User Reviews

Alongside "Gone With The Wind" MGM's SAN FRANCISCO (1936) is without doubt the finest romantic drama to emanate from Hollywood in the thirties. A movie that had everything going for it - a splendid story and script, a superb star in Clark Gable, a beautiful actress with an arresting singing voice in Jeanette MacDonald, wonderful songs and an earthquake sequence that will not only knock your socks off but can stand up proudly beside anything that computer graphics can conjure up today. The picture also was the most sensational profit making movie of 1936 speeding past "The Great Ziegfeld" from the same year. Produced for the studio by John Emerson and Bernard Hyman it was directed with great punch and attention to detail by W.S.Van Duke. The Perfectly handled screenplay was written by Anita Loos from a story by Robert Hopkins and the crisp monochrome cinematography was by Oliver T. Marsh.

It is 1905 in San Fransico and Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) runs "The Paradise" a not too respectable night club on the rowdy Barbary Coast. A girl Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) arrives in the city from the country looking for a job singing. She approaches Norton who interviews her and is very taken by both her beauty and her prowess as a singer. He hires her and in the following weeks they fall in love but Blackie comes up against some competition from Jack Burly (Jack Holt) the wealthy owner of the Tivoli opera house. Burly falls for Mary too and wants to buy out her contract from Norton to have her sing in the opera. But Norton refuses and is not for turning. However after an altercation with Blackie she walks out on him and goes to the Tivoli where she becomes a singing sensation. Still in love with Blackie she however sees no future with him and just as she becomes engaged to Burly a tremendous earthquake wreaks havoc on the great city. The picture ends with the death of thousands of citizens including Jack Burly and an injured Blackie searching through every bit of rubble for Mary before eventually finding her alive and well and leading the survivors singing the hymn "Nearer My God To Thee" in a makeshift camp outside the destroyed city.

Performances are top notch throughout the movie. Gable is terrific as the flamboyant Blackie Norton. His role looking every bit like a dry run for his Rhett Butler three years later. Excellent too is the inviting and quite lovely Jeanette MacDonald. The vivacious lady is simply electric! She just lights up the screen and delights us with her mellifluous singing voice in renditions of arias from Gounod's FAUST, Verdi's LA TRAVIATA, Nacio Herb Brown's lovely WOULD YOU and the rousing title song SAN FRANCISCO written by Polish composer Bronislau Kaper who was just starting out on his illustrious film music career at MGM. The song would become a hit and remains to this day the city's favoured anthem. Of course the real star of the picture is the special effects with the climactic earthquake sequence. Designed and implemented by Russian montage expert Slavko Vorkapach it remains an amazing achievement for thirties cinema which can still manage to excite and frighten today with just as much impact as anything in modern film.

It is almost inconceivable that a seventy five year old movie can remain such a firm favourite which it steadfastly has maintained over the years. The film was nominated for four Acadamy Awards (winning one for sound recording), has a beautiful screenplay, is wonderfully directed and besides the lovely songs from the attractive Miss MacDonald contains some moments of real charm especially the scenes with the two principles. SAN FRANCISCO is a great and fascinating film from vintage Hollywood and looks like it will continue to be one of the most fondly remembered movies of all time.

The San Francisco Earthquake happened 99 years ago next week. Ironically it's anniversary is a few days after the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, as well as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Forgotten is also the anniversary on April 27 of the explosion and burning of the steamboat Sultana in 1865 (which killed more people than the Titanic did!). Truly T.S. Eliot's comment, "April is the cruelest month" has some substantial facts to back it.

There are not many movies dealing with famous earthquakes, although they do appear in films like PENNY SERENADE (where Irene Dunne and Cary Grant survive the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923). The San Francisco Earthquake has popped up in other films besides SAN FRANCISCO. Within two years of this film Warner Brothers produced THE SISTERS starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, in which Davis survives the earthquake. There was at least on silent film dealing with the earthquake too. But SAN FRANCISCO is the best known.

I find it good as an entertaining film, and mediocre as a study of the actual events of April 18 - 25, 1906. The performances of Gable, MacDonald, Tracy, Ralph, and Jack Holt are all good. Al Shean gives a nice cameo as a musician who champions MacDonald. Even Ted Healy is less obnoxious here - he has a good dying scene.

