The movie opens with a waterfront view of the Cabot Shipping Line pier.
Then ... This is a view down the side of Pier 22 located between Folsom and Harrison streets, close to the spot where the Bay Bridge (seen behind the pier) crosses the Embarcadero.
... and Now, this pier and other adjacent ones were removed as part of the waterfront renovation following the 1989 earthquake. The same view today shows a gap were it used to be (map). The Waterbar restaurant on the left sits right in front of where the pier entrance was and on the right is SFFD's Firehouse No. 35. The fireboat Guardian, in red and white livery, is berthed next to it, at what is now called Pier 22 1/2 - the bridge tower behind it is the one seen in the movie view above.
... a vintage photo ... we see Pier 22 in this 1941 photo. The firehouse is next to it on the right, then called Firehouse No. 9, one of only two surviving structures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, moved to this location in 1915. (The other survivor is the Palace of Fine Arts).
Then ... We next see the Cabot Line headquarters (or at least a model or a painting of it).
... a vintage photo ... the building is no longer there but this 1920s photo shows it as it was, the flat-iron Crocker Building at One Post Street at Market Street in the Financial District map).
... and Now, the Crocker Building sat on this spot from 1890 until it was replaced in 1969 (for shame!) by the sleek but featureless Aetna Building, below.
The invalided magnate Matthew Cabot (Lloyd Nolan) runs his shipping empire from his bedside. Cabot's wife Sheila (Lana Turner) looks on as he receives his daily injection from his doctor David Rivera (Anthony Quinn) but it soon becomes clear from Cabot's dismissive tone that the marriage is not going well.
The FBI has come up with a suspect with an asthmatic affliction and a modus operandi similar to Kelly's extortionist.
Then ... At the Hall of Justice the FBI agents are briefed on the suspect - Red Lynch. This room appears to be a studio set using, for the window view, a photo backdrop of the Mark Hopkins Hotel atop Nob Hill.
... and Now, the Mark Hopkins, at One Nob Hill (map), on the same skyline today, taken from the Hilton hotel which replaced the Hall of Justice at Portsmouth Square.
Then ... Agents fan out across town looking for someone who might recognise Red Lynch's mug shot and know where he's to be found. Here they are about to hop off a cable car cresting the Hyde Street hill at Lombard Street on Russian Hill (map), with Alcatraz and Angel Island in the background.
... and Now, thankfully, the Powell-Hyde cable cars still climb this hill, indeed what would San Francisco be without them? The car wheels at left in both Then and Now images show that safe parking on the city's steep hills have been second nature to San Franciscans for a long time.
Then ... The camera swings right as the agent walks towards the top of the famous crooked street section of Lombard Street, probably oblivious of the best Coit Tower vista in town.
... and Now, tourists' cars continually navigate the eight switchbacks installed in 1922 to tame the block's 27 degree slope.
Then ... The agents are next seen near the St Francis Yacht Club with a view across the yacht harbor to Marina Boulevard (map). A very similar shot was seen 11 years earlier in the 1951 movie The House On Telegraph Hill (see that here).
... and Now, new berths are being built in this recent photo of the same view - at far left are the sheds of the old US Army post at Fort Mason. To their right is Coit Tower and the skyline of Russian Hill.
Then ... Agent Ripley enters a church, St Francis of Assisi at 610 Vallejo Street in North Beach (map).
... and Now, the church looks just the same - sidewalk trees prevent a full matching shot but here's the entrance.
... and Now, from across the street.
Inside the church Ripley strikes it lucky. The priest has seen Red Lynch many times with one of his parishioners.
After Judy's transformation she and Scottie decide to eat out - she fancies Ernie's but he suggests they head out of town. She becomes increasingly nervous as the miles rack up ... what she doesn't know is that when she had changed to go out Scottie had recognized her necklace as matching the one that Carlotta wore in the portrait (see that earlier post here). He now knows that she had been impersonating Madeleine and tells her "there's one final thing I have to do, and then I'll be free of the past".
Then ... We see them on the same stretch of road as earlier when Scottie had driven Madeleine to the mission at San Juan Bautista (see that here).
... and Now, the same view, looking south down Highway 101 just south of the 156 East turn-off to San Juan Bautista.
Then ... He arrives at the San Juan Bautista mission and drags her towards the bell tower. By now she knows he's on to her and, scared, tries to resist, but to no avail.
... and Now, this footage was filmed on a studio sound stage but the mockup was closely based on the real cloisters, seen below in this recent photo.
Scottie knows that if he makes it to the top of the tower (he had failed the first time and watched helplessly as Madeleine fell to her death) then his vertigo affliction will be cured. In an incredibly dramatic denouement he forces Judy up the vertiginous stairs (also filmed on a studio set), getting her to confess on the way. They make it to the top where, as she clings to him, professing her love, she sees something move. A step backwards, a scream, and she is gone.
It was a just a nun who had followed them. The movie ends with Scottie staring down in disbelief at the loss, for the second time, of his beloved Madeleine.
Taking advantage of the courtroom commotion O'Hara flees from the Hall of Justice.
Then ... He rushes across Kearny Street and into Portsmouth Square (map), the birthplace of the city in that the American flag was first raised here in 1846, in the plaza of the Mexican town of Yerba Buena, by Capt. John Montgomery of the USS Portsmouth. The square was named after the ship. Note the simple elegance of the square then, conforming to the natural grade. In 1873 the first cable car in America climbed the Clay Street hill seen in the background.
... and Now, the rebuilt square, at the behest of the Chinatown community, is now a split-level park with multi-level parking below it. Yes, it's a community gathering place now and it helped deal with the pressing parking problem but did it have to end up so cluttered, an urban eyesore?
Then ... From a courthouse window Elsa sees O'Hara bolt across the square. In the center of the square we see the 1897 monument to the memory of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson who had lived for a time in San Francisco.
... in 1941 ... here's a closer look at the monument in a vintage photo.
... and Now, the monument, with its billowing golden sails, is still there (below), a mollification of the historically-minded opponents of the parking garage project, but it was moved over to the west side of the square.
Those of you who are historically inclined will enjoy this terrific 1906 photo showing the monument (foreground, left of center) and the post-earthquake remains of the 'original' Hall of Justice; it was subsequently replaced in 1910 by the 'old' Hall of Justice, the one seen in this movie.
Then ... Elsa pursues him through the square - the monument's plinth is on the right. Behind her is the Kearny block between Merchant and Clay, next to the Hall of Justice just out of the picture at left.
... and Now, the same block shows little change in over 60 years. In the foreground a familiar sight these days - tightly gathered Chinatown denizens vociferously following a hotly contested board game.