at times have to approach some films with an atavistic demeanor, as though going to a museum. After all, times change, customs change, people change. Years ago many people smoked, men wore fedoras and Police methods were also different. This last seems to be Leonard Maltin's main objection to the film when he says 'dated police techniques'. This is 2008, and with the ACLU acting as spoilers, police no longer 'lean on' suspects.As previously stated, watch this picture with a sense of atavism and it is thoroughly enjoyable. After all, it was 1950 - many of us can remember those times, fondly. William Holden was almost a big star, Lyle Bettger was honing his talent as a heavy and Rudolph Mate was an accomplished Director. Tension is sustained throughout and the location photography is interesting. Do yourself a favor and see it next time it's on.