The film has been selected for preservation in the Film Archive of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The movie has been described as being a "punk rock film noir".
Debut leading role in a cinema movie for Debbie Harry. It has often been reported that this film was the screen debut of Harry but this is incorrect as Harry had previously appeared in Unmade Beds (1976), The Foreigner (1978) and Deadly Hero (1975). Union City (1980) though is the debut screen performance of co-star Pat Benatar.
Debut film of director Kathryn Bigelow who worked on the movie as a script supervisor. Biggelow's debut film as a director, The Loveless (1981), like this movie, was also set in the 1950s.
According to Director Marcus Reichert, when he embarked on making Union City, Blondie was virtually unknown in the United States. Heart of Glass became number one about half way through the shooting schedule.