We learned in the prior post that Arlene has been murdered but Val is unaware. When she receives a telegram signed by Arlene asking for help at the Butcher Town bridge she rushes to meet her.
... a vintage photo ... Butchertown really did exist in San Francisco. It was an area in the Bayview neighborhood that housed all of the city's animal slaughterhouses and associated businesses. The photo below was taken at a slaughterhouse at 3rd and Evans Avenue (map) in 1921. Butchertown's prime (excuse the pun) was in the late 1800s through 1906 but it wasn't until 1971 that its last slaughterhouse finally closed.
Then ... Val, driving Arlene's car, doesn't know that her sister's lifeless body is stuffed into the trunk. She heads down a steep hill on her way to the bridge.
... a vintage photo ... but the shot above was filmed not in San Francisco; this is Bunker Hill, Los Angeles. Below is a 1948 image of the same street, viewed south towards Olive St. from Grand Avenue down 2nd St. (map). CitySleuth recognized it from a couple of movies he has already covered: 1952's Sudden Fear, where Gloria Grahame meets a sudden end, and 1962's Days Of Wine And Roses where Lee Remick visits Jack Lemmon in the Chaspeak Apartments at 512 W. 2nd, the Victorian on the far right.
... and Now, this location looks completely different today after the Bunker Hill neighborhood was razed in the 1950s and 60s. Nostalgists like CitySleuth are grateful that the unique character of the old neighborhood can still be experienced in several old movies.
Then ... Val's reporter friend Tony who had found Arlene's body hears of the telegram and commandeers a Yellow Cab to rush to Butchertown bridge. But now we are back in San Francisco as the cab heads down Hyde Street...
... and Now, with Alcatraz in the distance this view down Hyde was filmed from Lombard (map). Turning 90 degrees to the right would have revealed Lombard's famous crooked street, constructed 12 years before the movie was filmed. Better had they sent the cab down there!
Then ... The cab continues down Hyde, seen here from Beach Street. The tall building at the top of the hill is the View Tower Apartments at 2238 Hyde, built in 1928. Note the vertical garage sign at far right...
... and Now, in the same view today a cable car waits its turn until a departing one at the Hyde Street Pier terminus, just off the right side, makes room for it. The blue and red store up the block on the right occupies the site of the garage mentioned above...
... it's Blazing Saddles, a bike rental store at 2715 Hyde Street. If you peer long enough at the Then image above, as CitySleuth would, you can see that this building and the adjacent one next to it uphill appear little changed for almost a century since being built in 1925.
Then ... Val's father, alerted to Arlene's murder by the reporter, joins the frantic rush down Hyde Street in his limousine, filmed here from Francisco Street.
... and Now, back in the 1930s there were more cable car lines than nowadays but this, the Powell/Hyde line, is one of the survivors.
(A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
As the early morning light heralds a new day Homer and friends return from their all-nighter on Hill 'X' to his place on Clay Street, described here in an earlier post.
Then ... They enter Clay from 2nd Street (crossing behind them), the men still sharing a bottle.
... a vintage photo ... in this 1950s photo taken from Hill Street we see where Clay began, tee-ing in at the far left above the 2nd Street tunnel.
and Now ... the Bunker Hill redevelopment project wiped Clay Street and all of those buildings above from the map. Below, the upper section of the parking structure at left and the open space in front of the residential highrise encroach on where Clay used to be but the tunnel was spared, albeit without the fine masonry balustrade - it was replaced by nondescript chain link.
Then ... They walk along Clay towards 3rd Street passing the Sunshine Apartments perched on the retaining wall on the right. Homer spreads his Indian blanket while Tommy, always the ladies man, needs a little support to aid his equilibrium. In front of them they cross over the 3rd street tunnel where the tracks of the Angel's Flight funicular pass overhead.
... in 1948 ... a vintage photo captured the same view ten years earlier as Angel Flight's two rail cars change places on their short one block trip between Hill and Olive.
... and here's another look in a scene from the 1955 film noir movie Kiss Me Deadly as Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled Mike Hammer approaches the Sunshine Apartments in his 1954 Corvette.
Homer's wife Yvonne has spent the night with a friend at the Sunshine Apartments; awakened by the noisy shouts of the group, she watches impassively from the bedroom window as they stumble on by.
Then ... Down towards the far end of Clay near 4th Street she sees them entering her place on the left at 334 Clay.
