San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

Yeah, they still have a lot of street preachers holding Bibles here and telling people that they’re going to go to Hell, but they’ve, pretty much, given up on me!

The old Alexandria Theater at Geary and 19th in 1943: The ‘Government Girl’, I saw that just recently on Turner Classic Movies! It was terrible! (Actually, I liked it.)

My doctor, the eminent Dr. Donald Knotts, tells me he was among the students walking along the street at George Washington High School when this scene where Lee Remick drops her sister Stefanie Powers off in the 1962 film ‘Experiment in Terror’ (One of my favorite SF movies) was shot. Maybe he knew the girls standing by the car. I’ll have to ask him. Other prominent people who went to this high school, include Johnny Mathis and Danny Glover. The link below that I posted several years ago shows a brief synopsis of the movie along with the soundtrack from the opening credits.

In April of 1974, the Symbionese Army, who two months earlier had kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, robbed the Hibernia Bank at 22nd and Noriega in San Francisco. Bank surveillance film showed Hearst participating in the robbery. All of the Symbionese Liberation Army members involved in the robbery died the following month in a fiery police shootout in Los Angeles except Patty Hearst who was captured in September of 1975. The producers of the 1988 film ‘Patty Hearst’ used the corner of 38th and Balboa in the Richmond District to reenact the incident. The Hibernia Bank, named Hibernia Savings in the movie is the Bank of America branch at this corner. The bank robbers pull up to the location in a station wagon and enter the bank from Balboa Street.

  The Balboa Theater, in business since February of 1926, can be seen as the gang enters the bank. A view from the opposite angle shows them making their getaway.

The actual bank robbed by Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army is at this location in the Sunset District. Here’s the surveillance video from the famous robbery.

Speaking of the Sunset District, here’s a vintage San Francisco Archives picture from Bill Yenne’s terrific collection of San Francisco then & now pictures looking down Quintara Street at 15th Ave. from the Sunset Heights steps in 1940. They still had room to develop! That’s Lincoln High School being constructed in the background and today.  Right around the corner from the Sunset Heights steps, the psycho Scorpio ran up these steps near Noriega and 14th Ave. at Grand View Park to kidnap a school bus full of children in the 1971 film ‘Dirty Harry’.  The frightened lady driver of the bus he hijacks was named Marcella Platt in the movie. If all lady school bus drivers were named Marcella Platt, this would be a better world! A speeding ticket on 19th Avenue in 1926:
“This ticket’s going to cost you 50 cents, Mister!”
“Can I work it off, Officer?”
That’s the original Shriner’s Hospital Building in the background.

The Ferry Building clock in the 1930’s, (I hope that wasn’t the Three Stooges up there!) and the clock with an orange Ferry Building in October of 2014 during another Giants Championship run.  The Sky Room in the old Empire Hotel near the Civic Center rivaled The Top of the Mark for rooftop lounging in the 1940’s. Another Cushman Collection gem, Market, 3rd, and Kearny in 1952:  It’s interesting that Charles Cushman would take a color picture of this unimposing building on the corner of Green and Sansome Streets at the bottom of Telegraph Hill in 1952, when its significance was not generally recognized yet. You’ll notice the Historical Marker in front of the building that was not there in 1952. An event occurred here on September 7, 1927 that had an impact on everybody in the world from Lucille Ball to me, who spends most of my spare time reaping the benefits of what happened here. This is where the first television set was invented.   Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon, 1950: Darn, I forgot which one was the San Francisco Archives picture, and which one was the one I took!

