Then … Jo and Steve talk about Chan as they cut through Ross Alley, the oldest (dating from 1849) of Chinatown’s 41 alleyways. The alley (formerly named Stout Alley) runs north-south between Jackson and Washington (map). They are approaching 32 Ross Alley, which at that time was the Gin Alan barber shop.
… and Now, 32 Ross Alley has been Amy’s Hair Shop since 2018. But for many decades before that it was Jun Yu’s Barber Shop; he was well-known for taking breaks between customers to play his erhu (a two-stringed bowed musical instrument popular in China) for passers-by.
Here he is doing exactly that. Many celebrities have over the years stopped by at Jun Yu’s for a haircut, including Frank Sinatra and Michael Douglas. He has been featured on local TV and in The Pursuit Of Happyness, qualifying him to proudly tell his listeners “I am movie star!”. (Photo by Henk Binnendijk).
Ross Alley has come a long way from its early days when Chinatown’s population was predominantly male (resulting from the discriminatory 1875 Page Act that prevented Chinese immigrant workers from bringing their wives and family into the U.S.). They would find solace in its opium dens, drinking joints, gambling parlors and brothels. This photo of the alley, titled Street Of The Gamblers, is part of Arnold Genthe’s Chinatown series. It was taken eight years before the 1906 earthquake and fire reduced Chinatown in its entirety to ashes before it was reborn in its present form.
Then … In this shot carefully framed to add a converging lines effect Jo and Steve walk past a residential apartment doorway at 20 1/2 Ross Alley.
… and Now, here’s the same doorway today. To take this matching shot CitySleuth couldn’t stand in the narrow passage (above) because its access has been blocked off.
Here’s that blocked passage. There are many of them in Chinatown linking streets and alleys which CitySleuth thinks were included in the post earthquake and fire rebuild of the area as exit routes in case of another disaster. But over the years they have all been blocked off, as too is the one above. When Jo and Steve walked by the passage, number 37 (below) was an Asian dive bar, the Rickshaw Cocktail lounge, where John Lennon and Ringo Starr spent an evening boozing it up before and after closing hour following the Beatles’ Cow Palace performance in 1964.
Then … As they continue on they pass another since-vanished bar, Danny’s Dynasty Lounge at 20 Ross Alley, directly opposite the Rickshaw Cocktail Lounge.
… and Now, post-pandemic visitors were back in force when CitySleuth took this matching photo. The crowd down the alley is lined up at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory at 56 Ross Alley.
The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has, since 1962, attracted more visitors to Ross Alley than any other business. In its compact space three part-time employees hand-fold, by their estimate, around 10,000 fortune cookies a day. (Fortune cookies by the way are a San Franciscan creation, unheard of in China).
Then … Along from the Dynasty Lounge they walk by the Canton Flower Shoppe at 12 Ross Alley. Steve tells Joe that Chan has no sense of humor because he didn’t get a joking comment he made. In voiceover Jo tells us that to the contrary, that was Chan’s way of pulling Steve’s leg.
… and Now, the Chinese Christian Mission, closed when this photo was taken, now occupies the number 12 address.
Ross Alley has been a magnet for more than gamblers, drinkers, addicts, johns and tourists; artists too have found it hard to resist. On the left is a 1921 etching by John William Winkler with a focus on family; on the right a contemporary ink-on-paper drawing by Paul Madonna, who resides in San Francisco. Paul leaves the alley’s goings-on to the imagination of the viewer.
Then … Bannister is about to begin his defense of O’Hara. Elsa meets him at the courthouse, worried that he is intent on losing the case, a verdict that would conveniently send his wife’s lover to the gas chamber. At first glance, this appears to have been filmed in the Fairmont Hotel’s Laurel Court at 950 Mason Street in Nob Hill.
… in 1907 … here’s a vintage image of the Laurel Court taken when the rebuilt Fairmont Hotel reopened after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire. Note the chandelier hanging from the diamond-patterned domes, the marble pillars topped with ‘ram’s horn’ capitals and the ornate lamps attached to the side of the pillars. All of these features are seen above.
and Now, the ceiling of the Laurel Court has three of those large domes; the center one, below, still has its original chandelier. The wall and ceiling surfaces have been redone and the lamps removed from the pillars but the architecture remains unchanged. Note the design of the railings in the center of the room, also evoking ram’s horns, the same as in the movie view in the ‘Then’ image above.
But the movie scene was filmed not at the Fairmont but on a Columbia Pictures movie set that reproduced in great detail the Laurel Court architecture. Why go to so much trouble and expense? Just ask Alfred Hitchcock who recreated San Francisco’s Ernie’s restaurant, both interior and exterior, at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for a scene in ‘Vertigo”.
While Elsa greets her husband and his associate a couple climbs a staircase behind them. This is the biggest clue revealing that the location was a movie set - the only staircases in the Laurel Court are and always have been the two large curved staircases in the center of the room (above).
and Now, for additional confirmation, CitySleuth walked the Fairmont’s Laurel Court with chief concierge Tom Wolfe searching for the same alignment of doorway, pillars, railings and steps as in the movie scene. The closest match in the room is that pictured below but in comparing it with the Then image above, the alignment is different and there are no railings or stairs here. Neither do the striations in the marble pillars match. Tom and CitySleuth both concluded the movie scene could not have been filmed here.
