“Blackie” Norton (Clark Gable) watches Downtown San Francisco burning in the 1936 film ‘San Francisco’. Don’t worry Clark, they’ll fix it up again.
‘The Lady From Shanghai’ overlap
“Maybe, I’ll live long enough to forget her.” So laments Orson Welles as he leaves a dying Rita Hayworth in the Playland-at-the-Beach Funhouse, and heads toward Ocean Beach in ‘The Lady From Shanghai’ (1948)
‘Thieves Highway’ overlap
Barbara Lawrence gazes back at the Ferry Building with the Southern Pacific Building behind her in ‘Thieves Highway’ (1949).
‘The Organization’ overlap
That’s the Montgomery St. BART Station entrance under construction from the 1971 film ‘The Organization’ with Sidney Poitier. The Crown Zellerbach Building can be seen in the background of both shots.
‘House on Telegraph Hill’ overlap
Valentina Cortese lovingly greets her pretend son across her back yard in ‘House on Telegraph Hill’ (1951). As with ‘After the Thin Man’, the filmmakers have used Coit Tower’s Pioneer Park for the setting.
‘Harold and Maude’ overlap
Here, Harold chases Maude down steps left behind from the ruins of Sutro’s Baths in ‘Harold & Maude’ (1972). Although the steps are still there, they are closed off to the public for safety reasons.
‘After the Thin Man’ overlap
Then, there’s the technique of overlapping the film image to the current shot making it more a part of the current location.
‘Pal Joey’
Exactly twenty five years later, something about the San Francisco skyline makes even Sinatra pay attention as the ferry boat he’s on approaches the Embarcadero in ‘Pal Joey’ from 1957. As Kay Francis reflects in the previous post, Lovely, isn’t it?
‘One Way Passage’
Two doomed lovers look at the San Francisco skyline from a wonderful 1932 movie ‘One Way Passage’. Terminally ill Kay Francis recites a hymn, “Keep those golden gates wide open, keep those gates ajar.” along with William Powell, whose return to San Francisco means execution in the San Quentin prison. The camera captures the sadness on their faces as Kay Francis says, simply, “Lovely, isn’t it?”
‘The Lineup’
Before director Don Siegel gave us one of the two greatest San Francisco police films with ‘Dirty Harry’, (the other being ‘Bullitt’) there was his 1958 copper caper ‘The Lineup’. The Cliff House and Sutro Bath scenes are as good as it gets for San Francisco locations, and the scene inside Sutro’s is mandatory viewing to any enthusiast of that wonderful structure lost to a fire in 1966.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 