  “Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, you guys are passing by my favorite watering hole in the City, Vesuvio’s. Are you going in?”
“You bet your sweet bippy!”
“Oh, Goldie, you stopped saying that when Laugh-In went off the air!” (Butterflies Are Free – 1972)

“Tyne Daly, Clint Eastwood! What are you guys doing up on Telegraph Hill?”
“Tyne was telling me that Coit Tower has always seemed phallic to her!”
“Well, size doesn’t matter.” (The Enforcer – 1976)

“Bogart! Hello again. Where are you going in the jalopy?”
“I’m looking for a place to go to the bathroom!”
“Okay. Well, come back in about seventy years.” (Dark Passage – 1947)

“Charlie Chaplin! Have a nice trip! See you next fall. Don’t get mad, I probably learned that one from you!” (A Night Out – 1915)

“Bogie, here you are riding here on a cable car past Union Square! Where are you off to now?”
“I’m hiding from the cops, and I’m not going to let them catch me. I’ll go down shooting if they spot me”
“Oh! Well, I’ll just get off right here, okay?” (Dark Passage)

“Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak! Where are you two going?”
“That’s it! It’s all over! There’s nothing left for us!”
“The Golden Gate Bridge!!! You’re not thinking of….. You’re not going to…..”
“No! The movie’s over. Go home, kid!” (Pal Joey – 1957)

The parking lot from the entrance to Coit Tower in the 1930’s and today: The balustrade with the urns was considered unsightly by many, and was removed by the 1940’s.

Chinatown in 3D colors: Not really, but that was popular in the 1950’s when the top picture was taken.

This picture bothers me! I love the view from Coit Tower, but sometimes it would be nice to just enjoy the Telegraph Hill view from the parking lot, like you used to be able to, without the claustrophobic elevator ride to the top of the tower. For some reason, they will not trim the bushes that now almost entirely block the view from ground level. I’m not a horti….. a horti….. a person who cultivates plants, so I don’t know if there is some reason that this will harm them or if this is just a deliberate attempt to force visitors to pay for the ride to the top of Coit Tower.

Sansome Street at the bottom of Telegraph Hill:
“Hey, Mulldoon, we better run the license plate so we can notify the owner of the boulder that crashed down on the person’s car.”
“Wait, Officers, don’t leave! I’m inside the car!”
They’ve shored up this area since this Images of America picture was taken in 1948.

“I shall return!” He wasn’t taking about San Francisco. One of the principal players in the drama of World War Two, General Douglas MacArthur, giving a speech in front of City Hall in the 1950’s during the Korean War.

A guard in a tower on Alcatraz Island when it was still a penitentiary: That would have been good enough for me; he probably had a pretty high powered rifle.
“Hey, Mugsy, let’s go back to the cell.”

Where the crime careers of two punks who became folklore, Bonnie and Clyde, began, and ended:

It always amazes me that this building has survived the test of time. This was the Barrow family home and gas station on Eagle Ford Road, now Singleton Road, in Dallas Texas. Clyde was living here when he met Bonnie.

Bonnie and Tim: At this house three blocks from the Barrow gas station, Bonnie and Clyde killed their first police officer, Malcolm Davis. On January 6th 1933, police were waiting at this house for another fugitive not Bonnie or Clyde. While Bonnie waited in the car while it idled, Clyde went up the walk to the house to pick up a friend. Suddenly suspecting something was wrong, he fired a shot through the window on the right side of the house as he stepped up on the porch. When police rounded the house from the left side, Bonnie began firing a gun from the car, but Clyde killed the Deputy Sheriff with a shotgun from the porch behind me where I was standing in December of 2015. The top picture is a police photo from the scene of the crime.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde committed the crime that sealed their fates. On Old Dove Road in Grapevine, Texas, Bonnie and Clyde where waiting to meet their families here when two motorcycle patrolman, E. B. Wheeler and H. D. Murphy turned onto the road thinking they might be stranded and in need of help. Like Clyde said later on, they never would have gone up that road if they knew Bonnie and Clyde were in that car! Clyde and Henry Methvin, a recently new gang member whose father would later betray Bonnie and Clyde, opened up on the policemen. The top photos are from a police reenactment film taken at the spot of the murders, but most historians agree that Bonnie didn’t do any of the shooting during this particular crime. Many people who had thought of them as modern day Robin Hoods changed their minds after this, and an all out effort to find and kill them began. A Historical Marker is now at the site.