In the 1948 movie I Remember Mama there was another amazingly realistic studio recreation, this one of the Fairmont’s lobby area, described in more detail here.
Then … Callahan visits Chico recovering in hospital from the injuries suffered in the shootout at the Mount Davidson Cross. The south-facing view shows the Army Street gas holder on the left, BayView Hill in the center and San Bruno Mountain in the far right distance. This was filmed on a rooftop patio at San Francisco General Hospital in the Mission district where San Bruno Avenue (seen through the window) tees into 23rd Street (map).
… in 1937 … that building has since been demolished but here’s a great 1937 photo of it showing the building as it still was in 1971 for Dirty Harry. Situated on 23rd Street facing San Bruno Avenue, it was known as the Chest Building. The arrow points to the rooftop patio where this scene took place.
and Now … the building was replaced by the hospital’s Building 5 in 1976 but that in turn has been recently replaced by this new Research and Development Building, scheduled for completion in 2023.
Callahan tells Chico there’s a place for him in the department when he gets back but he and his wife have decided it’s best he should leave. The gabled roof seen through the window behind them is the one in the center of the building in the 1937 image above.
The visitors leave via a stairwell that’s open on two sides on each level all the way down.
The south-facing openings can be seen at far left in the 1937 image above and below; this camera’s POV of the opening seen in the capture above is the west side of the building around the corner as indicated by the arrow (note in each image the border of vertically oriented bricks at the top of the opening).
Then … In voiceover Jo tells us about Henry, the cook at the Golden Dragon restaurant at 816 Washington Street (map). (Infamously, in 1977 only 3 years before the movie was filmed, a gang-related shooting at this restaurant left 5 innocent diners dead and 11 injured).
… and Now, it was business as usual over the years after the massacre, then after being shut down in 2006 due to health inspection issues the restaurant reopened a few months later as the Imperial Palace; it’s still there today.
… and Now, but in a nod to its past it still advertises Golden Dragon dining.
The character of Henry (Peter Wang) was inspired by the real-life cook at Hon’s Wun-Tun House (still there at 648 Kearny Street) who used to wear a Star Wars tee-shirt. Henry wears a ‘Samurai Night Fever’ tee-shirt, in so doing mocking the way American entertainment mocked Asians. He sings “Fry me to the moon!” as he cooks. Between smoking and swigging milk he rants in Mandarin about American diners’ timid orders … “Ha! Three orders of sweet and sour pork! Damn! These stinky old Americans day to night just eat this!”.
The tee-shirt, a promo for a Samurai film festival at the Kokusai Theater, references John Belushi’s portrayal of Samurai Futaba (based on Toshiro Mifune’s role in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) in 16 Saturday Night Live TV episodes spanning 1975 to 1979, He spoke in mock-Japanese; he brandished his sword. Back then it was considered very funny. Today, less so.
Then … The 280-seat Kokusai Theater, at 1700 Post Street on the corner of Buchanan in Japantown (map), opened in 1971 as the Toho Theater and was renamed the Kokusai in 1972. A scene for Chan Is Missing, seen later in the movie, took place in the upstairs cocktail lounge at far right. The photo below from the 1980s shows it as it was when the movie was filmed.
… and Now, the theater was closed in 1987 by its owner who feared competition from the newly opened AMC Kabuki 8 complex down the road and who sensed an opportunity for a more profitable business; he converted it to a Denny’s restaurant. Several small businesses occupy its street-level space today.
Then … Jo and Steve enter the restaurant and tell the waitress they are there to talk to Henry. This is a street-level room judging by windows glimpsed along the back wall. But this interior is very different from the Golden Dragon’s interior; it must have been filmed somewhere else.
… on location … In this on set photo the low budget shoot is captured perfectly as cinematographer Michael Chin films the table shown above and sound man Curtis Choy stands behind the table; the lady who played the waitress doubles as a crew member, holding the boom.
Director Wayne Wang confirmed Citysleuth’s suspicion, revealing that the interior scenes were filmed in the then Ruby Palace restaurant at 631 Kearny Street near Portsmouth Square (map).
… and Now, 5 years after Chan was filmed the Ruby Palace became the R & G restaurant which is still in business there today. It has been extensively remodeled since then; the street-level space has been divided into a bar, the dining area shown below, and small private dining rooms.
When Jo asks about Chan Hung, Henry laments that he and Chan both studied aeronautical engineering at university together, but here in America they can only get jobs in a restaurant. Then when Taiwanese friends of his showed up recently Chan had rushed out the back door and hadn’t been seen since.
Then … when the next order arrives, for five won ton soups, Henry switches to English to tell the waiter … “We don’t have won ton soup - we have won ton spelled backwards - ‘not now!’ Hahaha!”
… on location … Wayne Wang and actors discuss the kitchen scene (photo by Nancy Wong).
… and Now, this too was filmed in the Ruby Palace. Its kitchen (R & G, below) has also seen changes but still retains the same feel.
Here’s a recent photo of the R & G Lounge; specializing in Cantonese cuisine, one of Chinatown’s most popular restaurants.
