San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

A police Officer pulls over Nick and Nora Charles, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy, on the Bay Bridge in the 1941 movie ‘Shadow of the Thin Man’. He goes easy on them. The Pacific Telephone Building, just above Nick and Nora’s car, and the tallest building south of Market Street when the film was made, can be seen left center in the current picture. (Thumbnail image)

Steve McQueen races down Taylor Street after the bad guys in the black Charger in the famous chase scene from ‘Bullitt’. (Thumbnail image)

A fun technique I enjoy doing is to overlap a film scene with the present location to blend it in with the current image. Here, the police are closing in on Eli Wallach at the Sutro Baths and Cliff House in the 1958 movie ‘The Lineup’. (Thumbnail image)

Anna May Wong, in a chase scene through Chinatown, turns left on Grant from Washington against today’s traffic in the 1949 film ‘Impact’. (Thumbnail image)

Arthur Franz, pursued by the police, runs into the front door of his home on Filbert street in an overlap of the location from the 1952 movie ‘The Sniper’. (Thumbnail image)

The last I heard, trying to kill yourself is still a crime, which is what Kim Novak appears to be attempting by jumping into the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1958 classic ‘Vertigo’. (Thumbnail image)

Not always film, but these postcards are fun to do comparison pictures of: Chinatown’s Grant Avenue in the 1930’s  (Thumbnail image).

The California Street Grip climbing Nob Hill in the 1930’s. (Thumbnail image)

A 1904 family at the Cliff House. “Old families never die, they just wade away!”

The old City Hall, destroyed in less than one minute in the 1906 Earthquake, from Fulton and Franklin Streets, and the new City Hall from Fulton and Franklin. The two buildings bordering the old City Hall were almost certainly destroyed by the fire to come that burned down most of San Francisco. The two buildings the City Hall is seen between today are The War Memorial Building on the left where the United Nations was formed, and the Opera House on the right.  (Thumbnail image)