Herbert needs cash; he goes to a bank to change his Victorian pounds into dollars. The foreign exchange manager (Bob Shaw) tells him they are only worth “… twenty five dollars and fifty cents”. But it’s a start - he can also sell some jewelry that he had brought with him.
Then … As Herbert stands up to leave (left of center) a camera shot from above reveals a dramatic high-ceilinged lobby with a central circular teller station. Fortunate, because this enabled ID’ing the location; R. Christian Anderson, moderator of the excellent Lost San Francisco blog, recognized it as California First Bank at 350 California Street (map). Sansome Street is seen through the window; it was 3-lane one way northbound back then (it’s two way now).
… and Now, the matching shot today shows significant changes. The centerpiece teller station is gone, now a seating area, and the open desk area alongside the Sansome Street wall has been converted to enclosed offices. There’s still a bank in the lobby though - US Bank.
… and Now, here’s an exterior view of 350 California, a brutalist structure built in 1976. The street-level windows along Sansome seen in the Then interior image above are now mostly covered with US Bank advertising posters.
Then … To check if Stevenson might also have exchanged money Herbert embarks on a tour of neighboring banks in the city’s Financial District, beginning with the Bank of Canton of California’s main branch at 555 Montgomery on the corner of Clay (map).
… and Now, here’s the same corner today, but … this is an entirely different building, built on the site in 1984-85 six years after the movie was filmed. A bank still occupies the first floor here - East West Bank.
Then … shortly afterwards we see Herbert exiting the bank. In the left glass pane there’s a reflection of the Renaissance-Revival Bank Of Italy building across the street at 550 Montgomery, further confirming the location.
Worthy of mention historically: back then the Bank of Canton of California had another branch at 743 Washington Street in Chinatown (it’s an East West Bank branch today, below left). It was housed in the historic Chinese Telephone Exchange building (seen, below right, in the 1947 movie The Lady From Shanghai when it was still operating as an exchange). When it opened in 1901, the operators had to know every Chinatown customer by name and address because it was considered rude to refer to a person by number. Each operator also had to speak the many dialects of Chinese spoken by the residents.
Then … Next up is the Bank Melli Iran. Once again a window reflection of the building opposite helps identify where this was.
… and Now, Bank Melli Iran’s San Francisco’s branch was on the first floor of the 43-story Wells Fargo skyscraper at 44 Montgomery Street. Built during 1964-67, it was briefly the city’s tallest building until the Bank of America building at 555 California Street surpassed it in 1969. Bank Melli Iran was most likely in the Mongomery/Sutter corner space occupied until recently by First Republic Bank (bottom left) (map). The reflection in the glass both Then and Now is the French Renaissance Revival Hunter-Dulin building across the street. (Related trivia - in November 1979 following the Islamic Revolution the Jewish Defense League claimed credit for a bomb explosion outside the Bank Melli Iran office).
Then … A brief close-in camera pan reveals the entrance to the next bank: Golden State Sanwa Bank. The city directory listed it at 300 Montgomery Street, a building occupying the whole block, but where exactly in that high-rise was it? Here’s a composite from the pan yielding significant clues ... note the metal plate on a column at far left and the reflection in the doorway of the Russ Building at the corner of Montgomery and Pine.
… and Now, in this view 300 Montgomery’s main entrance is at far left but the bank’s entrance was in the corner at Pine in the space currently occupied by Walgreen’s (large arrow) (map). Look carefully and you’ll see there are still damage marks on the column to the left of the entrance where the metal plate used to be (small arrow).
Then … Finally, a peek at a Bank of the Orient sign. The 1978 city directory listed its address as 233 Sansome Street (map).
… and Now, it’s still there!
Then …. Teddy has just discovered that Didi had a handgun stashed away in their home. He decides to dispose of it and knows the perfect place. The Hills Brothers Coffee building at far left tells us where this is - he’s at the end of Pier 26 on San Francisco’s Embarcadero. This view looks beneath the span of the Bay Bridge (out of the frame, passing overhead) and over Pier 24 towards the Financial District high-rises.
… and Now, Pier 26 is in bad shape now and the narrow exterior wharf around its perimeter (where Teddy was, above), is off-limits for safety reasons. But CitySleuth was able to walk inside the pier shed to the back corner and take this matching photo through a two inch gap at floor level beneath a huge closed metal shutter door near the end of the pier. The Hills Brothers Coffee building is still there at far left, but Pier 24 is gone; after suffering a major fire in 1997 it was demolished by 2004 leaving only its annex standing (at far lower left in both images). There are many newer buildings in this view now due to the Financial District’s expansion South of Market.
… and Now, in this aerial the ‘X’ marks where Teddy was in the Then image above and the large arrow indicates the camera’s viewpoint beyond him.
… 1970s … and here’s a 1970s aerial that shows the piers, including Pier 24, as they were when the movie was filmed (again with an X where Teddy was). Note the iconic Hills Bros Coffee logo sign at far right which is also seen in the first Then image (the red sign) at the top of this post.
(By the way, Pier 24 may be gone now but for Embarcadero history buffs here’s a nice century-old photo of it as it was).
On the left below is a 1955 photograph of the back side of the sign seen in the 1970s photo above. It’s the same image; featuring an Ethiopian coffee taster, a nod to the source of the coffee beans, it was designed in 1900 and appeared on all of the company’s products for the next 90 years. The sign is no longer there but the taster has been on display since 1990 in the current building’s plaza in the form of a nine feet tall bronze statue by sculptor Spero Anargyros.
