Perry Mason now has four suspects in the Moxley murder case. First, Rhoda Montaine who was married to him before he faked his death and was being blackmailed by him after he showed up. The district attorney has already concluded she’s the culprit - he has her locked up awaiting trial. Second, her husband Carl Montaine who is desperate not to have a scandal besmirch the family name.
Third, Rhoda’s current squeeze Dr. Millbeck (Philip Reed), on the left, who clearly knows more than he is prepared to admit to, and fourth, Oscar Pender (Warren Hymer) whose sister was also married to Moxley and who was recently under threat from him.
So, who did it? Mason must have been a reader of mystery novels because, in true Agatha Christie style, he decides to throw a party and include the husband, the doctor and the roughneck. After accusing first one, then another without eliciting a confession, he turns to Carl Montaine, dramatically accusing him of being the murderer.
Montaine vehemently proclaims innocence then describes what really happened in a flashback that for the first time gives us a close look at Errol Flynn in this, his debut American film. After following Rhoda to Moxley’s place Montaine saw him knocking her around and intervened, prompting a desperate fight. A thrown chair shattered a mirror, punches were traded, Moxley (Flynn) fell back against a knife-edged glass shard and, stabbed, dropped dead. The account fitted all of the clues; Mason was convinced, Rhoda was absolved and the D.A. once again was one-upped.
Then … The insurance investigator handling the death of Susan Dumurrier looks up at his office building on his way to deliver his report to his superiors.
… and Now, he’s on Sansome Street with Pine Street crossing behind him. Today’s matching view 52 years later is the same.
Then … As he walks in, the camera pans up to the building’s name - the Royal Insurance Building at 201 Sansome Street in the Financial District (map).
… and Now, the matching view is unchanged in appearance but the sidewalk clock is gone.
… and Now, the 11 story 1907 landmark office building was converted into 46 luxury condominium units in 2006, renamed The Royal.
The investigator presents photos of Susan and Monica and reports that George has become, shall we say, involved with Monica. Suspecting that they are one and the same woman and that Susan is still alive, they decide to turn the case over to the police.
Then … Monica is picked up for questioning; the patrol car is seen here pulling up to a nearby police station.
… and Now, but this isn’t San Francisco - it’s South San Francisco, a separate city just, well, south of San Francisco. This view looks south along Maple Avenue; the building on the left with the sign is the Caledonian Club of San Francisco at 312 Maple - it’s still there today, with a modified sign.
Then … The detective pushes Monica up the steps to the station. Note the insignia on the side of the police car - SSF Police. This is what prompted CitySleuth to search in South San Francisco.
… and Now, the building is still there, at 315 Maple Avenue, but is now used by the city as a departmental annex. It was the city’s only police station when the movie was filmed until the PD moved to another building, 33 Arroyo Drive, in 1981. An even newer station at 900 Antoinette Lane is scheduled to be ready by the end of this year.
Then … Looking to the left across the street from the steps there’s another view of the Caledonian Club on the east side of the 300 block of Maple Ave.
… and Now, the railings on the steps have been upgraded and that’s about it.
Inside the station the police investigator assigned to the case, Inspector Wald (Canadian actor John Ireland, on the left), tries to figure out Monica’s role in the mystery.
A search of her apartment uncovers a hieroglyphic-like ink blotter. A hand-writing specialist (director Lucio Fulci in a cameo role) discerns clear evidence of her having practiced writing Susan Dumurrier’s signature.
To help sort out the confusion over the Monica/Susan identities the police decide to exhume the body of Susan Dumurrier. Director Fulci would, with subsequent movies, go on to make a major contribution to the horror movie genre but his only nod in that direction in this movie was this brief shot of the corpse. When Susan’s sister Martha identifies it as Susan and an autopsy determines she died by poisoning the police have George and Monica squarely in their sights in what is now a case of murder.
Then … Throughout the movie we see several shots of the exterior and interior of the city’s main police headquarters. Here Callahan and Gonzalez approach the main entrance, filmed in front of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice, South of Market at 850 Bryant Street (map).
… and Now, the spillover of the Financial District transforming SoMa has yet to reach this block.
Then … Later we see the front of the Hall of Justice; the door at far left is the main entrance. The Seal of the City and County of San Francisco is prominently displayed on the side of the building.
… and Now, the building looks essentially the same today. The seal is still there, hiding in the shade of the now-matured trees.
Then … Earlier in the movie Callahan descends into the building from the roof. This too was filmed at the Hall of Justice, on the rooftop’s helipad.
… and Now, an aerial view shows that the helipad is still there but it’s no longer in use.
Then … Images from two of the interior scenes are shown below. On the left is the office of Callahan’s boss in room 750 and on the right the D.A.’s office in room 710. But these were not filmed inside the Hall of Justice; instead, a brochure accompanying the Blu-Ray disc tells us that they were filmed on the 7th floor of the PG&E building…
… and Now, but the brochure doesn’t say which PG&E building it was - there were two of them when the movie was filmed. The recent photo on the left below shows the original 1925 building downtown at 245 Market Street. The photo on the right is taken around the corner on Beale Street; it shows the original building on the left and a new taller structure next to it at 77 Beale Street which opened in 1971, the year the movie was filmed. So… which one was it? Several online movie location sites claim it was the new building at 77 Beale, but CitySleuth disagrees…
Why? Because exterior windows visible in another office scene give us the clue. The design is a pair of side-by-side windows with a wider separation between each set, matching those on the Market Street and Beale Street sides of the original building, above. The new building’s windows are completely different. So CitySleuth nominates the 7th floor of the original 245 Market Street building (map) as the filming location of the interior scenes.
Then … Mason returns to the room where Moxley was murdered, looking for more clues. This location, at 1850 Sutter Street in Japantown, was described in detail in an earlier post.
… and Now, new buildings were built on the 1800 block of Sutter Street during the Western Addition redevelopment project; the sidewalk tree below is in front of where 1850 Sutter used to be.
He finds a possible clue, a discarded matchbox with a hotel name on the cover.
… in 1938 … These are all of the hotels listed in the 1938 South San Francisco city directory. In the real world there was no Fremont Hotel here.
Then … Mason dispatches Spudsy to follow up on the lead. He finds out that Doris Pender, one of the hotel’s residents, had made a phone call to Moxley the night of his murder. He heads to the Irving Theatre where she is onstage singing.
San Francisco did indeed have an Irving Theatre, listed in the 1935 City Directory at 1342 Irving Street in the Inner Sunset (map). But from the 1941 photo below it’s clear that the marquee doesn’t match the one in the movie; clearly that was a studio creation. The Irving opened in 1926 and closed in 1962, destined for demolition.
… and Now, the building at far left above (back then it housed a Safeway grocery store) is still there today (below), but the theater and the rest of the block to the right were replaced in 1963 by two apartment buildings. The grey building, now re-addressed as 1330 Irving, is where the theatre used to be.
It turns out that the singer had married Moxley a year earlier (so the scoundrel was also a bigamist). After her performance she tells them only that he had been threatening her.
Spudsy tracks down her roughneck brother, Oscar Pender, suspecting that on her behalf he may have tried to get even with Moxley. Pender wasn’t exactly cooperative; his only response was a punch to Spudsy’s jaw.
