The exciting final scenes of the movie take place at Candlestick Park, opened in 1960 as the permanent home of the Giants baseball team which had moved three years earlier from New York to San Francisco. The team played their first two seasons at Seals Stadium during construction of the new stadium.
... In 1961 ... This vintage photo shows the stadium as it was the year the movie scenes were filmed. It was designed in the traditional manner with semicircular stands. The stadium is located at Candlestick Point in the Bayview district (map).
... and Now, here is Candlestick Park today as viewed on Google Earth. The original section (on the right) is mostly unchanged but the stands were extended into a full oval when the San Francisco 49ers football team moved here from Kezar Stadium in 1971. They shared the stadium with the Giants before they moved in 2000 to their newly built ballpark in the South Beach neighborhood.
Then ... The cab drops Kelly off at the pedestrian bridge (seen at bottom right in the stadium images above) and she crosses over to the stadium.
... and Now, the bridge was still in use in 2012 when CitySleuth visited the stadium.
... update ... all of the 'Now' photos in this post were taken in 2012 when CitySleuth was fortunate enough to gain unlimited access. Fortunate, because in 2015 the venerable ballpark was torn down. In this photo the bridge, at upper left, is left disconnected from the stadium mid-demolition.
Then ... Inside the stadium the game has started - the Giants are playing the Los Angeles Dodgers that night and in the background we hear the play-by-play by Vin Scully, the well-known Dodgers announcer. A policeman, one of many posted around the stadium by agent Ripley, looks out from a box.
... and Now, the same view looking down on a pristine grass surface laid shortly before CitySleuth's visit.
Then ... Kelly takes her seat in the Lower Reserve, just below the overhanging boxes. Behind her on the back wall the letters 'Sec 8' can be seen, so she is seated in the adjacent Section 6.
... and Now, in a comment on the previous post reader Doug Leurey challenged CitySleuth to find the actual seat she sat in. To do this he noted that there was a railing in front of her (above) and that the row in front of it was clear of seats for snack vendor access. Today that row is filled in with seats but there are marks in the concrete floor where the railing used to be, identifying Kelly's row as Row 2. Also, there was no aisle seat next to her so her seat, using the current numbering, would be Section 6 Lower Reserved, Row 2 Seat 2.
Then ... The game ends without Red Lynch, the extortionist, trying to contact her. The crowd files out, seen here outside the Section 6 Lower Reserve exit.
... and Now, the recent photo shows little change, even the men's room is in the same spot.
Lynch, hiding behind sunglasses and hoodie, grabs Kelly in the midst of the surging crowd.
Then ... The police move in and Ripley manages to grab Lynch but he breaks free and rushes down through the now empty stadium and onto the field, pausing on the pitcher's mound.
... and Now, the baseball field is a football surface but these were the original stands and they still look the same viewed from this vantage point.
Then ... In this shot, viewed from the pitcher's mound looking past the visitor's dugout, the police look like ants as they swarm in pursuit down the aisles and through the seats.
... and Now, these same Sections 8, 10, 12 and 16 still match up except that some of the original aisles have been filled in with seats, readily discernible by the darker hue. The third base dugout is still there (their white chairs are barely visible).
Then ... Justice is served when a brief shootout leaves Lynch dramatically dead on the pitcher's mound - Ripley himself finally gets his man. In the background is the scoreboard, between two banks of stadium lights (also seen above in the top photo of this post).
... and Now, the location where the pitcher's mound used to be is marked by the arrow, below. The football stands added after the 49ers took over the park pass in front of where the scoreboard used to be, between the two sets of stadium light poles in the background.
Meanwhile Toby has been found safe by the police and she and Kelly are reunited in a satisfyingly happy conclusion conforming to Hollywood's moral standard of the time: crime does not pay.
Elsa spots O'Hara inside the Mandarin theater and calls Li, her servant, from backstage. The call is routed through the Chinese Telephone Exchange to his room.
Then ... Li may be a humble servant but his place has a spectacular view of Telegraph Hill and the waterfront.
... and Now, this is the same view - it was taken from the tower of the Fairmont Hotel, so we conclude that Li's room was a studio set using, for the window view, a photograph taken from the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill (map). Columbus Avenue bisects the picture at an angle from left to right - the buildings below it have seen many changes, those above it, few.
Then ... When Li exits his house with two cronies the studio setting is confirmed ...