Digressing for a moment, Hills Brothers Coffee had its humble beginnings in San Francisco in 1878. It moved several times before building and occupying their final home, a roasting and packing plant at 2 Harrison Street in 1926. Production wound down in the 1980s until the brand name, still extant, was bought by Nestlé in 1985. Today the plant has been renovated into mixed-use condominiums and offices. The fine image below, bathed in the early morning sunlight, was taken from Yerba Buena Island in Dec, 2015 when the building displayed a seasonal message spanning 12 of its windows (photo by D. C. Nelson). Opposite the building on the water’s edge is the city’s historic Fire Station 35 with the fireboat Guardian berthed behind it.
A new extension/replacement for Fire Station 35 was opened behind it in 2021; you can see both old and new below. Note the trusty Guardian is still on duty there. The extension has been designed to rise and fall with the tides and any future sea level changes; go here for a fascinating SF Public Works presentation of its construction (teaser - it was built elsewhere).
… and here’s a stunning Bay Bridge image from 2018, also taken from Yerba Buena Island, that captured the Hills Brothers Coffee building to its right and pier 26 to its left (photo by Patrick Boury).
Then …. Getting back to the movie … the Bay Bridge reaches out behind Teddy to mist-shrouded Yerba Buena Island as he nonchalantly sits and stretches while dropping the gun into the water.
… and Now, again, CitySleuth was able to match the shot through the narrow floor level gap beneath the closed and rusted shutter door.
… it turns out there was a small boat berthed right there next to him. He certainly took a risk being seen but he got away with it.
Then … Still trying to find out where he is, Herbert asks a passerby what city this is; his exasperated response before striding on? … “Come on!”. This shot was filmed on the 1800 block of Union Street in Cow Hollow (map) in front of the French restaurant La Cabane at 1838 Union.
… and Now, it’s now Kaiyo, a Peruvian restaurant, not open at lunch time when CitySleuth stopped by.
Then … He walks on and tries again with a passing blonde; she walks on without a word … who is this kook? The What’s Cooking restaurant was at 1830 Union Street - (open 7 days a week and 24 hours on the weekend? Unheard of today).
… and Now, the current tenant at 1830 is the Roaming Goat Mediterranean Wine Bar - the parklets are holdovers from the Covid era and appear to now be permanent, usurped street parking be damned.
Then … Further along the block Herbert finds the answer from a newspaper stand in front of 1840 Union. La Cabane at 1838 is behind him.
… and Now, Is that the same sidewalk tree? A sapling then, a stalwart now.
The newspaper reveals that he’s in San Francisco. (On a trivia note, the paper’s name was fictitious, it’s font mimicked that of the San Francisco Chronicle, the period after the name was superfluous and the two columns at top left were (tsk, tsk …) replicated - sloppy work by the prop master.
Then … as his lightbulb goes on we get a good look at the stores across the street.
… and Now, of interest is the yellow One Medical building at 1832 Union. Compare it to the Then image above - it has since been redone but unlike most rebuilds where older styles are architecturally modernized, in this case the plain facade has been traditionalized.
Then … Here’s a panorama of the five adjoining businesses that spanned this scene. From left to right, the newsstand was in front of Settepu’s Imported Clothing at 1840 Union, next is La Cabane French Restaurant at 1838, then a doorway leading to Nancy’s LTD Exercise Studio at 1836, Earthly Goods Jewelry at 1832 and, at far right, What’s Cooking Restaurant at 1830.
… and Now, Today’s tenants from left to right: Topdrawer Gifts at 1840, Kaiyo Restaurant at 1838, real estate brokers at 1836, Union Nail Spa at 1832 and, at far right, Roaming Goat Mediterranean Wine Bar at 1830.
Teddy coaches his buddy Mikey on, when, and how to call him that evening pretending he’s urgently needed at the office. That will clear the way for Teddy to go to the dinner date he’s (he thinks) made with the Woman in Red.
After helping with the blind man prank (previous post) Mikey makes the call. But by then Teddy has found out he has to stay at home with Didi to babysit their grandkid. In a hilarious response he demands the bewildered Mikey tell the bosses to take their request and shove it up their (you know where). (Watch the movie to see why Didi has that inappropriately positioned gun).
Then … Mikey rejoins his buddies, finding them in a fracas with local louts in front of a Carls Jr. diner. It’s time for more sight gags as Buddy, still playing the blind man (on the left), punches away. The phone number posted at the adjacent business on the right led CitySleuth to this location.
… and Now, both Carls Jr. at 305 W. 6th Street in the Wilshire/Vermont neighborhood of Los Angeles and the Olympic Auto Body Shop (with the same phone number) are still there today. The shot was filmed looking across Virgil Avenue (map).
Teddy doesn’t know that it was Ms. Milner who had answered the call and received his offer of a date. She doesn’t know it was meant for the Woman in Red. She patiently waits for him to arrive.
He never does - she ends up closing the place. But where was this filmed? Teddy referred to it as “…La Primavera in North Beach”; but this looks way too swanky for North Beach. There’s a later scene in the movie filmed at the Prince Restaurant in Los Angeles but these interiors appear to be somewhere else. If anyone recognizes it they are encouraged to email citysleuth@reelsf.com.
To say she’s pissed is perhaps an understatement. The next morning as he parks his car Teddy is at a loss for words when she walks up, keys it down the side and twists the antenna out-of-shape.
