San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

“The way of the transgressor is hard.”
So a philosophical detective played by Walter Slezak quotes at the foot of Market Street kiddie corner from the southern Pacific Building after reading in the paper that his main antagonist, Claire Trevor, in a very unsympathetic role, has been murdered by her lover and partner in crime Lawrence Tierney. With the destruction of the Embarcadero Freeway, and the creation of a vintage streetcar line running along the waterfront, the foot of Market Street now looks very similar to the way it appears in the 1947 film ‘Born to Kill’.

Anthony Quinn and Lana Turner meeting clandestinely in the Japanese Tea Gardens In Golden Gate Park after killing her husband in the 1960 film ‘Portrait in Black’. Well, they certainly picked a safe spot. As one of San Francisco’s major tourist attractions with millions of visitors annually, they’ll, probably, never be seen here! Lana is, obviously, not dealing with this well. If you guessed that Anthony Quinn will decide to kill her next because of the way she’s handling things, go to the head of the class.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton starting to become more than just friends at the music concourse in Golden Gate Park in ‘Play It Again, Sam’. For the record, neither Humphrey Bogart nor Ingrid Bergman ever said “Play it again, Sam.” referring to ‘As Time Goes By’ in the movie ‘Casablanca’.

The quintessential Frank Sinatra look. Here he is shown arriving at the Ferry Building in ‘Pal Joey’. In it’s hey day, the Ferry Building was second only to Charing Cross Station in London for passenger traffic.

The notorious Bay Bridge scene from the 1967 movie ‘The Graduate’ where Dustin Hoffman drives west on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge, and ends up in…….. Berkeley! “Oh my God, Mrs Robinson!” The turnouts for emergency parking on the left and right were blocked off after 9/11.

That’s the Kearny and Broadway intersection again at the bottom of the hill in the 1972 film ‘Play It Again, Sam’. The truck is passing the same crosswalk Cary Grant was walking along in the previous shown ‘Kiss Them for Me’. Woody plays a runt haunted by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart who’s trying to make him a ladykiller. It’s not going to work, Bogie. Actually, it did. Only in the movies!

Movie locations are there to be found in San Francisco for anyone odd ball enough to take the time to look for them. Here Catherine Hicks offers Kirk and Spock a lift at the Marina Green in ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’

Charlie Chaplin races past Golden Gate Park along an unpaved Great Highway in the 1915 short ‘A Jitney Elopement’ one of the five movies he made while in Niles Calif. They’ve developed the ground up a lot since then, but this area has been in the news lately due to closures from storms blowing sand over the road.

For reasons not quite clear to me, the 1974 movie ‘The Towering Inferno’ won an Oscar for cinematography. The 134 story (!) building where the disaster takes place shown near the opening does not look convincing. I’m concerned about the engineering, as well. It’s not even straight!

Fred Astaire gazes up at the fictitious building soon to catch fire in the 1974 film ‘The Towering Inferno’. The Bank of America Building where, much of the location filming occurred, makes a good comparison if you catch it at the right time of day.