The most interesting thing about the film is the way the focus of villainy keeps shifting between Gable and Holt. We know that Clark Gable's Blackie is the hero of the film, but he frequently acts like an antihero in pushing aside MacDonald's operatic ambitions. We know that Holt is Gable's ruthless business rival, and the leader of the money people who refuse to consider fireproofing the buildings of the Barbary Coast area (it's not economical). But he does love MacDonald, and can't believe Gable's totally selfish intention to keep her working in his saloon rather than putting her in her proper spot on the stage of the San Francisco opera home. This seesaw effect is usually not noted by critics of the film. It is actually a plus in keeping one's interest in the actual plot.

My carping criticism is of a typically historical nature. The best study of the earthquake is Gordon Thomas and Max Gordon Witt's THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE, which points out the huge amount of official corruption in the background of the earthquake. The city was run by Boss Abe Ruef and his mayor-stooge-partner, Eugene Schmitz (a former bassoon player in an orchestra). They ignored improving the fire department's equipment, and as a result the earthquake would touch off a fire that was impossible to control. The fire was only stopped when federal troops under General Frederick Funston took over the city, set up martial law (possibly going too far - there were too many reports of killings done to prevent looting but that killed innocent people), and using dynamite to blast holes into the paths of the flames. Some aspects of this are shown in the earthquake sequences, but Schmitz and Ruef were not mentioned, nor was Funston (a war hero - he helped end the Phillippine "Insurrection of 1899 - 1902" by capturing Emilio Aguinaldo, it's leader, by a trick). Also more recent studies show the extent of the damage of the earthquake was greater than admitted in 1906. For years the casualty rate was estimated as only 500 (roughly the same as the Chicago Fire in 1871 and one third of the Titanic). About a decade ago a more careful study of census information, etc. showed the death toll was between 3,500 to 6,000, making it one of the deadliest events in American history.

The city of San Francisco did resurrect and rebuild itself quickly after the quake and fire. Ruef was sent to jail and Schmitz sent packing. San Francisco held World Fairs in 1915 and 1939-40. It is a most beloved city for tourists on our west coast to this day. But they know, with their San Andreas Fault nearby to remind them, that it will inevitably happen again one day. They are better prepared, but it will happen, and it will be a bad day once more when it does.

On some barren hills just south of San Francisco sits the town of Colma, consisting mostly of cemeteries. The dead outnumber the living by thousands to one. Colma is known as "the city that waits for the city that waits to die to die." If it had been open in 1906 business would have been booming.

In 1906, Clark Gable is Blackie Norton, proprietor of a honky tonk who hires Jeanette MacDonald as a singer, humiliating her in the process, although she's a nice young lady and he's a ruthless thuggish kind of guy. Blackie's pal, Spencer Tracy is a priest and always trying to snap Blackie out of his coarse ways, but doing it gently.

MacDonald has a voice that belongs in the opera, and an impresario (whatever that is) tries to hire her, but Blackie won't let her out of her contract. Room for all kinds of conflict there -- nice girl loves ambitious bum, fatherly opera owner takes an interest in her, friendly priest tries to keep the lid on. There's even a rough-edged middle-aged blond who excoriates Blackie for his spitefulness, though she has a heart of gold and is fond of MacDonald.

The Big One comes and MGM puts on a lavish display of earthquake and fire. It's not entirely historically accurate because the real one took place around five in the morning. But it was a monster alright. It drove Enrico Caruso out onto the streets in his night clothes, hugging a picture of Theodore Roosevelt. The effects are pretty good for the period and I'm happy they're there because without them this would have been a rather ordinary tale of misunderstandings, self interest, and love, enlivened by MacDonald's soprano, which sounds like a vibrato-ridden lunch whistle.

Poor Blackie pulls himself out from under the rubble and stumbles about the streets, helping strangers, searching desperately for MacDonald, whom he has come to realize he truly loves.

Does he find her? You bet. She's unharmed too. She's down at the car barn helping Father Tracy tend the wounded and underemployed. They hug. A crowd gathers and sings "Nearer My God To Thee" before engaging in a colossal thigmotaxis and marching back towards the ruins of the city to a rousing chorus of "San Francisco." They did rebuild it too, and quickly enough for an international exposition to be held there a few years later. And not everyone came out of it worse than he went into it. A. P. Giannini was able to turn his little Bank of Italy in North Beach into the big Bank of America by making loans to working people of the city. If you carry a Visa in your wallet, the San Francisco earthquake of April, 1906, has something to do with it.

