Musicals also found inspirational settings in the Bay Area. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song (1961) stars the scene-stealing Jack Soo as a fast-living Chinatown nightclub owner being coerced into an arranged marriage. Co-star Nancy Kwan swings down Grant Avenue, “the greatest street” she knows. I was blessed to be friends with the producer of this film, Ross Hunter, who was determined to cast as many Asian actors as possible and also to use Bay Area locations, including Twin Peaks and North Beach.
Moving a bit more into the future, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) used Marin and San Francisco sites to advance an unusual and timely conservation plot. The group ends up in 1980s San Francisco, with Spock and company trying to learn the lingo of the time.
If you find yourself leaving Marin’s San Quentin, be sure to check the backseat — you might find Humphrey Bogart. Lauren Bacall and Agnes Moorehead also star in the murder mystery Dark Passage (1947). Parts of the movie were filmed on location in San Francisco, including on the Filbert Steps and on a cable car. The Streamline Moderne Malloch Building on Telegraph Hill stood in for the apartment of Irene Jansen (Bacall).
Every time I ride by the San Rafael Civic Center I think of the sci-fi film Gattaca (1997). The movie gives us a caste system of “perfect” humans, and even Gore Vidal shows up. Dark themes seem to go well with Bay Area locations, including D.O.A. (the 1950 original), Experiment in Terror (1962), The Conversation (1974), THX 1138 (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971). Other films are content to use our local backdrops just to tell great stories, including Chef (2014), High Anxiety (1977), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Blue Jasmine (2013), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), and Tucker: A Man and His Dream (1988).
Photos: Entertainment Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo (Bogart film image), United Archives GMBH/Alamy Stock Photo (Harold and Maude)