... on the back lot ... because this, as were several other scenes in the movie, was filmed at the Columbia Ranch back lot in Burbank, Southern California, on Brownstone Street near Skid Row. (see here for a map of the ranch). Below is a shot from a 1949 Batman and Robin TV show, filmed at Columbia Ranch, showing the same houses. The back lot is now called Warner Ranch and is still operational but these particular houses and streets were destroyed by fire years ago.
Then ... Director Welles adds more trickery when he cuts to the police heading towards the theater.
... and Now, why trickery? Because this isn't San Francisco's Chinatown - it's Los Angeles' Chinatown! (CitySleuth thanks reader Opium Museum who brought this to his attention). It looks south down Sun Mun Way just inside the East Gate of Old Chinatown at 951 N. Broadway (map).
Below, Elsa joins O'Hara in the theater to find him struggling to stay conscious under the influence of the pills he downed at the courthouse. But he's aware enough to figure out that she was the one who killed Grisby, the murder he was being tried for. We see from her ice-cold reaction that he is right but he collapses and Elsa's Chinese mafia move in and cart him off.
Sheila receives an alarming anonymous note - somebody out there knows! But who? Rivera in particular is shaken to the core.
Then ... They surreptitiously meet in a park to discuss their predicament The camera follows Sheila as she walks towards her lover, tracing out a panorama of the location.
... and Now, this is the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park (map). The path they are on borders the east side of the Main Pond (arrowed on the detailed map below). The bridge in the center background is the Long Bridge, leading to the Pagoda in the center of the garden.
The Japanese Tea Garden was originally built on its present site in 1894. During World War II, when the word 'Japanese' became an anathema, it was renamed the Oriental Tea Garden, officially reverting back in 1954. A detailed map of today's 5 acre garden is shown below with the arrow marking precisely where this scene was filmed.
Then ... They walk a few steps along the path and perhaps overdo the guilty look as a warden cautions that the park will soon close. We now see a stone lantern behind them and across the pond steep steps lead up to the Pagoda.
... and Now, the same lantern may be listing, but it's still there, as too are the steps and the five-tieredPagoda. (Incidentally, the Tea Garden was also seen again eight years later in the movie Petulia).
Without knowing who had sent the note there is not a lot they can do, but Rivera is already anticipating where this could lead ...
" ... it depends on who it is and how dangerous ... you can trap a fox but - a wolf has to be killed"
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Walter tells his story to the investigators but, to minimize scandal, tells them the man who attacked him was a hitchhiker - a stranger, a fabrication he would soon regret. The police then bring in his jailed wife Irene and the two confront each other. She is shocked, not only to see Walter alive, but also to realize it was her lover Torrence who had died in the car crash. She quickly and cleverly accuses Walter of having killed Torrence and, because he had falsely claimed he picked up a stranger, the police arrest him and release Irene.
Then ... Once again the newspapers, the only source of in-depth news coverage in those days, trumpet the latest twist in the closely followed case.
... and Now, this is Union Square at the corner where Post Street crosses Powell (map). Cable car tracks of the Powell - Hyde and Powell - Mason lines still climb the hill up Powell Street and note too the decorative row of globed lamp-posts which, more than sixty years on, still span the whole block in front of the St Francis Hotel.
Then ... Another newspaper vendor is shown on the first block of Market Street in front of the Ferry Building. He is facing where Steuart Street tees in and over on the left Sacramento Street angles in to the Embarcadero.
... and Now, today's view from the same spot, (map), is far more expansive because that Sacramento corner block and the original first Market block were demolished as part of the Embarcadero waterfront redevelopment. The 'Welcome To San Francisco' roof sign that faced the incoming ferries, above, now reads 'Port Of San Francisco'. (What's mercifully missing from the time between these Then and Now images is the monstrous Embarcadero freeway, built in the late 50s and torn down in the early 90s).
... from 1964 ... OK, CitySleuth will relent and show you the ugly two-level edifice that for more than 30 years (until the divine intervention of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake) isolated the iconic Ferry Building from the rest of the city. The result, above, more than justifies the decision to remove, not repair, the freeway.
Then ... Finally, we see papers being sold at the intersection of Powell and Market Streets (map). The view looks along Powell, and a cable car is on the turntable behind the crossing crowd. The Owl Drugstore on the right is on the corner of Market.
... and Now, the turntable is still an essential part of the cable car system and the Gap clothing store has replaced the drugstore. (This same junction was featured two years earlier in the movie Dark Passage).