... a vintage photo ... this 1960s image offers a closer look at 334 Clay (on the left) as it was shortly before the houses were demolished.
And so the movie ends ... we have witnessed a typical day, and night, in the lives of the transplanted Indians and are left thinking that their next day likely will be the same, and the day after that, and ...
( A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
It's 2 a.m. and the bars are closing. Homer watches the goings-on from the back of his buddy's car parked outside a bar. He muses about how Indians like to get together at that time "to get out there and just be free, where nobody won't watch you ... nobody watching every move you make".
Then ... As the staff turfs everybody out we recognize this as the Ritz Cafe, described in an earlier post.
Then ... A daytime shot seen later in the movie gives us a better view. It was at 312 1/2 S. Main Street, sandwiched between the Olympic Men's Shop at No. 310 and the Olympia Barber Shop at No. 314.
... and Now, this part of the block has become a parking lot.
Then ... A large crowd has gathered directly across the street in the Scott and Freeland restaurant at 325 S. Main Street (its menu can be seen covering most of the back wall). The commotion at the bar has caught the attention of both police and bystanders.
... and Now, the restaurant is long gone; this part of the Ronald Reagan State Building now covers its location.
Then ... A scuffle on the sidewalk, and a drunk is arrested. This is still Main Street, looking south across 3rd. In the distance along Main over to the left we can just make out the last few letters of the vertical Hotel Barclay sign at the corner of Main and 4th and the Hotel Rosslyn sign at the corner of Main and 5th.
... and Now, the Hotel Barclay sign is still there as too is that of the Hotel Rosslyn, although it is obscured from this viewpoint by a lamppost. As just mentioned a large part of the 300 S. block ahead on the right which contained the Ritz Cafe has been converted to a parking lot.
The camera that captured the arrest was set up in front of the El Progreso bar at 260 S. Main Street - we caught a glimpse of the bar in another shot from the movie, below, filmed from 3rd Street.
( A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why).
How does a filmmaker keep the viewer entertained during a voiceover? Director Kent MacKenzie used several voiceovers in this movie and his solution was to fill in the time with downtown street scenes filmed at night using the street lamps, retail shop window lights and neon signs as highlights. They were all located within a few short blocks.
Then ... In this shot we can see the tower of City Hall in the upper right corner.
... and Now, the view looks north along Main Street with 3rd Street crossing in the foreground (map). City Hall is still there but the corner building at left has had the upper two stories removed. What is unusual is that its retail stores were left in place - the previous location showed surviving threshold tiles in one of the stores in this block.
Then ... Here's a bustling street corner.
... and Now, this is at the same junction as the prior scene, Main at 3rd. The store on the left, on the northwest corner, is now the Persian restaurant Shish Kebob but back then was called Optimo (you can see it in the first 'Then' image above). El Progreso across the street was at 260 S. Main Street but this half of that block is now a parking structure.
Then ... This was filmed from below the Angels Flight funicular as one of its cars approached the lower terminus at Hill and 3rd (map). As we look east from here along 3rd Street the F P Fay Building sign is seen at right across 3rd and that hotel facing us a few blocks down is the St. George at 115 E. 3rd Street. Hard to see from here but below the word 'HOTEL' is a stylized 'One Dollar' sign, its daily room rate.
... and Now, the funicular has been moved a half block south along Hill Street and the old F P Fay corner building on the right has been replaced by a parking structure. The St George hotel, distantly small in this non-telescopic photo, is still there, now providing low income housing.
... in 1952 ... the St George survived a fire a few years before The Exiles was filmed, captured in the photo below which clearly shows the stylized 'One Dollar' neon signs (the one on the left is the one visible in the 'Then' image above). Incidentally the Enderle hardware store, on the left below, and a recent photo of the St. George can be seen here in an earlier post.
Then ... More drinking joints but this shot includes an architecturally interesting building on the left. This is the south side of the 300 block of 3rd Street (map). From left to right were Radio-Electronics at 316 S Main, a liquor store and Saddle Rock Cafe at 320, the posh entrance to the F P Fay Building at 326, and Buggy Wheel Cafe at 328 (most bars in those days seemed to prefer the pseudonym 'cafe'. Who were they kidding?).
... and Now, the stylish building with the arches, an extension of the Metropolitan Water Board Building, is still there but those on the right including the F P Fay building have been replaced by a parking structure.