Good 30s Films: San Francisco

1936 Drama
From MGM
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke

Starring 
Clark Gable
Jeanette MacDonald
Spencer Tracy
Jack Holt
Jessie Ralph
Shirley Ross

After that lion finishes roaring, we see on the screen:  San Francisco-- guardian of the Golden Gate stands today a queen among seaports-- industrious mature, respectable.  But perhaps she dreams of the queen and city she was, splendid and sensuous, vulgar and magnificent, that perished suddenly with a cry still heard in the hearts of those who knew her exactly at five-thirty a.m., April 18, 1906. 


The story opens on New Year's Eve 1905 on the decadent and lawless Barbary Coast, a red-light district, home to brothels, jazz clubs, variety shows, concert halls and saloons like The Paradise, owned and hands-on managed by Blackie Norton (Gable).  There's revelry all around... inside Blackie's club and outside on the streets... but one never needed a holiday or an excuse to let one's hair down on the Barbary Coast.

We first see Blackie in his tux and top hat, cane in hand, practically saluting people as they pass him on the street.  He's well-regarded in his corrupt, little corner of the world.  The Paradise, with its high-stepping showgirls and its loud, boozy atmosphere attracts anyone who wants to be seen and has the money to spend to keep drinking. Oddly, Blackie tries to run a respectable joint.

On the street, as he hurries to The Paradise, Blackie passes by Mary Blake (MacDonald). The camera stays on her so that we can observe her slow gait, her downward gaze, perhaps a shyness and we are immediately aware that she has enjoyed happier times. We're not sure why.  

As the midnight hour approaches, Blackie works the crowd inside his place.  He admonishes one of his showgirls over some fluff on her costume so that we can see, no matter how minor, this is a man who is in charge.  He's suave, handsome, virile.  Often barking rather than speaking to others, he gets visibly upset when he can't control a person or a situation.  The screenplay allows many opportunities to understand the kind of person Blackie is.

Mary, as it turns out, is indeed down-on-her-luck.  She hails from Colorado and has probably wandered into the Barbary Coast by accident.  She seems as though she'd be better suited to Nob Hill. She's pretty but a bit wan-looking and one would not err to call her skittish.

We know she's going to wind up at The Paradise.  She's looking for a job.  When she and Blackie meet, there's an immediate attraction and with an absence of any negativity.  But then it starts.  She says she's a singer and he responds with show me your legs.  Their relationship goes downhill from there.

She sings something for him as he sits drinking in his special corner. He's impressed and hires her.  The next day at a practice session she sings the title tune for the first but not last time.  It's one of the reasons I like this movie.  And then she goes into an operatic number and Blackie pops his cork.  He wants none of that highbrow stuff in his classy joint.  Soon, however, he realizes he has never heard singing like that and that his customers love her.

Right at that time Jack Burley (Holt), an impresario from Nob Hill who runs the Tivoli Opera House, hears her singing and wants her to come work for him.  We further learn that she has performed
in opera and has come to San Francisco to further that but she now has a contract with Blackie.  Burley can't believe Blackie will hold her to a contract and hold her back from a glorious career.

Some of the city officials want Blackie to run for supervisor because he's liked enough to get voted in and they want the corruption to stop.  Blackie seems an odd choice for that but one thing he has in his favor is that he wants to see the little mugs out there get a square deal.  He has several things on his own agenda including getting stricter fire laws.

Mary's Catholicism comforts her and aids her in meeting Father Tim (Tracy) whom she discovers is a childhood friend of Blackie's. He tells her that Blackie is one of the most godless people he knows living in America's most godless city.  When she expresses doubts about staying with Blackie, a man with whom she feels she has nothing in common and who frightens her, Father Tim asks her to give it a chance.  He suspects Mary has fallen for his fallen friend and he would like to enlist her to help rehabilitate Blackie.

Mary decides to take him up on his suggestion but her differences with Blackie seem too great.  She's appalled that he doesn't believe in God but he asks her to take me as I am.  She shrinks from his advances, even when he tells her he loves her (he has come a long way).  He asks her how does it feel to feel like a woman and be afraid of it?

Mixed in with their own problems is Burley who continues to coax Mary to come sing for him.  Ultimately she does.  Blackie woos her back and they plan to be married and then those differences creep in again and she goes back to Burley and the Tivoli.  He wants to marry her as well but she puts him off, knowing she loves Blackie.

The plot reaches an impasse as Mary and Blackie go their separate ways.  She is doing what she should be doing... lifting that lyric soprano voice in song... more specifically the beautiful arias from Faust and La Traviata. And now their roles have reversed.  She's riding the crest of a wave and he's fallen on hard times, including a rigged closing of The Paradise due to the shady ways of Burley, who not only wants to keep him from Mary but bury him.

The finale begins... and it's just hot (in more ways than one), what can I say?

