Then … Local FBI agents fan out across town searching for the buildings depicted in Igor Braun’s intercepted painting. At upper right the vertical corner sign, reading ‘Marines’, belongs to the Marines Memorial Club which tells us where this was filmed.
… and Now, The view looks south down Mason with Sutter crossing in the foreground (map). The Marines Memorial Club at 601 Sutter still occupies the southwest corner of this junction but traffic on Mason has since been changed to one-way. In both Then and Now images, steeply sloped streets on Potrero Hill are clearly visible way off in the distance.
Then … Next, we see an agent in a different part of town; this appears to be somewhere South of Market.
… and Now, sure enough, this is 6th Street, unchanged since the neighborhood’s post-1906 earthquake and fire rebuild (map). That’s Minna Street on the left and straight ahead across Market is the Golden Gate Theatre.
Then … The agents spot buildings that might be those in the drawing. This shot was filmed in a studio using a rear-projected cityscape. To CitySleuth it looks very familiar but something about it isn’t quite right …
… that’s because the moviemakers reversed the image when they projected it! So let’s reverse it back - now it makes sense - it’s a view west across the Marina looking towards the Presidio in the distance. The prominent building in the upper center is the Marina Middle School. The eyesore gas holder at right used to be on the corner of Bay and Laguna.
… and Now, the movie’s view was taken from a Russian Hill apartment building, 1090 Chestnut on the corner of Larkin (map), as was the recent photo below. (That same building also appeared in the 1947 movie Dark Passage, described here by CitySleuth). The school is still there but the gas holder has been replaced by the Marina Cove Apartments.
They check the buildings in the painting …
Then … Bingo! The agent says “That’s it alright, it’s painted from the rear of one of those houses on Clay Street”. But this is nowhere near Clay Street; note the ‘McRoskey Airflex’ sign on the building at left - a giveaway as to where this actually is.
… and Now, both buildings are still there today, in the Mid Market section of Market Street. On the left is the McRoskey Mattress Company, a local family business founded in 1899 that has been at this 1687 Market Street location since 1925 (map). On the right is the Allen Hotel at 1693 Market which survived a fire in 1998 and today is a low-income housing facility with on-site support services.
In summary, the moviemakers used geographical trickery for Igor Braun’s studio location. The agent describes it as being on Clay Street but he’s in Russian Hill when he spots it, and the houses across the street from it are on Market Street. All miles apart. Go figure.
Then … Mourners gather outside a church for Father Tomasino’s funeral.
… and Now, the church, also seen earlier behind the movie’s opening credits, is All Hallows Chapel at 1440 Newhall Street in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood (map). The view down the hill looks north along Newhall Street across Palou Avenue in the foreground.
Then … Outside the church Joe notices some unusual behavior…
… and Now, The three houses behind him, 1687, 1691 and 1695 Palou Avenue have aged well for being over 100 years old. They were built between 1890 and 1900, before All Hallows Chapel kitty-korner from them was built (in 1906).
One of the mourners, ex-parishioner Sylvio Malatesta (Gilbert Roland), is shaking uncontrollably - “going through the tortures of the damned”, as Joe would later tell his police chief. He is immediately suspicious.
Then … Malatesta stumbles across the street to his car and drives off, leaving Joe wondering if he could be the killer.
… and Now, the chapel’s entrance is exactly the same but without the palm trees. The neighboring building, on the corner of Oakdale avenue, was replaced in 1983 by All Hallows Community, 45 units of permanent affordable housing and supportive services for low-income seniors.
Joe takes his suspicions to his superiors but his request to be put on the case is rebuffed. Disgusted and frustrated, he hands in his badge.
Then … O’Hara establishes an office in San Francisco for his investigation of the suspected spy ring. City Hall at left tells where this is - the Federal Building in the Civic Center (map).
… and Now, the Federal Building was built in 1934-36. It was designed by Arthur Brown, the same architect who did the nearby Opera House and Veterans Building. The building was vacated in 2007 when the new Federal Building at 90 7th Street opened - in 2013 the current occupant, the U.S. General Services Administration, moved in after the building was renovated. The fountain in the foreground was added in the late 1970s as part of the United Nations Plaza addition.
… and Now, here’s a wider view of the building revealing its grand neo-classical design.
O’Hara is introduced to Scotty Grayson, a visiting Scotland Yard agent (Louis Hayward) who has brought information possibly related to the spy ring. He shows O’Hara a photo of an intercepted painting sent to London from San Francisco that under UV light exposed a key mathematical equation from critical nuclear research. They discover that it had been smuggled out of the Lakeview facility whose security is O’Hara’s responsibility.
The painting is of a balcony across the street from two buildings and is signed ‘Igor Braun”. Could this be the same Igor that Radchek had called before he was murdered? They posit that if they can identify those buildings it could lead them to Igor. The joint Scotland Yard/FBI location search is on.
Then … An overview shot of downtown looking east towards the Bay Bridge is shown as a segue into the search. It was filmed from the Clift Hotel at 495 Geary Street (map).
… and Now, a hotel guest took this matching view from his room at the Clift. Geary Street recedes past the St. Francis Hotel and Union Square, on the left side. The recently built SalesForce Tower, at 1070 feet the tallest building in the city, dominates the vista which now lacks a view of the bridge from here. A closer inspection though shows many of the buildings are still recognizable.
Then … The murder of priest Father Tomasino devastates Joe Martini (Tony Curtis), a motorcycle cop, who had grown up in an orphanage under the priest’s tutelage and guidance. In search of solace he visits the orphanage where a group of boys on a playground area below are delighted to see him.
… and Now, this was filmed at Mount St. Joseph Hill in the Bayview neighborhood (map). Today’s matching view looks south towards Bayview Hill with San Bruno Mountain in the far distance at upper right. The railway line on the right side, also visible above, is the Caltrain line approaching the Bayview tunnel that burrows its way beneath the hill. The name St. Eustace was fictitious but these scenes were filmed at a real orphanage - Mount St. Joseph’s School, at 1700 Newhall Street. It’s not there now and Newhall street on the left across from the playground (above) would be blocked in today’s view from this spot by the foreground buildings built since then.
… and Now, this closer look at Newhall Street reveals that most of the houses seen in the Then image above still look the same - the gabled yellow house at 1857 Newhall is the second house from the left in the Then image above.
Then and Now… The precise location where the orphanage scene was filmed is marked by the ‘X’ on this recent satellite map (the dotted line indicates the path of the underground railway tunnel). Click or tap the image to see a matching 1956 aerial view, revealing Mount St. Joseph’s school and the playground, clearly seen below the ‘X’ .
Then … Joe seeks the advice of the Mother Superior who does little to assuage his grief.
… and Now, the same view today, capturing three neighborhoods. At left is the Caltrain railway line cutting through the Bayview. The center foreground is the Portola neighborhood and behind that, Visitacion Valley. San Bruno Mountain spans the horizon in the far distance.
… a vintage photo … here’s Mount St. Joseph’s School in 1929; the building would have looked the same to the moviemakers in 1956 when the location filming took place at the left side of the school. The Catholic Sisters of Charity built this structure in brick in 1911 after the wooden orphanage on the same site burned down. The Sisters closed the orphanage in 1977; it was bought by a developer who demolished it to make way for the Silverview Terrace subdivision whose 144 homes hit the market starting in 1984.
… and Now, in this same view from the junction of Newhall Street (crossing) and Bay View Street the Silverview Terrace houses beyond the palm tree sit on what used to be the landscaped area seen above in front of the orphanage school.
