Back at Janet’s high-ceilinged studio Andy can’t fathom why Ed is so dismissive of important clues in the murder case. He is close to realizing that his brother is covering up his own involvement. These interior scenes were most likely filmed on a studio sound stage.
But when later in the movie Ed drops Janet off in front of her studio, this was filmed at a real location …
Then … She heads for her front door, a novel entrance with a drawbridge. CitySleuth is indebted to Craig Owens, host of the entertaining blog bizarrela.com, for finding this interesting building.
… and Now, It’s supposed to be in San Francisco but the building is actually in Los Angeles, at 2064 Argyle Avenue in the Hollywood Hills (map). It still looks exactly the same. (Photo by Craig Owens).
… and Now, No. 2064 is flanked on either side by similar Tudor-styled units but is the only one with the drawbridge feature. The red bricked square in the sidewalk marks where the tree in front of the building was in the Then image above.
Igor Braun, tailed by O’Hara and Grayson, boards a plane at San Francisco Airport en route to Los Angeles to meet with his fellow plotters.
Then … The plane is a Douglas DC-6, a pressurized version of the DC-4 which had entered service for United just one year earlier - it served the airline well throughout the 1940s and 1950s. It was powered by four piston engines - It would be another 10 years before United would begin switching to jet aircraft.
… a vintage photo … Here’s a United DC-6 in full color livery.
Then … We get a good view of the terminal building as Braun enters the plane. The terminal opened in 1937 and would eventually be phased out after a new terminal, Central Terminal (today known as Terminal 2) was built nearby for a 1954 opening. This terminal was eventually demolished in the early 1980s - its former location is now covered by a taxiway.
… a vintage photo … This is a 1938 photo of the terminal shortly after it opened. The aircraft here is a United Mainliner DC-3 .
Here’s a 1959 photo of the replacement terminal, located a little more than a half-mile from the old terminal pictured above. Central Terminal has seen enormous modernization since then but is still in use, now called Terminal 2.
Then … Anna is beside herself not knowing why Joe is avoiding her. She visits the orphanage where he was brought up to see if the nuns there could shed some light.
… in the 1950s … CitySleuth came across a 1950s photo of this same playground, viewed from the opposite direction. This was Mount St. Joseph’s School for orphaned girls at 1700 Newhall Street in the Bayview neighborhood (map). The movie was filmed around this same time with a cast of boys in place of the real orphans. The site was described in detail here in an earlier post.
The school was closed in 1977, replaced in 1984 by the Silverview Terrace subdivision pictured in the aerial view below. ‘X’ marks where the playground used to be; tap or click the image to see a matching 1956 aerial of the school.
Then … Anna was amazed to hear from the nun that she knew Joe as a motorcycle cop.
… and Now, a smaller playground has survived at the same spot in the heart of the subdivision.
She heads straight to the precinct police station but runs into a wall of silence, having to leave without learning anything more of Joe’s history.
Then … Joe is mortified by the news that Malatesta lied about his alibi; he’s now convinced of his murderous guilt. Conflicted, he goes on a walk to try to gather his thoughts. When Malatesta drives up, Joe spurns him and walks away.
… and Now, this was filmed on the upper level of Calhoun Terrace in Telegraph Hill. Note the Ferry building in the distance Then and Now. Note too the vintage street lamp mounted on the wall and the wall’s embossed art deco patterns.
Calhoun Terrace is an unusual two level cul-de-sac just two blocks away from where Joe was staying, at Malatesta’s house (seen earlier in the movie) next to the Montgomery Steps.
In a scene in the 1952 movie The Sniper the eponymous killer hid behind that same lamppost awaiting a victim as she exited her home at 36 Calhoun Terrace via an exterior stairway.
… and Now, from the same viewpoint we see that the original lamppost is still there but the building’s stairway has since been enclosed (the front corner of 36 Calhoun can be seen at the left edge of the Now image above). The lamppost sits atop one of the art deco chevron decorations cast into the concrete wall.
Calhoun Terrace has an interesting history … It has been seen in several other movies, The House On Telegraph Hill, Vertigo and Days Of Wine And Roses amongst them. It was the site of the notorious Hoeffler compound, a revolving-door home to artists and writers in the early 20th century. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived at 42 Calhoun in 1940. Here’s an 1860s photo taken when the street used to connect through to Green Street but before the lower level was established. A descending row of Union Street houses faces us in the background.
The double cul-de-sac is accessed from the end of Union Street at the top of Telegraph Hill. This whimsical realistic drawing by Paul Madonna captures it. (He too picked up on the wall’s art deco touches).
There’s a sheer drop below Calhoun, accentuated by the blatantly illegal quarrying activities of the infamous Gray Brothers at the turn of the 20th century. In this recent upslope view of the precarious cantilevered roadway we see the lamppost pictured in the images above, with 36 Calhoun at far right. Photo by Chris Carlsson.
And one last piece of related trivia … After decades of mutilating the hill and flaunting the law through repeated dynamiting, bribing and cheating, George Gray, one of the brothers, was shot and killed by an employee, Sicilian immigrant Joe Lococco, for not paying his wages. So that was that. End of dynamiting, end of story.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Joe cannot look his fiancé Anna, Malatesta’s cousin, in the eye. She cannot understand the sudden change in him and pleads, to no avail, for an explanation.
