Chan Hung resided at the Hotel St. Paul at 935 Kearny Street (map). Jo and Steve go there a number of times to try to find him but each time he was, er, missing.
Then … In this composited vertical panorama of Jo parked in front of the hotel note its art deco sign. Note too across Kearny the Chevron Chinatown service station with its Chinese styled buildings. The Sentinel Building, aka Columbus Tower, is partially visible on the left and on the right across Jackson Street from the gas station is the empty lot where the International Hotel used to be before being callously demolished in 1979, only months before this scene was filmed.
… and Now, the hotel is still there but has been renamed Hotel North Beach; how neat that the original art deco sign was retained. A modern extension of the Sentinel Building with commendable integral styling has replaced the gas station and across Jackson a new residential International Hotel opened in 2005 on the site of the old - a long-overdue salve on the wound caused by the City’s brutal overnight eviction of its elderly residents in 1977.
…. In 1960 … Stepping back in time a little more, here’s a 1960 photo of the Sentinel Building from FoundSF showing the gas station before its structure was orientalized, the original red-brick International Hotel and off to the right the Hotel St. Paul blade sign at the corner of Kearny and Pacific.
Trivia for Trekkies: in this 1986 scene from Star Trek - The last Voyage Home Kirk, Spock et al appeared at this same location. Note the blade sign partially visible above the Winchell’s sign. By then the International hotel had been demolished.
Then … As Steve exits the hotel you can see the name written on the overhead glass.
…. In 2007 … an archival Google Street View image from 2007 captured the same Kearny Street doorway when it was being remodeled as a window. The hotel still had its original name then.
… and Now, here it is today. Note the blade sign on the corner of the building - compare it to the original on the far right side of the 1960 image above; the name was simply changed at the top.
Around the corner on Pacific two ghost signs on the side of the hotel still display the original name.
Then … They return later. Note that the door is an in-swinging half-glass single door whereas the earlier exterior view of the main entrance (see the Then image above) shows an out-swinging all-glass double door.
… and Now, director Wang has confirmed to CitySleuth that this staircase was filmed inside the Hotel St. Paul. The closest match that CitySleuth found at the hotel is the one below, looking down to the converted main entrance; the issue of the different doors is still unexplained.
They knock on Chan’s door but there’s no answer. CitySleuth recently walked the Hotel North Beach corridors; they had not been modernized but he found them not to match the styling in this movie shot. What’s more, a corridor junction next to an exterior window, as below, doesn’t exist there, suggesting that it was filmed elsewhere. Except director Wang recalls that it was indeed filmed in the St. Paul.
Scorpio is next seen watching pole dancers perform on a platform in the middle of the dimly-lit Roaring 20’s nightclub at 552 Broadway Street (map)…
Then … but he’s less than thrilled when he spots Callahan, clearly not there for the show.
… in 2010, the nightclub closed down during the pandemic, preventing CitySleuth from getting a current interior photo. But Dirty Harry fan Malcolm Czopinski has been there; in 2010 he took photos of the manager and one of the dancers by the pole dance platform for his Dirty Harry appreciation blog.
Scorpio heads for the exit, barely (excuse the pun) heeding the action alongside him. Callahan follows him out.
Then … in this panorama Callahan is walking past the Hungry I club on the right after exiting the Roaring 20’s. A liquor store sits between the two clubs.
… and Now, the liquor store, Broadway Cigars and Liquors, is still there under the same name; the clubs on either side of it however have yet to reopen since the pandemic (reportedly the Hungry I has just reopened only the bar). Ominously the sad facade of the Roaring 20’s on the left recently posted a For Lease sign.
Pre-pandemic, below, this block was the centerpiece of Broadway’s red light district; it’s now a sorrier version with only the Condor back in business.
Then … The movie includes several scenes filmed at Chester’s, a cafe/restaurant where Chinatown encroached into Nob Hill. Chester’s had only recently taken over this corner site from a Chinese restaurant, Fung Sing.
… and Now, the cafe was at 1269 Mason, corner of Jackson (map) but has long since closed. Today it has been remodeled into apartments which explains the repurposed corner entrance; the cafe’s interior became apartment 1003. Note both Then and Now the cable car tracks of the Powell/Mason and Powell/Hyde lines crossing at this corner.
Jo and Steve meet a young lawyer (Judi Nihei) at the cafe. She too is looking for Chan who apparently was a no-show at court following a traffic accident. There’s an arcade machine behind her, catering to the Chinese penchant for gambling.
Then … Apparently Chan and the responding policeman had trouble communicating, a common problem between Chinese immigrants and Americans. It’s educational and amusing for us as she earnestly explains Chan’s cross-cultural misunderstanding but Steve and Jo keep glancing at each other, their eyes glazing over. There’s a grocery store across the street, the Standard Grocery.