It's not a bad movie. It chugs slowly along though, and the plot seems at times like just mere filler until the Big One comes along. Spencer Tracy hadn't yet hit his stride as an actor. His priest, as written, is one-dimensional and his face is as interesting as a baked potato. Gable, as Blackie, although elevated by the nimbus of his Gablehood, seems darker than usual. Jeanette MacDonald at least is pretty and gets to sing an aria or two.

"San Francisco", MGM's 'Showcase' film of 1936, demonstrates why no other studio could 'touch' Metro at it's prime. Take the biggest star in Hollywood, team him with the 'Queen' of 1930s MGM musicals, add the greatest film actor of a generation in support, then top things off with a 'no-expense-spared' recreation of the most famous earthquake in history, and an instant Classic was born!

Seventy years later, the film has lost little of it's luster; certainly the 'Message' is a bit heavy-handed, the long opera sequences may make some viewers cringe, and some of the effects (involving double exposures) seem quaint in an era of CGI...but Clark Gable still projects his signature cockiness and virility, Jeanette MacDonald is still radiant (and can sure belt out "San Francisco"), and Spencer Tracy is still magnificent (it is easy to see why he received a 'Best Actor' nomination, in what was obviously a supporting role; he easily steals the film, in every scene he's in).

Directed by the remarkable W.S. ('Woody') Van Dyke, a consummate craftsman, and one of MGM's fastest directors (contradictory terms, but he combined speed and style, effortlessly), with a screenplay, surprisingly, by future "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" author, Anita Loos (from a story by Robert Hopkins), "San Francisco" exudes confidence, from the riotously decadent New Year's Eve, 1905, opening scene, to the finale, as Gable, MacDonald, Tracy, and, apparently, most of the survivors of the earthquake and fire march to a hilltop, vowing to build a 'better' city, and singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", as they view the smoking ruins, which dissolves into the 'modern' San Francisco of 1936.

Corny? Certainly! But undeniably rousing, as well!

On the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it's worth seeking out this 1936 chestnut if you can - even though it represents both the best and worst of what MGM did back in Hollywood's golden age. Be forewarned that it's slow going until the last twenty minutes when the studio pulled out all the stops to recreate the legendary earthquake and fire that destroyed the entire city. It's hard to believe that neither the Golden Gate Bridge nor the Bay Bridge was even built when this film was made, and in fact, only thirty years had elapsed since the earthquake occurred. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke in less than subtle fashion, the patently old-fashioned melodrama stars Clark Gable as notorious gambling hall owner Blackie Norton and Jeanette McDonald as virginal parson's daughter Mary Blake. A large supporting cast was assembled, which included the redoubtable Spencer Tracy, then a rising MGM star.

The silly, cornball story revolves around Blackie's attempts to turn Mary into the hall chanteuse despite her aspiration to become a world-famous opera singer. Mary falls for Blackie for reasons unclear except that he's Gable. A limited actress when speaking, the overly mannered McDonald sings frequently in the film in that soprano operetta vocal style that apparently was popular back then, and there is even an overlong sequence where she plays Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust" and brings Blackie rather incredibly to tears. In a thankless role, Tracy plays the pugnacious but kindly Father Mullen, who symbolizes the film's heavy religious overtones resulting in a most unbelievable conversion at the end. However, the recreations of the earthquake and fires are impressive by any standards, much less those of 1936. Director W.S. Van Dyke seems to borrow quite a bit from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 classic "Battleship Potemkin", but the quick cuts and implied carnage work very well in any context. Anita Loos, who penned the classic "The Women", wrote the heavy-handed script.

Blackie Norton is an atheist who runs an establishment catering to vices such as drinking, gambling, and ogling pretty women. However, we also see that he has a good heart underlying his sneering façade. Tim tells Mary about Blackie's good heart, saying in general that no one is all bad, an absurdity on which I will not bother to comment. The important thing about this conversation he has with Mary in this regard, however, is the smug know-it-all look he has on his face, which only gets worse as the movie wears on. A lot of people suppose that belief in God and moral goodness are linked together in some essential way, and this was especially true in 1936, when this movie was made. Therefore, Blackie's atheism in conjunction with his good heart, we are being guided to believe, is unsustainable.

