I first heard about the 1951 film ‘The Raging Tide’ from the book ‘San Francisco Noir’ by Nathaniel Rich. The movie is based on the the 1950 novel ‘Fiddler’s Green’ by Earnest K. Gann, and reprinted under the name ‘The Raging Tide’ to coincide with the opening of the 1951 movie version of the story. ‘Fiddler’s Green’ refers to a mythical afterlife associated with sailors, but the title ‘Raging Tide’ makes the film more intriguing. I ordered a paperback copy of the book, but unfortunately the only DVD copy of the film I could find isn’t of the best quality, but I’ll use some of the images from the movie when referring to it. Both the film and the book are excellent examples of a mystery story set in San Francisco. I’ll use excerpts from the novel in brackets describing some of the interesting San Francisco locations, including some then and now pictures of the areas described, and compare the handling of parts of the story in both the film and book. (Thumbnail images)
The movie opens up with a panoramic view of the San Francisco waterfront from the Coit Tower parking lot that is largely block by trees nowadays.
The novel opens up with three-time loser, Bruno Felkin, running north along the Embarcadero after shooting to death racketeer Sam Addleheim somewhere near the Ferry Building. Unlike the book the film opens with the actual shooting. We’re allowed to follow Bruno’s thoughts both in the book and the film as he runs away. Bruno is trying to get to his girlfriend Connie Thatcher’s apartment on Telegraph Hill to establish an alibi. {You cheap little tin horn. Let Sam kid around a little and you get excited. You wave a gun like a big grownup boy, and the damn thing goes off. The fact Sam grabbed you by the neck, the self-defense angle, wasn’t enough – and wouldn’t be. Not for a guy who was already a three time-loser. You lost your concrete head, so now you pound the concrete for all you’re worth.}
Bruno narrates a pretty good map we can follow as he tries to get to Connie’s Apartment. {Past Pier 5, Pier 7 behind and the cafeteria behind the Bar Pilots’ office. The cafeteria was closed. Past Pier 9 and now was the time to quite smoking. Right now. Instantly—when your realize what cigarettes can do to your wind.} The movie shows only night time scenes of part of the Embarcadero, the Filbert Steps, and some of Fisherman’s Wharf during Brono’s run. The photos are Pier 5 in a 1960s picture from opensfhistory.org, Pier 7, demolished now and a walking pier, taken in the 1950s during the building of the Embarcadero Freeway, and Pier 9 in the 1960s; the latter two pictures from the San Francisco Library Archives.
{Swing left now. Past the Merchants Ice and Cold Storage Company. Pier 27 . . . up Lombard Street. Get to hell away from the Embarcadero.} The Merchants Ice and Cold Storage Building is still around, seen here in a picture from the 1970s. (opensfhistory.org)
{Bruno ran west on Lombard, then turned to the right on Sansome Street.} Looking west on Lombard Street toward Telegraph Hill and Sansome Street which Bruno turns right on to in a vintage photo from the 1970s.(opensfhistory.org)
{He passed Vince’s hamburger stand at Chestnut, turned, ran west again. Damn! Chestnut was a dead end here. It banged strait into a cliff.} Chestnut Street still ends in a cliff here, as it did in the vintage picture from 1919, but you can get through on the right now if you’re on foot. (opensfhistory.org)
{He wheeled, ran around the Globe Flour Mills, crossed the railroad tracks on Francisco, and started up North Point Street. At Grant, the fog seemed suddenly heavier. To the left on Stockton and beat it between the two factories with the overhead bridge connecting them. The bridge looks like a crazy fake hanging up there in the fog–as if it couldn’t hold anybody.} These two close ups of David Rumsey’s 1938 aerial composite of San Francisco show the path Bruno is taking to try to reach Connie’s apartment. Bruno leaves the Embarcadero at Lombard, turns right on Sansome, and left on Chestnut, where he runs into the Telegraph Hill cliff. He doubles back to Montgomery Street, crosses Francisco to the Embarcadero, and heads north west to North Point. Bruno runs west on North Point, turning south at Stockton in the second Rumsey photographic map. The long gone overheard bridge on Stockton Street that Bruno passes under can be seen in the 1938 image. Bruno continues south on Stockton Street.
{It was ten minutes to nine and if she walked fast she would arrive at the movie theater before the second show started. She had been reading the paper and discovered that the Bella Union Theater was showing a foreign film.} However, when Bruno reaches Connie”s Telegraph Hill apartment to set up his alibi, she has gone to the movies. The Bella Union Theater was at 825 Kearny Street near Chinatown, seen in the 1970s picture from opensfhistory.org. The remodeled building is now the Self-Help Training Academy.
The 1948 Bella Union Program Advertisement here is from Cinema Treasures.
{The running was over. It was walk easy now. Make Progress, but saunter along with the tourists who cluttered the sidewalk from the cable car turntable to the restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf. The Neptune, Sabella’s, Sabella-Latorre, and Alioto’s—one fish joint right after another, all burning up a lot more electricity than they had a right to be doing.} So in the book and film, Bruno heads to Fisherman’s Wharf from Connie’s apartment. Although his reason for going there is a little vague, this will become a perfect hide out for Bruno.
{Hold it! A damned squad car had stopped at the filling station across the street! One of the uniforms was getting out. Sure, Bruno, wait around to see if he’s just going to fill his tank, then you won’t have to worry about running. You’ll have a free ride. There will be the sound of those new-type handcuffs, the kind that hiss like a rattlesnake instead of just click. Move, Bruno. Get going.} Bruno passes through what they used to call Fish Alley on Jefferson Street, and notices a police car at the filling station across the street. The modern picture is Fish Alley in 2025, and like the movie image, the filling station can be seen across sample of cooked crab in the vintage 1950s picture. The parking lot for Boudin Bakery occupies the spot now where the old gas station was located.
{He took a few carefully controlled steps along the lighted window until he reached a narrow alleyway between Alioto’s Restaurant and the next one in line. He took a quick look at the filling station and the motorcycles just crossing Jefferson Street. There was no time to care where the alleyway might lead. A guy couldn’t figure everything. Not when they were breathing down your neck.. Bruno took a deep breath and turned quickly into the alley. He bumped along a line of garbage cans, and started running again.} Bruno makes a dash through the alleyway between Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto (both now closed) and falls asleep from fatigue on one of the fishing boats in the Boat Lagoon. From here on out, Bruno will find friendship and affection toward and from a fisherman who befriends him as a Police Lieutenant named Kelsey searches throughout San Francisco for him, and Connie will have to make up her mind on how far she wants to go to protect Bruno.
{She led the way up the winding street that led to Coit Tower, breathing deeply of the fresh morning air. They reached the little park at the top of the hill. In every direction the city spread out beneath them, the hills rising and falling until they met the sea and the streets still wet with the morning fog. The wharves fingered out at the base of the city and then there was the bay looking metallic in the sunlight. The islands in the bay still floated in the fine mist and beyond them the mountains had begun to take on depth and substance.} Connie walks up to Coit Tower from her apartment, as Lt. Kelsey walks along with her questioning her as to Bruno’s whereabouts. In an image from Nathaniel Rich’s book, that I did not see in the film, Connie, portrayed by Shelley Winters, is gently being persuaded to tell him where Bruno is hiding. The scene during the opening credits that I showed at the beginning of this post was filmed from here. The bottom photo here is what you see of the waterfront from the Coit Tower parking lot today.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