… and Now, here’s that same block. The grocery store was at 1256 Mason, in the center of the photo. Abacus Row, an in-house crafted jewelry store, currently occupies this site.
Then … Jo returns to the cafe later. (There’s another nod to gambling here: the logo on his cap advertises Golden Gate Fields, a thoroughbred horse racing track across the Bay in Berkeley). This time the window view looks a little further along the block to the Junior Co Bakery at 1250 Mason, seen on the left.
… and Now, there’s now an art gallery in the 1250 Mason space.
San Francisco’s online City Directories are a boon to CitySleuth for finding locations and long-gone store tenants. The Mason Street entry from 1980 lists the three businesses referenced in this post. Even though this is within the Nob Hill neighborhood there’s a preponderance of Chinese-American residents and businesses occupying the block.
… on location … Still photographer Nancy Wong has posted a trove of on-location photos online from this movie. This one captured director Wang relaxing inside Chester’s with his lead actors.
… on location … and outside, Marc Hayashi adjusts his omnipresent cap. Note the cook’s pass-through beyond Wood Moy on the back wall inside the cafe ...
Then … in a later scene Jo takes a phone call inside Chester’s ; the arcade machine on the left is the same one seen behind the lawyer earlier in this post. Behind Jo is the same pass-through window partially visible in the above photo.
After arresting Scorpio at Kezar Stadium Callahan, still bruised from his earlier beating at Mount Davidson, is summoned to the D.A.’s office and is incredulous to learn that Scorpio has been released because the, shall we say, unconventional confession tactics rendered all of the evidence inadmissible in court. The D.A. admonishes him not to get involved again.
Then … Scorpio is on the prowl again, at Portsmouth Square plaza, a historic location in the heart of Chinatown (map). At this site in 1846 during the Mexican-American war Captain John Montgomery of the U.S.S. Portsmouth planted the American flag in the Mexican community of Yerba Buena. A year later the settlement was renamed San Francisco.
and Now, he had come up from the underground garage by way of the steps seen above on the left. Today those steps are still there but the planters, lamppost and benches were added during a major redesign of the plaza in the 1990s. Scorpio was standing where the lamppost is now; the dotted yellow line shows the position of the temporary plywood wall next to him.
Then … A group of children playing in the square catches his eye. Above the temporary wall a concrete bridge that spans Kearny Street from Portsmouth Square to a hotel opposite is in its final stage of construction. The building looming above that is 728 Washington Street.
and Now, there are baluster posts spaced along the bridge walls and CitySleuth lined one of them up with 728 Washington just as in the movie shot. In the view above, the house lined up not with this one but with the next post to the left but the 1990s plaza redesign prevented CitySleuth from matching that alignment.
Here’s a photo of the bridge today viewed from the plaza. It has no access to the Hilton hotel opposite, only to the Chinese Cultural Center during limited hours; what’s more there’s no way down to Kearny Street. Consequently since its opening in 1971 it has rarely been used, other than by the pigeon community, and has earned itself the sobriquet ‘Bridge to Nowhere’. City planning approval is well under way to remove it as part of yet another major plaza redesign.
Then … The children are playing on a climbing structure; the view past it is the southeast corner of the plaza - at top right there’s a bus heading down Clay Street and the stores facing us at top left are across Kearny Street. But who’s the guy wearing sunglasses entering the crowd to the left? Callahan of course - there’s no way he’s going to leave Scorpio unwatched.
and Now, a set of steps leading to the upper level of the plaza now covers where the climbing structure used to be (a few paces to the right of the photo below); viewed from the same level here’s today’s northeast corner and the same block across Kearny.
This 1987 photo of the 2-level plaza above the Kearny Street parking garage shows it as it was in 1971 when the movie was filmed. Note the children’s climbing structure, but in the movie it was located as shown in yellow (those same park benches flanking it on two sides are the same as those in the Then image above). Click or tap the image to see the plaza today after the 1990s redesign. The old steps became a ramp and new steps were built where the play structure was, reducing the lower level to half its original width.
A group of Chinatown residents are playing Xiangqi, also called Chinese chess or elephant chess, one of the most popular board games in China. Unlike Western chess, the pieces are placed on the intersections of the squares. Behind them, Callahan stares directly at Scorpio, making sure he catches his eye.
Then … Scorpio beats a hasty retreat up to the upper level. The graffiti on the wall echoes the protest movement of the early seventies: a universal nuclear disarmament symbol, “Down With Pigs” (reaction to police brutality in ongoing Vietnam War protests), “Off the Inn” (in reference to the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in Greenwich Village).
and Now, here’s the matching shot from the same spot but elevated, on the repositioned steps. There’s now a wrap-around ramp in place of the steps seen above. Added 1990s structures are visible on the upper level at left.
