San Francisco (film)

San Francisco
Original Film Poster
Directed by	Woody Van Dyke, D. W. Griffith
Produced by	John Emerson Bernard H. Hyman
Written by	Robert E. Hopkins Anita Loos
Starring	Clark Gable Jeanette MacDonald Spencer Tracy Jack Holt Jessie Ralph Ted Healy
Music by	Walter Jurmann Bronislaw Kaper Edward Ward
Cinematography	Oliver T. Marsh
Studio	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	June 26, 1936 (1936-06-26)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,300,000
Box office	$2,868,000 (Domestic earnings) $2,405,000 (Foreign earnings)

San Francisco is a 1936 musical-drama directed by Woody Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film a hit, coming on the heels of her other 1936 blockbuster, Rose Marie. The Internet Movie Database reports that famous silent film directors D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim contributed to the screenplay without screen credit. Griffith also helped direct the famous earthquake sequence.

Plot summary

"Blackie" Norton (Clark Gable), a saloonkeeper and gambler in the notorious Barbary Coast, owns the Paradise Club on Pacific Street. He hires a promising but impoverished classically-trained singer from Benson, Colorado named Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald), who becomes a star attraction at the Paradise. The Professor (Al Shean) can tell Mary has a professionally trained voice. Mat (Ted Healy) feels Mary is not going to stay on the "Coast." Complications arise when she is offered an opportunity to sing in the opera. Mary is hired by the Tivoli Opera House on Market Street. She becomes involved with Nob Hill scion Jack Burley (Jack Holt). Meanwhile, Blackie's childhood friend, Roman Catholic Father Tim Mullen (Spencer Tracy), keeps trying to reform him, while the other nightclub owners attempt to convince Norton to run for the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors in order to protect their crooked interests.

Norton knocks out a heckler during a speech in Golden Gate Park. Blackie wants to stop Mary singing at the Tivoli, he hears her and does not stop the opera. Mary meets Burley's mother (Jessie Ralph) at her Nob Hill mansion. She tells Mary, she started out as Massie, the washerwoman in 1850 on Portsmouth Square; then, she married the elder Burley. Despite Father Tim's best efforts, Blackie remains a jaunty Barbary Coast atheist. However, Father Tim tells Mary that the new church organ was paid for by Blackie.

Mary returns to the Paradise and is dressed in a skimpy fashion; Father Tim takes her from the Paradise and Blackie. On order of Burley, April 17, 1906 the San Francisco Police Department padlocks the Paradise. Mary sings the song San Francisco and wins the Chicken's Ball for the Paradise; Blackie refuses the prize money. Then, at 5:13 a.m. April 18, 1906, the earthquake hits and then the fires erupt. The water mains are broken. Mat has been taken from the destroyed Hall of Justice on Washington Street; a nurse tells Blackie, Mat will not survive, as Mat says he was wrong about Mary. Blackie goes to Nob Hill and sees Mrs. Burley (she senses her son has died, and Blackie saw the dead Burley) as the US Army troops from the Presidio prepare to blow up the mansions as firebreaks. Father Tim takes Blackie to Golden Gate Park. Blackie sinks to his knees and finds God upon discovering that Mary survived. Men yell, "The fire's out!" and "We'll build a new San Francisco!" The people (a surprisingly multi-racial group, given the era of the film) march from Golden Gate Park, arm-in-arm, singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the smoldering ruins dissolve into the "modern" San Francisco of the mid 1930's.

Production

The earthquake montage sequence was created by montage expert Slavko Vorkapich. The Barbary Coast barroom set was built on a special platform that rocked and shook to simulate the historical temblor. (Similar sets were built for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake).

There are two versions of the ending. The original release features a stylish montage of then-current (1936) scenes of a bustling San Francisco, including Market Street and the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. When the film was re-released in 1948, it was thought these scenes were dated and the film fades out on a single long shot of the modern business district. However, the TV and 16mm versions of the film seen in the 1950s and 60s were struck from the original version which includes the montage. The current DVD and cable version features the shorter, 1948 version.

Gable and Tracy also made two other films together, Test Pilot and Boom Town, before Tracy eventually insisted on the same top billing clause in his MGM contract that Gable had enjoyed, effectively ending the American cinema's most famous screen team.

Gable had played a similar character also named "Blackie" two years earlier in the smash hit gangster epic Manhattan Melodrama, with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

Music

The title song may be the best-remembered part of the film. It was composed by Bronislaw Kaper and Walter Jurmann, with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It is sung by Jeanette MacDonald a half-dozen times in the film, and becomes an anthem for the survivors of the earthquake. It has now a popular sentimental sing-along at public events such as the city's annual earthquake commemoration, as well as one of two official city songs, along with "I Left My Heart in San Francisco".

Early in the film the song "The Darktown Strutters Ball" can be heard; this is a historically inaccurate inclusion, since the song was written in 1917.

During the two operatic scenes in the film, MacDonald sang excerpts from Charles Gounod's Faust and Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata.

Academy Awards

The film won one Academy Award and was nominated for five more.

Award	Result	Winner
Outstanding Production	Nominated	MGM (John Emerson and Bernard H. Hyman) Winner was Hunt Stromberg (MGM) - The Great Ziegfeld
Best Director	Nominated	W. S. Van Dyke Winner was Frank Capra - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Best Actor	Nominated	Spencer Tracy Winner was Paul Muni - The Story of Louis Pasteur
Best Writing (Original Story)	Nominated	Robert Hopkins Winner was Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney - The Story of Louis Pasteur
Best Assistant Director	Nominated	Joseph M. Newman Winner was Jack Sullivan - The Charge of the Light Brigade
Best Sound Recording	Won	Douglas Shearer

Other awards

Year	Award	Result	Category	Recipient
1936	Photoplay Awards	Won	Medal of Honor	John Emerson and Bernard H. Hyman

References

• Elisabeth Buxbaum: Veronika, der Lenz ist da. Walter Jurmann – Ein Musiker zwischen den Welten und Zeiten. Mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Alexander Sieghardt. Edition Steinbauer, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-902494-18-2

External links

• San Francisco at the Internet Movie Database
• San Francisco at Rotten Tomatoes
• San Francisco at AllRovi
• San Francisco at Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy: A Tribute
• San Francisco showing at the Regal Stonehouse Glos 1937