mgtbltp This low budget film beautifully captures the darkness, obsession and overbearing despair, of Cornell Woolrich's depression era story updated to 1953. The stylistically Noir cinematography, with chiaroscuro lighting, reflections, deep shadows and clashing color schemes enhance the foreboding atmosphere. The tale is about Harlan and Lillian an unhappily married couple who basically exist with each other. Harlan is an alcoholic accountant who works long hours and commutes to his job. Lillian is a bored and ignored housewife who cooks for him. Once dinner is over Harlan heads for the corner bar Tatty's. During her day Lillian comes to life once hubby Harlan leaves for the office. She is frustrated and ripe for the plucking. Lillian and Harlan's latest crisis is the theft of their milk. This story is set back in the time when milk was still delivered by a milkman. I grew up in New York City in the '50s and we had an aluminum box next to the front door of our two family house, and it was into this aluminum box that the milkman delivered our milk. In Union City the milkman delivers to an apartment house, and he carries the bottles of milk in a wire tray stopping at the doors of the various apartments on his route, dropping off full bottles, picking up empties left on the floor outside the apartments. For the last two weeks someone has been drinking Harlan's milk and leaving the empty bottle. Harlan becomes increasingly filled with anger in reverse proportion to Lillian's indifference. Harlan thinks it's someone who lives in their apartment house and he devises a scheme to catch him. The following evening, Harlan gets a unopened bottle of milk from the refrigerator, ties a fishing line around the neck of the bottle, places the bottle outside the door and runs the fishing line back to the bedroom. Getting into bed Harlan winds the line around his finger turns off the light and goes to sleep.A tug on Harlan's finger sends him running to the apartment door. Flinging it open Harlan finds a vagrant sitting on the floor guzzling down his milk. Harlan knocks the bottle out of the young vagrant's hand spilling the milk on the floor. There ensues a violent tussle between Harlan and the man ending with Harlan beating the man's head on the floor repeatedly until he stops struggling. A large flow of blood from the man's head sends Harlan into shock. He must do something with the body, the sound of the apartments elevator spurs Harlan into a panic. He drags the body into the empty apartment across the hall and hides it temporarily in a Murphy bed. When Harlan goes back to remove the body from the empty apartment after he has frantically cleaned up the blood and milk out in the hall, and thrown his bloody pajamas down the incinerator, he discovers that he can't open the door to the Murphy bed, it's jammed. In the days that follow Harlan begins to go slowly insane hallucinating images and thoroughly neglecting Lillian.When no one has yet discovered the corpse and the newlywed new tenants of the empty apartment show up Harlan goes completely over the edge in true Noir fashion. Union City is a low budget production, but that fact contributes to the claustrophobic feel of the film which compliments the Woolrich story. None of the actors really stand out aside from Dennis Lipscomb who gives off a demented Jack Lemmon vibe. This is a must for Cornell Woolrich fans, entertaining but a 6/10 for this DVD.

christopher-underwood Several surprises for me in this film. I had never watched it before, rather assuming that it was very much a star vehicle for Deborah Harry. How wrong can you be, she puts in a most solid performance but there is not much star twinkle in this downbeat oddball of a movie. I was also surprised that we did not get, Debbie Harry singing, Union City Blues throughout, maybe this was written later, or considered inappropriate. Biggest surprise of all is just how good the movie is with hardly any 'action' and instead of some big sexy sex scene, a rather sad, lack of sex scene. Runs very much like a low budget independent in a rather 'noir' style and you would be hard put to guess the year, other than from the aforementioned Goddess' presence, of course.

lost-in-limbo Harlan a whinny repressed accountant lives with his adorably bored housewife Lillian in an apartment building in New Jersey. Somebody is stealing a sip out of their milk bottle every morning and Harlan becomes obsessed in trying to capture the culprit. Although his plan becomes unstuck when the unspeakable happens and soon his trying to put the horrific deed behind him. Although it's harder than he thinks and it's taking on a toll on his already fractured relationship with Lillian. She dreams off escaping this life and she sees this opportunity with her relationship with building superintendent Lance.After my long awaited viewing, I'm left rather bemused by it all. Obviously it's going to be a love or hate affair. Your pick. I'm leaning more towards the former. I just don't think there'll be much middle ground. You can easily see that "Union City" is perfect for repeat viewings to get a hold of every little, significant detail. Think of early David Lynch… like "Easerhead" and you'll know what I mean about being technically limited and strangely dark. Some shots you can clearly see the boom mike appear and it can be distracting. People might say that the technical side of the production is what brings it down and I can see were they're getting at. Otherwise with what Reichert had to work with, he did a resourcefully able job. On that front what we get is a highly moody neo-noir, art-house piece that's on a zero budget and benefits from it's cheaply few, claustrophobic sets in drumming up that anxious, glum and bizarre nature stemming off the film's peculiar characters and storyline.The oddball premise is taken off Cornell Woolrich's 1937 short story "The Corpse Next Door", which goes on to share some similarities to Poe's "The Telltale Heart". So it's all about the progressive guilt and stress of a secret that eventually cracks to lead to ones own self-destruction. Also the obsession of one task, leads to the breakdown in communication of the one thing, which needs the attention. He takes his wife for granted, as nothing more than a material object. The emotionally engaging story mingles with these cards rather neatly with precision and a wryly-black sense of humour. While having a creaky structure, the jittery rhythm and awkward turns only enhanced the film's magnetic atmosphere and credibly crafty approach. This is one of those mellow exercises that you have to have patience, as the film's momentum leisurely ticks along and it's filled with long stretches of silence. Can be quite a drag, if you're not geared up for it. The script is pretty sparse and when there's dialogue its mostly quite trivial.Director Marcus Reichert paints an edgy picture that dabbles in the surreal without losing that serious touch, but visually he mixes the lighting, colour scheme and tight camera-work to convey the ever-changing tenor. From grafting away tension to letting the time slowly go by. Reichert's stylised feel makes it way into the performances.Dennis Lipscomb's exceptional portrayal as the erratically selfish Harlan sticks out compared to the deadpan performances of the rest. This suits how his paranoid character is effecting the actions of those around him. The fetchingly sincere Deborah Harry (in her film debut role) is suitably solid in a sensitively frustrated housewife seeking a way out of the unhappy marriage. It didn't turn out to be much of a stepping stone for her film career, despite her strong presence. Everett McGill gives a likable, level-head performance as the building superintendent Lance. Providing reasonable support are CCH Pounder and Sam McMurrey. Of small interest Pat Benatar shows up in a minor role towards the end. There were another recognizable names that tagged along for the ride. You had Monty Montgomery as creative producer and Kathryn Bigelow as script supervisor. Also Chris Stein (Deborah Harry's fellow band member of Blondie) chips in with an effectively wistful music score that uncannily experiments with a variety of music styles. Namely a smooth blues flavor.This influentially quirky Indie flick is a hard one to recommend, but there are enough elements and a very unhinged tone for cult fans to get something out of this unconventional foray.

Scott W. Larson This film was a desperate ode to Film-Noir. Random clichés of a poor 40's thriller were thrown together with no attempt to cover the flaws: poor dialog, misguided acting, poor editing, an amateur synthesizer soundtrack, and a one-note plot that's painfully stretched out and not believable in the first place (corpses rot and smell at room temperature). The actors were simply imitating characters they've seen in old movies. Even the costumes were used incorrectly. For example, men didn't wear their hats indoors. The camera is mostly static and many dialog scenes have jarring editing.This is what a 40's thriller would look like if had been done by a student on a very limited budget and schedule.