Then ... Helen returns to her rented room at a Reno boarding house on a well-to-do street lined with mature trees and lets her landlady know she will be returning to San Francisco the next morning.
... and Now, CitySleuth is still searching for this location and would be delighted if in the meantime a reader might recognize where it is and let him know.
Then ... But first, one last fling at the Northern Club casino where we get a glimpse of its glitzy neon awning and marquee.
... a vintage photo ... There is a Northern Club in Reno but reader HH has pointed out that the exterior above was filmed at the Northern Club at 15 E. Fremont Street in Las Vegas; the Northern closed in 1942 so 5 years later the moviemakers used stock footage for this shot. Here's a vintage photo of the club c.1940.
... another vintage photo ... and here's another photo from the same viewpoint as in the movie. It was taken in 1942, the year the club closed as the Northern. The Las Vegas club and the newly opened Pioneer are further down the block.
... and Now, when the Northern closed, the Turf club took its place. In turn that became the Monte Carlo club then the Coin Castle and in 1999 the LaBayou which is still there under the lofty metal canopy that today covers a four block stretch - the 'Fremont Street Experience' (map).
Helen is drawn to a lively craps table and joins in, betting against the shooter, Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney). An animal attraction is immediately apparent, a fateful meeting destined to doom them both.
Up walks a neighbor, Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell) - she lives next door to Helen's boarding house - with a boyfriend, Danny (Tony Barrett). She confides to Helen that she is also dating Sam but has brought Danny along to needle him and keep him honest. As we shall find out, bad idea.
( A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
Homer and the boys have dropped off his wife Yvonne at a nearby movie theater leaving the way clear for them to begin a typical night's carousing. First stop - the Ritz Cafe, a bar popular with the local native Indian community.
The bar, no longer there, was an unpretentious place with a prominent sign at the entrance encouraging its patrons to save money by drinking more ...
"Single Shot 30 cents, Double Shot 50 cents"
In the bar, Homer (Homer Nish) sits with a group of friends and listens somewhat impatiently ... to their troubles, how much money they just lost gambling, girlfriend problems and on and on. He confides in voiceover that he's the type who would much rather walk around town, find excitement, provoke fights.
Then ... later in a view looking north up Main Street the camera captures the Ritz, showing us where it used to be (note the same sign on the front door seen in the interior shot above). The bar was at 312 1/2 S. Main Street near 3rd (map). Next to it, from R to L, the Olympic Men's Shop at 312, Downtown Luggage at 310, Milan Hotel (the bright doorway globe) at 308, Murray's Tailors at 306, Prudent Cut-Rate at 302, Karl's Shoes at 300 and, across 3rd Street, Enderle Hardware at 264 S. Main.
... and Now, the whole block has been leveled and rebuilt, replacing this section with a parking lot. The neighborhood may have been bordering on the seedy but was that reason enough to snuff out its store-filled thrive? (Readers may want to check out a sampling of the George Mann Bunker Hill archive color photographs here and decide for themselves).
The neon glow in this peek down the block at night when Homer leaves the Ritz (below) is quite a contrast to the same view in the sobering early morning light (the 'Then' image above). That solitary globe right of center modestly announces the entrance to the Milan Hotel.
A pawn shop tip leads the police to a gun used in a recent liquor store hold-up. The retrieved bullets match exactly those pumped into Cullen's lover's husband. Cullen is gob-smacked, after all hadn't he personally thrown the gun from the Golden Gate Bridge into the depths of the bay?
Then ... Cullen and brother Andy follow up the lead, interviewing the fisherman whose wife had pawned the gun. In one of of those happenstances that any noir movie worth its salt simply has to have, it turns out he had snagged the gun in his net.
... and Now, this was filmed at the north edge of the Fisherman's Wharf harbor (map). in both images we see a boardwalk mid-harbor and beyond that the neighborhood rises to the top of Russian Hill.