A vintage Picture looking up Dove Road after the shooting of the motorcycle Officers: The photographer was standing about where the Officers were shot as they approached Bonnie and Clyde. My photo is the same view today.

Their two year robbing and killing spree ended on this lonely road near Gibsland, Louisiana on May 23, 1934 in a hail of posse bullets. Bonnie, whose body is still in the car in the ambush photo, summed it all up in a poem she once sent to a newspaper;
Some day they’ll go down together.
They’ll bury them side by side.
To few it’ll be grief,
to the law a relief.
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.

Addendum: Both the Eagle Ford gas station and the McBride house where Officer Malcolm Davis was murdered have been demolished since I took these pictures in December of 2015.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,300 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The limousine carrying President John Kennedy, His wife Jacqueline, the Governor of Texas, John Connally, and his wife, Nellie, as it approaches Elm Street from Houston. The limo made a left turn on Elm, and passed underneath the Texas School Book Depository, seen on the left in my larger picture of the spot. Lee Harvey Oswald fired from the second window from the top of the last row of windows at the right end of the building.

Kennedy’s limousine has turned left onto Elm Street, and is passing underneath the School Book Depository. The President, at this point, has been hit in the back, and raises his arms to his neck. Jackie takes hold of one of his arms.

Wikipedia refers to the Zapruder film of Kennedy’s assassination as “one of the most studied pieces of film in history”. At this point of the film, Kennedy has been struck in the back and raises his arms as Jackie Kennedy turns toward him. My picture at the bottom was taken from the exact same spot that Abraham Zapruder shot his film.

The Zapruder film follows the limo as Kennedy turns toward Jackie, who realizes something is wrong. The next frame shows the head shot wound that shattered Kennedy’s skull. It’s graphic and disturbing so I left it out.

The last of the motorcade passes down Elm Street just after the shots. Notice the couple lying on the grass covering their children.

The legendary “grassy knoll” where the steps are going up just after the wounded President passes by. This is where the conspiracy theory centers around. People do seem to be concentrating on this spot including the police officer running toward there. You can see the couple who were protecting their children in this photo too.

As Kennedy’s limousine rushes toward Parkland Hospital, people stand around in Dealey Plaza stunned and confused.

After shooting Kennedy at 12:30 PM, Oswald took a taxi to East 10th street, where he murdered Police Officer J. D. Tippit. To point out how stupid Oswald was, less than an hour after becoming the most wanted man in America, if not the whole world, Oswald ducked into a movie theater without paying for his ticket causing the manager to become suspicious, and call the police. Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theater on West Jefferson Blvd. Built in 1931, the theater is still open, and now has landmark status. In the top picture, Oswald is being taken from the theater to a waiting police car. Notice the movies playing then and now.

Market Street, near where Drumm, California, and Main Streets merge into it, probably, in 1959. There’s a lot to look at in this terrific color photo from the Vintage San Francisco Facebook page. The Embarcadero Freeway, seen cutting past the Ferry Building, opened in 1959, and was demolished, (thankfully) in 1991 after the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 proved the elevated roadway unsafe. All of the buildings on the left were, eventually, knocked down for the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Justin Herman Plaza, and I don’t think I would have liked to have stayed in a place called Hotel Terminal, anyway! The brown building on the right in both pictures is the Southern Pacific Building, built in 1916. The Ferry Building had the numbers 1915 at the top throughout 2015 to celebrate the centennial of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, but I have not been able to find out what the numbers 50 placed on top in December stand for. The weather could have been a little more cooperative on this rainy December 22nd, and I didn’t get as far out onto Market Street as the old picture with all of those cars, streetcars and buses honking at me, but it makes a nice comparison. By the way, if you’re on Facebook and would enjoy about the best source of period pictures of San Francisco, check out the link below for the Vintage San Francisco page.  Addendum: The 50th Super Bowl, of course! Wake up, Tim!