Then … Clarence and the police motorbike escort head up California Street during their dash across town to get Blotz. Kearny Street crosses at the end of the block.
… and Now, most of the buildings lining California street have since been replaced. Still there though way at the bottom of the hill is the Southern Pacific Building, built in 1917 as the headquarters of Southern Pacific Railway. Beyond it is the Bay Bridge, not built until 11 years after the scene above was filmed.
Then … They overtake a cable car as they speed up California. The landmark Sing Chong Building is on the corner of Grant Avenue.
… and Now, a century later it’s still there.
The Pagoda-styled Sing Chong Building was built in 1907. Local residents and Benevolent Societies had wasted no time rebuilding Chinatown following the 1906 earthquake and fire as a statement to city government that they were not about to be resettled anywhere else.
Then … The cop leans his bike to his right around a tight bend…
… then leans over to his left, apparently negotiating an S - curved street. More of the building behind him is now revealed, helping to confirm this location.
… and Now, here’s that building, still there. It’s 60 Leavenworth, an apartment building with street level retail stores on the corner of McAllister. Credit to reader Notcom who found it.
In this late 1920’s aerial photo you can see the curved street 3 blocks east of City Hall.
It’s more clearly seen in this 1931 aerial photo; tap or click the image to see how it looks today. The curve was straightened out in the mid-1930s to make way for the Federal Office Building at 50 U.N. Plaza.
Then … Continuing on, in the next shot the Geary-Mason Drugs sign on the right is a giveaway to this location. That drugstore was at 400 Mason so this view looks south along Mason Street with Geary crossing in the foreground. The Hotel Minster sign on the left a block down was at 312 Mason.
… and Now, 312 Mason is still a hotel; more specifically an international hostel.
Then … Almost there! This shot revisits a junction appearing twice before during the frantic dash. Here they head west on Market Street having just driven out of Golden Gate Avenue over on the right. The turrets of the Granada Theater can be seen near the end of the block beyond the car.
… and Now, the Granada Theater has long since been demolished and replaced.
Viewed from the opposite direction this vintage photo captured the Granada in 1921, the year it opened. The opulent theater was one of many that sprung up along the length of Market Street during the silver screen heyday of the 1920s and 1930s. It was renamed the Paramount in 1931 and eventually demolished in 1965.
They arrive in time - it’s game over for Blotz, Red Moran and, at City Hall, D.A. Fuller.
As the bad guys are hauled into their cells, Tom and Ray are released from theirs to a joyful welcome by Mary and Polly McDonald. Even Chronicle Proprietor Hamilton gets in on the act, proclaiming to Tom … “They’ve found their man McDonald, and I have found mine!” All’s well that ends well.
In the movie’s final frames Polly turns to Clarence, the derring-do hero of the day. Boy, does she owe him!!
Clarence suspects that Sam Blotz and his crony Red Moran are responsible for the fire. He also remembers that he had overheard Blotz ask the operator to connect him to someone in City Hall. He lobbies the City’s Chief Of Police to allow Polly at the local telephone switchboard to report the address if that number is called again. The Chief (played in a cameo by the real San Francisco Chief Dan O’Brien) agrees to help.
Chief O’Brien served as the city’s Chief from 1920 - 1928. Because it was so uncharacteristic for him, the press at the time reported on his movie role.
Sure enough Blotz (top left) calls his crony, Assistant D.A. Gerald Fuller, at City Hall (top right) - he who had falsely accused Tom’s son - to crow about the Chronicle’s plight. But not before Polly at the switchboard (bottom left) had delayed connecting them while she looks up the originating caller’s address. She quickly notifies the Sergeant (bottom right) at the local police station.
The movie presentation alternates between shots of the car and the responding fire engines - as with the fire engine scenes posted earlier, Citysleuth has separated out the car scenes to present them sequentially...
Then … Clarence again hangs onto a car, this time with a police motorcycle escort, dashing across town to get Sam Blotz. Here we see them turning from Grove Street into Larkin Street.
… and Now, the background both Then and Now showcases San Francisco’s grand City Hall.
Then … Next they make a turn where behind them a store sign advertising E. J. Margett’s wholesale and retail rug store heralds this location.
… and Now, per the city street directory, Margett’s was at 989 Market in the corner building at 6th Street so this was filmed as they turned from Market into Golden Gate Avenue. Note the small retail building to the left that a century later is still there, still sandwiched between two larger buildings - Oxford Street menswear is its current tenant.
Then … And here they pass a cable car at the turntable at the south end of Powell Street at Market. Clinton’s Cafeteria is on the right at 18 Powell in the Flood Building.
… and Now, today’s Powell-Mason line terminates at the same spot alongside the Flood Building where the cable cars still depend on manpower to rotate them on the turntable. This block is now a car-free precinct, unusually free of tourists when CitySleuth stopped by on a beautiful winter’s day.
For the nostalgists out there, check out this photo taken in 1945 at the same spot; it was 20 years after The Last Edition was filmed but Clinton’s Cafeteria was still there.
Then … This next corner was seen in an earlier dash across town - the view looks west along Market Street as they turn into Golden Gate Avenue (it’s a reverse look at the same turn in the 2nd Then image in this post).
and Now, Twin Peaks in the distance is clearly visible below but hard to see in the poorer quality Then image above. The most recognizable extant building is 1020 Market at far right on the corner of Golden Gate Avenue.
Then … this is a continuation of the above Then clip as they enter Golden Gate Avenue. On the right is the Golden Gate Theatre; it had opened four years earlier in 1921.
and Now, the theatre continues to be an active performance space to this day. Note the traffic flow - it was two-way a century ago but now it’s one-way.