... and Now, an aerial view, the arrow marks the spot where the movie camera filmed the scene, aimed across the harbor in the direction of the arrow.
... the same aerial view in 1951, In the vintage photo below note that when the movie was filmed the boardwalk connected across the harbor via a footbridge, since removed. On a trivia note, the 1950 San Francisco movie Woman On The Run did a location shoot on this same boardwalk.
Then ... The detectives take the fisherman to his house to interview the wife - they are seen here on the steps leading to both of the gabled houses; it isn't made clear which of them was meant to be the fisherman's place because the scene faded out at this point but CitySleuth opts for the upstairs unit of the smaller one, given his modest income. This is 287A Union Street (map) just above the Calhoun Terrace cul-de-sac near the top of Telegraph Hill.
... and Now, these historic houses (amongst the lucky few at the top of Telegraph Hill that narrowly escaped the 1906 fire) have since seen a number of changes. The stairs have been redesigned, almost hiding the smaller gable from this angle, and the house with the taller gable, number 289, has gained height. Again, coincidentally, these same houses also made an appearance in Woman On The Run. The boxy apartment building now on the corner of Calhoun Terrace was built on the site of the notorious bohemian Hoeffler compound, the revolving-door home to artists and writers in the early 20th century.
Then ... Inside the house the wife swears up and down that nobody else had seen the gun before she pawned it, but concedes they have a 20 year old unemployed son living with them. This scene was obviously filmed on a studio soundstage because the view from their window is from a completely different location. Fortunately CitySleuth recognized it.
... and Now, that gabled building is the Brocklebank Apartments at 1000 Mason Street on Nob Hill, famously the home of Kim Novak's mysterious Madeleine in the 1958 classic Vertigo. Based on the direction and angle, this view must have been taken from the roof of the Bently Nob Hill apartments at 1360 Jones Street. CitySleuth was once on that roof to match another rooftop shot from 1947's The Lady From Shanghai) but he got this close match from 1310 Jones on the same block.
... and Now, in a reverse view this recent photo of Nob Hill taken from the Hilton Hotel at Portsmouth Square shows 1360 Jones (arrow at right) and the Brocklebank (arrow at left). Back in 1950 when the movie was filmed 1360 Jones and its highrise neighbor at 1250 Jones - the taller one with the mast - punctuated the skyline as lone sentinels with no other tall buildings around them.
Helen Brent from San Francisco has just spent six weeks in Reno to meet the Nevada state residency requirement for a divorce.
Then ... The movie opens with a shot of Reno's iconic arch spanning Virginia Street at Commercial Row (map).
... and Now, the arch has undergone changes over the decades. Here it is today, the third version since it was originally installed in 1926.
Then ... The camera looks south down Virginia Street with casinos, cafes and bars lining the street on both sides. The Riverside Hotel faces us from the other side of the Truckee River where Virginia Street chicanes around to the left. That's the shadow of the arch in the near foreground.
... in the 1950s ... a picture postcard view taken a few years later shows the same scene in glorious color. Additional casinos have appeared by this time, undoubtedly the heyday of the Reno strip. The Riverside then was the hotel of choice by the well-heeled for their six week divorce residency.
... and Now, Harolds Club and the Nevada Club on the left are gone now, victims of the competitive success of rival Harrah's and other newer, flashier casinos. The Riverside Hotel building is still there although the hotel closed in 1987, eventually replaced by retail stores and artists' lofts.
Then ... Helen and her attorney emerge from the courthouse.
... and Now, this is the Washoe County Courthouse on Virginia Street a few blocks south of the Reno Arch (map), still there and still in use. It was built in 1911 with a neo-classical design that incorporated the original 1872 courthouse within it.
Helen (Claire Trevor) thanks the attorney for securing her divorce and bids him goodbye. Her smart outfit is the first of many that she wears with style throughout the movie. A classy dame to be sure but as we shall see, this being the dark world of noir, she too has a dark side.