Alfred E. Green's Union Depot 1932

Union Depot moves at a rapid pace; its 67 minutes taking place more or less in real time, or at least one night in a busy railroad station.  This pre-Code Warner Brothers film quite effectively captures the mood of the Depression, with Sol Polito's camera swooping into the train station, crammed with diverse men and women hurrying and scurrying.  The depot is stuffed not only with some respectable travelers but with con men, pickpockets, whores, grifters, unfaithful spouses and hobos.   A significant amount of time is spent in the men's room, where Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , just out of jail on a vagrancy charge, steals the suitcase of dipsomaniac Frank McHugh and dresses up. as he says, "as a gentleman for a day."  He picks up Joan Blondell, whom he mistakes for a prostitute, and takes her to a private dining room.  When he finds out she is not a tart but rather a chorus girl down on her luck who needs $64.50 to get to a job in Salt Lake City he rather shockingly slaps her in the face and then buys her dinner.

Meanwhile Fairbanks's buddy Guy Kibbee finds a claim ticket for a violin case and when he and Fairbanks retrieve it they find it is full of money.  Fairbanks uses some of the money to buy a new dress for Blondell's trip while Blondell is being lured to a train compartment by a pervert who had hired her to read dirty books to him and is now stalking her.  Fairbanks has come to the rescue as the owner of the dress shop finds out she has been paid for Blondell's dress with counterfeit money and alerts the station cops, who arrest Blondell and Fairbanks while counterfeiter Alan Hale is trying to get his violin case back. Finally everything is straightened out as Fairbanks says good-bye to Blondell and he and Kibbee go marching down the railroad tracks, presumably back to eating "vagrancy beans."

This downbeat fantasy was probably enjoyed by moviegoers who were looking to escape their own job difficulties and sympathized with an ingenious bum who knew how to appropriate and spend money.  Director Green moves this film along rapidly, with an understanding that everyone has their reasons, the African-American washroom attendants and Pullman porters doing their jobs with dignity while their customers are drinking and cheating.