( A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
By far the most popular market in Bunker Hill was the Grand Central Market, originally opened in the Homer Laughlin building in 1917 and still there to this day serving the local community. The market stretches the length of a block between entrances on Broadway and Hill Street (map). In this scene we will meet Yvonne, a young woman who has moved to Los Angeles from her Apache Indian reservation in San Carlos, Arizona.
Then ... These bustling shoppers are outside the entrance at 317 S. Broadway. The partially visible 'Broadway' sign in the background is on the corner of 4th Street.
... and Now, downtown merchants no doubt wish for those 1950s shopping crowds but the market is still going strong, as are those same street lamps.
Then ... The inside is packed with merchants and shoppers who find their way using the bright neon signs displaying wares and stall numbers.
... and Now, the market conducts business at a more leisurely pace and neon signs still add color but the biggest difference half a century later is the shoppers themselves, mostly latino, reflecting the evolution of the neighborhood.
The camera closes in on Yvonne (Yvonne Williams), the first of the movie's three featured characters (all were residents of the neighborhood, none of them actors). As she wanders around the market she shares her thoughts in voiceover with an accent distinctive of the reservation from which she came. She is pregnant and just like any immigrant mother-to-be her main dream is for her child to have a better life than hers.
Then ... She leaves the market via its the other entrance, on the 300 block of Hill Street. The view looks towards the shops on the west side of the street and in the upper left corner note the Union Auto parking lot advertising 25 cent parking.
Then ... the following movie shot looks over that same parking lot to the east side of Hill Street (the 25 cent sign can be seen but the poster next to it has changed). Grand Central Market is at far left, the entrance, above, that Yvonne exited is just out of the picture. Note the other market, how could it compete?
... and Now, the downhill terminus of the relocated Angel's Flight funicular sits on that parking lot today. Grand Central Market is seen across Hill Street at far left. (See where Angel's Flight used to be, here).
... in the 1940s ... this vintage photo was taken over a decade earlier than the movie but it shows us how the market would still have looked when the movie was filmed.
... in the 1960s ... two years after the movie's release the entrance was spiffed up with this gleaming new tile facade. Note too the different street lamps book-ending the market.
... and Now, here's a recent photo of the Hill Street entrance. The two buildings beyond have been replaced by a multi-story parking structure on the corner of 3rd Street and the houses at right are now a small plaza.
When Cullen arrives at his lover Lois's home she tells him her husband is planning to kill her for her money. While he was at the airport on a business trip she had found his hidden gun but as they speak the husband sneaks through the back door intent on carrying out his plan. She confronts him; the gun in her hand goes off and he falls dead.
Then ... Cullen is a homicide lieutenant. Does he arrest her? No way, not in the noir world, instead he decides on a cover-up. They load the body in his car and he drives off to dump it at the airport, then known as San Francisco Municipal Airport, a logical place given that he was supposed to be there. (Coincidentally, this same terminal was also seen a year earlier in the movie Impact).
... in 1938 ... this vintage photo gives us a better view of the terminal. It was built in the 1930s and served passengers until the mid 1950s when a new terminal, named Central Terminal, was built nearby.
... and Now, Central Terminal was later renamed Terminal 2 and expanded over the years to the current structure shown below (map). The original terminal above was torn down in the 1980s. San Francisco Municipal Airport was renamed San Francisco International Airport in 1955.
Cullen deposits the corpse at the airport and takes off, unfortunately for him witnessed by a couple in a parked car.
Then ... He decides a perfect place to dispose of the murder weapon would be the deep waters of the San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge. But when he pulls up to the toll booth he is recognized by a fellow cop. His plan is off to a rocky start ...
... and Now, these north-bound booths (map) have been removed. The south-bound are still there, retaining art deco design, but the toll-collectors were displaced in 2013 by FasTrak sensors.
Then ... Later in the movie we get another, daytime, view of the toll booths.
... and Now, there's still a clock mounted in the center.
Cullen pulls over on the bridge (today's traffic wouldn't allow that) and throws the gun over the railing, into the bay. Now he feels better; with no weapon any investigation will be severely hobbled.
Then ... Determined to do something about their addiction, Joe and Kirsten move in with her father (Charles Bickford) and help him run his nursery business while staying on the wagon.
... in the mid 1970s... The storyline sets this location as 'down the peninsula in San Mateo' but Citysleuth thinks that all of the nursery scenes were filmed on the Warner Bros. studio back lot in Burbank, seen in this 1970s aerial photo. If any reader knows to the contrary, please contact him.
After successfully staying sober for two months Joe brings home some hooch and Kirsten willingly helps him consume two bottles, one right after the other.
By now he is completely looped - he goes to the greenhouse to find a third bottle he had stashed away in one of the planter pots. In an astonishing performance which would have been comical were it not so disturbing he forgets which pot it was in and ends up destroying the entire inventory of the greenhouse before finding it.
He finished off that third bottle himself and ends up straitjacketed in a drying-out cell. He's really hit rock bottom now.
(A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
The Exiles begins with the sound of a beating drum behind a montage of 19th century Indian images - sun-baked wizened faces below feathered headdresses, riders single file on the open plains, tepees dotted around like haystacks, in short replaying the Indian stereotype of the 1950s.
Just as quickly, while tribal chants rise above the rhythmic beat another montage is shown of sun-baked, wizened clapboard lodging houses, badly in need at the very least of a coat of paint, the sort of inexpensive abodes in Bunker Hill where young reservation transplants looking for a better life in the big city could afford to live. We will soon meet such a group.
Then ... The steep streets of Bunker Hill imposed a fair amount of climbing on its denizens; for many the Angels Flight funicular, there since 1901 and seen here descending its track, was a godsend. For a nickel a ride a lot of shoe leather could be saved. Off to the side is a clear view of the Hillcrest Hotel and Sunshine Apartments residential buildings.
... and Now, Angels Flight soared alongside and above the 3rd Street tunnel between Hill and Olive Streets at the edge of downtown Los Angeles (map). The dotted line indicates the path of the funicular before it closed down in 1969 and the arrow points in the direction of the movie shot above. Today the tunnel has survived but all of the buildings alongside it on both sides were, after being declared unhealthy by the development-driven city government at the time, expurgated. A monolithic building now straddles the tunnel. Progress? Not.
Then ... When the funicular reaches its downhill terminus at Hill Street we get a better overall view including the three block tunnel and the upper terminus at Olive a block away. The Hillcrest Hotel and Sunshine Apartments can still be seen from this vantage point on the right hand side.
... and Now, this recent view is as good an example as any of the total annihilation of a neighborhood.
... in 1962 ... the dissection process was captured in this vintage photo of Angels Flight taken just three or four years after this movie scene was filmed, with all of the buildings to its left and the Hillcrest Hotel and Sunshine Apartments to its right already razed. Let's not even get into the thousands of Bunker Hill and adjacent Court Hill residents who were forced from their homes at this time in the name of urban renewal.
... and Now, Los Angeles gave a nod to nostalgia by resurrecting the dismantled funicular and reinstalling it in 1996 a half block south from its original location, again linking Hill and Olive. After an extended hiatus following a fatal accident the ride reopened - at 50 cents, 10 times the 1950s rate, it is worth it for the memories.