Blackie needs to raise some dough for his defense on some trumped-up charges at the same time as the Coast is putting on some talent show with the winner getting big bucks.  Ok, we see it coming, and we can't wait.  It is revealed that The Paradise has no performer on hand at the same time that Mary, in the audience with Burley, finds out his duplicitous nature.  She'll sing for The Paradise.

Mary takes to the stage as the announcement is made.  One of the showgirls has someone go get Blackie so he knows what's happening.  The room is packed and there is Mary alone on the stage.  She leans down to the orchestra leader and says three words to him that sends the crowd into spasms of joy... play San Francisco.  I don't care how many times I've seen this movie, when she says that my heart seems to bubble up, my temples pulsate and I consider for a moment that I've never been happier.  

What is it about this song?  I have always responded to its welcoming words, its rousing nature, its promise of the California sunshine.  I lived in Los Angeles for over 30 years but my heart was always in San Francisco.  I think it is one of America's most glorious cities.  

Watching MacDonald sing the song just at this point in the film always provides me with wry amusement. The opera soprano provides a sassy twang and a Cohanesque rendering to the joyous crowd-pleaser. Today and for decades now, the song as it's sung near the finale is considered high camp and it is the stuff of legend, certainly gay legend. The song is a bit of an anthem to us and the city certainly opened its Golden Gate.  Here then, if you dare, together, is MacDonald's famous rendition...

But I have digressed.  Mary wins, of course, but Blackie bounds upon the stage to say she didn't have his approval and he throws the winnings on the floor.  An embarrassed and hurt Mary leaves the stage just as it happens.  The walls crack, chandeliers fall as does the second story.  Outside the earth convulses, buildings topple, a piano comes flying out of a window, bricks are hurling, statues falling, whole sides of apartment buildings fall away, people are screaming and crying and trying to avoid runaway teams of horses.

We have no idea where Mary is. The city has now caught on fire and buildings are being imploded.  Blackie is desperately looking for her.  He's lost everything in the earthquake but he found something as well... that it isn't worth going on without Mary. 
Of course, before it's all over, Blackie will find Mary... and God as well.

The filmmakers could have gone all biblical on us... can't we think of a city or two filled with the most unsavory, godless denizens who must suffer some terrible disaster to rid the earth of their pestilence?  It's all here... a morality tale, but despite Gable-MacDonald-Tracy locking arms at the end with hordes of people walking behind them and everyone singing Battle Hymn of the Republic, it didn't get all message-y... just a trifle corny.  

Opera is woven gracefully into the script.  It does not overpower the film in any way but I suspect it could, nonetheless, be a turnoff for some.  That would certainly be too bad because this is rousing entertainment at every level.  There is some rich dialogue, good acting and for 1936 especially, some damned fine special effects.

This is the quintessential Gable role... arrogant, entitled, riddled with obvious shortcomings but charming, smooth and studly.  He 
had played it before but he perfected it all with Blackie Norton and would play variations of Blackie throughout his career.

If no one could have played Blackie Norton better than Gable, I should think that would stand even more so with MacDonald portraying the opera-loving Mary Blake. The actress hoped that San Francisco would move her somewhat out of the rut playing in those sunny little operettas.  While it never did that, I regard this as the film to show her at her best advantage.

She was not only signed for the film first but is the one who brought it to studio head, Louis B. Mayer's attention.  She was his pet, a fact that did not always engender her to her coworkers. Gable, in fact, disliked her from afar.  He knew her reputation and he loathed diva-like actors.  He was always grateful for what he had but most would say it never went to his head.  She likely didn't know he felt the way he did while she was bombarding Mayer with requests for him as her leading man.  He would be like no leading man she ever had or would ever have. He signed on but exploded when he found out she would be his leading lady and he tried everything he could to get out of it. 

If that weren't enough, the story was being changed to beef up her role.  He knew operatic songs would be featured but he didn't realize at first that he would be photographed simply listening to her sing.  The thought grossed him out and this is the attitude he took to the first day of filming.

She joined in the misery after filming began.  While she was the leading lady, she wasn't used to how the leading man got so much more attention (screen time) than she did.  She didn't like that action sometimes took place elsewhere while she sang.  She certainly didn't like that he ate garlic prior to some of their closer scenes.  

At least once they tried nice-nice in between setups

In the end, Gable never warmed to MacDonald.  In fact, he largely ignored her unless it was in the script.  A further consideration is that their real-life relationship might have helped their characters since they were also at odds most of the time.

Tracy had made a number of movies by the time he made San Francisco but it had only been about a year that anyone paid much notice.  He was third-billed here and under the title... that would soon be forever changing. This was the first time the die-hard Catholic would play a priest. One day he would win an Oscar playing one.  He received his first of nine Oscar nominations for San Francisco, his first of three with Gable.

The film ends with a panoramic view of the 1906 ruins which turn into the thriving metropolis of 1936.  Living with the threat of earthquakes in all my years in California, one cannot help thinking during a viewing of this film that it could one day happen again. One hopes they're prepared.  In the meantime, it's a wonderful way to spend two hours.



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