San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now
A Then and Now Tour and History of San Francisco Through Films and Photography
The notorious Bay Bridge scene from the 1967 movie ‘The Graduate’ where Dustin Hoffman drives west on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge, and ends up in…….. Berkeley! “Oh my God, Mrs Robinson!” The turnouts for emergency parking on the left and right were blocked off after 9/11.
That’s the Kearny and Broadway intersection again at the bottom of the hill in the 1972 film ‘Play It Again, Sam’. The truck is passing the same crosswalk Cary Grant was walking along in the previous shown ‘Kiss Them for Me’. Woody plays a runt haunted by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart who’s trying to make him a ladykiller. It’s not going to work, Bogie. Actually, it did. Only in the movies!
Movie locations are there to be found in San Francisco for anyone odd ball enough to take the time to look for them. Here Catherine Hicks offers Kirk and Spock a lift at the Marina Green in ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’
Charlie Chaplin races past Golden Gate Park along an unpaved Great Highway in the 1915 short ‘A Jitney Elopement’ one of the five movies he made while in Niles Calif. They’ve developed the ground up a lot since then, but this area has been in the news lately due to closures from storms blowing sand over the road.
For reasons not quite clear to me, the 1974 movie ‘The Towering Inferno’ won an Oscar for cinematography. The 134 story (!) building where the disaster takes place shown near the opening does not look convincing. I’m concerned about the engineering, as well. It’s not even straight!
Fred Astaire gazes up at the fictitious building soon to catch fire in the 1974 film ‘The Towering Inferno’. The Bank of America Building where, much of the location filming occurred, makes a good comparison if you catch it at the right time of day.
Jimmy Stewart stalking, well, let’s face it, he was, Kim Novak in his car near Mission Dolores in the 1958 movie ‘Vertigo’. Kim Novak plays a woman who believes that she is being possessed by the spirit of a lady named Carlotta Valdes who killed herself in 1857, and she must do the same thing. Boy, that makes me feel a lot better about my own hang ups!
The Treksters in San Francisco from ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ (1986) my vote for the best Star Trek flick. The green building in the background is owned by Francis Ford Coppola, who runs his movie empire from here.
Elisha Cook, ‘Wilmer’ in the ‘Maltese Falcon’ arrives at the Ferry Building on his way to commit murder in the 1947 film ‘Born to Kill’. The star of the movie, Lawrence Tierney, once guest starred on ‘Seinfeld’ but was not asked to return after he, reportedly, threatened Jerry with a knife during the show.
The intersection of Hayes and Laguna was the setting for Eric Von Stroheim’s 1925 masterpiece ‘Greed’, considered by many film historians as one of the best movies ever made. Originally running nearly eight hours (that would have been a lot of popcorn to consume) it was eventually cut down to under two and one half hours when released.
