San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

Then, there’s the technique of overlapping the film image to the current shot making it more a part of the current location.

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?

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?”

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.

First off, Walter Matthau does not laugh very often, if
at all, in the 1974 film ‘The Laughing Policeman’. The
title refers to an old song from the 1920’s. The opening
scenes are a precursor to real tragedies of the future as
passengers on the number 14 Mission bus leaving the
Transbay Terminal are all massacred by a maniac using
a machine gun. The modern photograph was taken in 2010
on the day that the Transbay Bus Terminal closed forever.

2nd and Minna, just east of the previous Buster Keaton location. Clint Eastwood, “Dirty Harry” is trying to negotiate a hostage situation with three hold up men in the store on the corner in the 1976 film ‘The Enforcer’.. When they demand a get away car, he drives one through the front door, and dispatches them all in Dirty Harry fashion with his .44 Magnum. The pole has been relocated making Harry’s entrance impossible today. Click on the link below for a post from September of 2015 featuring a movie trailer about this film.

More Film Clip Links – ‘The Enforcer’ (1976)

In the 1922 silent film ‘Daydreams’ Buster Keaton is chased west on Minna St from 2nd by just about every police officer on the 1922 force. The remarkable chase scene runs from this South of Market location all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf! Fifty four years later an entirely different police presence would be portrayed at this location.

Revelers from the VJ Day celebration in August 1945 shown in a color home movie approach Seventh and Market Street. The Flood Building in the center, and the old Humboldt Building on the right can still be seen from the same location today.

Fugitive from San Quentin Humphrey struggles up the old wooden Filbert Steps after plastic surgery to hide his identity in the 1947 film ‘Dark Passage’. The men down below are yelling insults up to him including, “Had a hard night, buddy?” and “Having trouble with the little lady?” Oh, they were clever, weren’t they? These wooden steps extended down to the street into the 1980’s before they were replaced.

After philosophizing (is that a word?) Walter Slezak crosses the Embarcadero to leave San Francisco by the Ferry Building in ‘Born to Kill’. Most people arrived and departed San Francisco in the movies during the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s by way of the Ferry Building because of the bustling atmosphere, and the fact that, probably, most people did arrive and depart from the Ferry Building during those decades.