The television show ‘Harbor Command’, starring Wendell Cory as Captain Ralph Baxter, ran from the fall of 1957 until the summer of 1958. Most of the episodes were filmed around the Embarcadero, but in the episode ‘Lovers’ Lane Bandits’ the Harbor Command takes a trip to the Richmond District. A teenage girl, who attends George Washington High School in the Richmond District, sneaks out of the house after she’s been grounded to meet her boyfriend at a “lovers’ lane’ near the Pesidio. She witnesses a murder there, and, unfortunately for her, one of the killers has seen her, although she doesn’t know that. Captain Baxter learns about the girl through detective work and is desperately trying to find her before the killers do.
Baxter goes to the old Playland-at-the-Beach amusement park to talk to her father who works there. Baxter and his partner park at the Cabrillo streetcar turnaround near the Funhouse. The bottom picture is where they entered Playland from the Great Highway today.
Baxter questions a fellow who works at the Funhouse to find out where the girl’s father is. This scene has an extremely rare shot of Laffing Sal in action at the Playland Funhouse. Behind them is the Playland Merry-go-round. The merry-go-round is still in operation today at the Yerba Buena Center.
This is about the spot where the Funhouse once was.
Baxter learns from her father that she’s meeting a friend at a drug store at Balboa Street and 42nd Avenue. Here, the two girls leave the drugstore heading west toward the beach. This is the northeast corner where the girls were walking today. I couldn’t get the same line up on the corner because of parked cars.
The killers stalk behind them in a truck.
When we next see the two girls they’re at the corner of Balboa and 37th, five blocks east in the opposite direction from where they were heading the last time we saw them. The girl with the light hair has a real problem; she’s witnessed a murder and she knows she should tell someone, but her dad had grounded her and when he finds out she sneaked out she’s sure he’ll just kill her! Hey, honey, turn around! Your dad probably won’t kill you, but the two guys in the truck behind you will!
When her friend goes into the market on the corner one of the killers grabs her. Oh, oh, this doesn’t look good! Somebody had better learn to obey her dad in the future.
Her friend comes out of the store to find that she’s disappeared. This was at the northwest corner of Balboa Street and 37th Avenue.
But this teenager has a guardian angel, Ralph Baxter, approaching the corner where she was taken north from 37th Avenue.
Her worried friend tells Baxter the direction they went.
The bad guys turn north off Balboa onto 40th Avenue.
Harbor Command misses the turn at 40th and in a action reminiscent to the chase scene in ‘Bullitt’ burn up rubber backing up to 40th Avenue.
They head up 40th to Geary Blvd.
On Point Lobos Road the Harbor Command police cut the truck off right about here, just down from the Cliff House.
As Baxter and his partner approach the truck, they threaten to shoot the girl if the officers don’t back away.
When the teenager faints, (well, I probably would have too) Baxter gets a clear line of fire and shoots the man with the gun. That’s Sutro Heights behind him. He pulls the driver out of the truck, and case closed. The two videos below are the Funhouse scene from the show, and Laffing Sal today in Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf. They say it’s the same one; judge for yourself.
We’ll start at the foot of Market Street looking west. The crowned Call Bulletin Newspaper Building, the tallest building in San Francisco at the time, can be seen in the far background on the left in the vintage picture. That was the ruins of an interesting looking building where the Hyatt Regency is today on the right.
We’re further up Market Street now at Montgomery Street. There are three survivors today from the vintage picture; the Call Building on the left, remodeled now and called the Central Tower, the gothic looking Mutual Savings Bank Building directly across from the Call Building, and the reddish-brown Chronicle Building, taller now that it was back then. (blogspot.com)
New Montgomery and Mission Streets, looking north toward Market Street showing the ruins of the Palace Hotel and the rebuilt Palace Hotel there today. The building in the background is the one on the right in the previous vintage picture taken at Market and Montgomery Streets.
Army soldiers brought down from the Presidio marching past the Call Building on fire: Woe betides to any looters they may have come across; they shot them on the spot back then! (blogspot.com)
We’ve moved north to Pine Street looking east past Kearny Street. That’s the Bank of America Building on the left center in the current picture.
We’re up on the top of Nob Hill now. That’s the gutted James Flood mansion, the only mansion on Nob Hill to survive the earthquake and fire. I don’t mind a cable car photo bombing one of my pictures any time. The Flood mansion is now the exclusive Pacific Union Club.
Looking toward the south western corner of California and Powell Streets where Leland Stanford’s mansion stood. Farther up California Street are the ruins of Mark Hopkins home, now the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
Refugees heading east and west along Market Street near 3rd: The Ferry Building is in the background. It’s interesting how most of them are following traffic rules and staying on the right in both directions.
And, of course, most San Franciscans favorite survivor, the Ferry Building; roughed up, but she took it well. In spite of these monstrosities they’re putting up nowadays, like the Sales Force Tower, the Ferry Building is still the “Grande Dame” of San Francisco.
A hoodlum kidnaps Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) and drives him to a spot below the southern entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1947 film ‘Dark Passage’. Since September 11th 2001, this area has been off limits to the public.
Fisherman’s Wharf near the end of Taylor Street at twilight in the 1950’s:
Orson Welles exits the Funhouse at Playland-at-the-Beach leaving a dying Rita Hayworth inside in another 1947 movie ‘The Lady from Shanghai’. Welles is walking toward the Great Highway. Playland was demolished in 1972.
After being shot twice and left in an empty prison cell on Alcatraz by John Vernon and Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin recovers consciousness and swims back to San Francisco from Alcatraz with two bullets in him to seek revenge. That’s quite a feat! The movie was ‘Point Blank’ from 1967. The modern picture is the current San Francisco skyline from Alcatraz Island.
Lana Turner enters the old I Magnin Department Store on Geary Blvd. across the street from Union Square in “Portrait in Black’ from 1960. This is an effort to establish her alibi while she plots with Anthony Quinn to kill her husband. In the background is the St. Francis Hotel on Powell Street.
“Look out!” Almost a head on crash with a cable car and an automobile at Hyde and Greenwich on Russian Hill: The vintage picture is a Fred Lyon photo from the 1950’s. This picture is sometimes labeled as looking toward Telegraph Hill from Lombard Street at Hyde, but it’s not.
“Come all ye young sailormen listen to me, and I’ll sing you a song of the fish in the sea.”
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 