This 1930 photo shows the junction as it was when the above clip was filmed. That’s Market Street across the bottom with Golden Gate Avenue on the left and Taylor Street on the right. One of the city’s many Owl Drug stores is on the corner at far right.
Polly continues to cut off Blotz’s connection, apologizing profusely each time, holding him there as long as possible.
Then … A cityscape is presented at this point (why?) - it was filmed from high up in the 100 McAllister building on the corner of McAllister and Leavenworth (map). The arrow points to the Golden Gate Theater with its octagonal tower and in the distance are the Hunter-Dulin Building at far left and the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building at far right which coincidentally was designed by the same architect, Timothy Pflueger, who designed 100 McAllister.
… and Now, Citysleuth stumbled upon a recent photo taken from the 14th floor of 100 McAllister which captured the same view. The arrow again points to the Golden Gate Theater, still there today on the corner of Golden Gate Ave and Taylor Street. Several foreground buildings are recognizable but those downtown are replaced or dwarfed by newer high-rises.
The 28-story Neo-Gothic-styled 100 McAllister building was built in 1925 as a Methodist Episcopal church with a ‘dry’ hotel (no alcohol) above it. Wouldn’t you know it, the project failed. Today it’s a student residential tower for U.C. Hastings College of Law.
Knowing that the police think Rhoda Montaine has killed Moxley, Mason returns to her home at 2100 Washington Street (shown in an earlier post). Her husband Carl tells him she left earlier that day with a suitcase and a trunk.
Then … Mason surmises she went to the airport to flee the police, not a good idea because it would for sure implicate her. He hastily drives there in a mad dash through town. Here he is approaching Market Street in the ‘00’ block of Fell Street (map), closely followed by the police in an unmarked car. The tower of the former Sacred Heart Catholic Church can be seen at the top of the hill on the corner of Fillmore Street.
… and Now, The distant tower is still visible from here. Since 2014 the 19th century church has been used as a rollerskate venue, aka The Church Of 8 Wheels. The Spanish Colonial building at far right at 50 Fell Street is currently a Montessori school.
Then … They make a right from Fell into Market Street. The Ferry building is barely visible way in the distance. The Fox Theater can be seen behind them at 1350 Market, advertising the movies Woman In Red and Little Men as the ‘A’ and ‘B’ features.
The 4,651 seat Fox was one of many grand theaters on Market Street that saw their heyday in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It was built in 1929 but closed after years of declining attendance as television became popular. Here it is in 1963 just prior to demolition.
… in the 1960s … A telephoto shot down Market c. early 1960s captured the Fox at far left with its fellow theaters arrayed along the street. Only the Orpheum and the Warfield have survived.
… and Now, a mostly rebuilt Market Street is a very different thoroughfare than its neon-blazed predecessor.
Then … The drive through the city jumps all over town as was typical in movies. Here the cop car tailing Mason has just turned left from Van Ness into McAllister (map). That’s the War Memorial Veterans Building on the left.
… and Now, The Beaux-Arts-style Veteran’s Building dates from 1932; it commemorates those who served in the first World War. The hodgepodge block across McAllister was sacrificed for the California Public Utilities Commission headquarters at 505 Van Ness.
Then … Next, they turn north into Van Ness from Market Street (map). Across Market check out what these days would be a very rare sight - the Fur Doctor, a fur repair store, at 1521 Market.
… and Now, The same Market/ Van Ness junction is unrecognizable today and not only because of the mess created by the Van Ness Improvement Project, now in its 5th year.
… in 1944 … this vintage photo looking east down Market across the Van Ness junction was taken 9 years after the movie was released. The Fur Doctor was still in business, on the right.
(Part 2 of the chase to the airport will continue in the next post).
Then … With Igor Braun temporarily absent, O’Hara and Grayson sneak into his studio.
… and Now, This is 1087 Clay Street, corner of Mason, in Nob Hill, described in more detail in an earlier post.
Then … Inside, they head straight for the easel to inspect the painting that Braun has been working on...
… and Now, this is a rendition of one of the oldest houses in Montmartre, Paris - the historic Le Consulat Restaurant at 18 Rue Norvins in the shadow of the Sacre Coeur Basilica (map). Once a favorite hangout for famous artists Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and others, the neighborhood today is overrun by tourists; here it is in 2019 as captured by Google Street View. It has also appeared over the years in a number of movies including Woody Allen’s 1996 film ‘Everyone Says I love You’.
O’Hara scans the painting with UV light, exposing both another stolen formula from the Lakeview Nuclear Physics Research Lab and Braun’s culpability.
Then … They are warned that Braun is on his way back so they quickly duck out the back door. In what could be a studio setup using a rear projection to set the location, the view looks across Market Street, filmed from the rooftop of the C. S. Mahoney Dodge Dealership, a real business at 1740 Market (map). (CitySleuth has already pointed out that this is miles away from the house in Nob Hill). The arrows point on the left to the Allen Hotel at 1693 Market and on the right to a Pacific Telephone & Telegraph switching station.
As recently as 2017 that block, seen here from street level, looked very similar to the movie image above …
… and Now, but today the arrowed buildings, viewed from the same rooftop, are still there, but dwarfed by newer ones. There’s now a bulky apartment complex slapped against the older but more architecturally interesting Allen Hotel building, reducing it to an afterthought. The gabled building next to it is the McRoskey Mattress Company at 1687 Market, in business since before the movie was filmed and still in business today.
The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph (now AT&T) switching station is unchanged - still as it was in the movie’s ‘Then’ image above. This 1937 Art Deco industrial gem occupies the corner of McCoppin and Otis Streets.