Early in the movie, we see Blackie and Tim in the boxing ring, in which Tim knocks Blackie to the mat, as he usually does, according to Blackie. It is important to establish that Tim can lick Blackie in a fight, because later in the movie, when Blackie and Tim are arguing over Mary, Blackie punches Tim, who just stands there and takes it with a hurt look on his face, the blood trickling down from his lip. In other words, Tim is turning the other cheek in spite of his superior ability at fisticuffs. If the movie had not featured that boxing scene early on, we might suppose that Tim's reluctance to strike back is out of cowardice and weakness, that he is hiding behind his collar.

Though Mary loves Blackie, yet it bothers her that he doesn't believe in God. Blackie responds, "God? Hey, isn't he supposed to be taking care of the suckers that come out of the missions looking for something to eat and a place to sleep?" Some might answer that it is God that inspires the people that run the missions. But as Mark Twain once noted, "If you will look at the matter rationally and without prejudice, the proper place to hunt for the facts of His mercy, is not where man does the mercies and He collects the praise, but in those regions where He has the field to Himself."

This challenge returns to us toward the end of the movie where God indeed has the field to Himself. In other words, when the earthquake begins, God does nothing to prevent it, and the result is that many people die or suffer crippling injuries. As Blackie wanders around looking for Mary, he keeps running into people looking for God. The mother of the man whom Mary was planning to marry says of her son's death that it is God's will and that it's God's help they both need now. This brings out the great paradox regarding the connection between religion and suffering. The more suffering people experience, the more likely they are to turn to God. And yet, the more suffering people experience, the more we wonder why an all-powerful, loving God would allow it.

Eventually, Blackie finds a place where the injured are being cared for, where Tim is offering them comfort. One might expect that in the face of all the death and destruction that has befallen the city, Tim would look as grief stricken and overwhelmed as everyone else including Blackie. But no, Tim has a look of serenity on his face when Blackie sees him, and that look stays on his face right through the end of the movie. Earlier in the movie, when the Barbary Coast was indulging in all its wantonness—drinking, gambling, carousing—Tim's facial expression was often grim and disapproving. But now, with all the misery and suffering around him, Tim is in his element. As the city burns, as people die before his eyes, as he hears people cry out for the loss of their loved ones, Tim is truly at peace. This is especially so when he sees Blackie. Now, at last, Blackie will see. There must be a God after all.

"Wait a minute!" you say. "How does this prove the existence of God?" Well, actually what it proves is that people need God. And if people need God, then they need priests like Tim. For years, Tim had to endure all of Blackie's scoffing and sneering, but now the day of triumph is at hand. Blackie is truly humbled, confused by all the suffering and misery that he does not comprehend, as he stands before Tim, who has known all along that this day would come, and whose heart is filled with joy.

When Blackie asks Tim if he has seen Mary, Tim takes him to a place outdoors where survivors of the earthquake have found refuge. There is Mary, singing "Nearer My God to Thee," accompanied by those around her, while a mother holds her dead child in her arms until others gently take him away from her and she collapses in tears. It is all so heavenly.

When Blackie sees Mary, he says to Tim, "I want to thank God." And then we see it, the spectacle that exceeds even the earthquake: Blackie Norton, on his knees, tears in his eyes, giving thanks to God, while Tim looks on smiling sweetly.

When Mary sees Blackie on his knees in prayer, she comes to him, and now we know that Blackie will finally have Mary's love. Just then, someone yells that the fire is out, at which point everyone becomes happy, shouting that they will rebuild San Francisco, marching over the hill, back to the city, as they sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." When you consider that within less than the length of one full day, husbands have lost their wives, wives their husbands, parents their children, and children their parents, they all seem to be holding up amazingly well. God be praised.

The first three quarters of "San Francisco" appear to have been constructed to showcase the talents of Jeanette MacDonald. As Mary Blake she wanders into the saloon/night club "The Paradise" which is owned by Blackie Norton (Clark Gable). While singing in the club she is approached by Norton's uptown rival Jack Burley (Jack Holt) who promises her a chance to sing in an opera. The two men compete for Mary's favor and she is forced to choose between them. Meanwhile Norton's life long friend Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy) tries to get him to mend his ways while at the same time befriending Mary. Blackie has Mary under contract but Burley can offer more.

Before the matter can be settled the infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake takes place. The special effects in the sequence are breath taking. Remember there were no computers in 1936. Through the skillful use of miniatures, rear projection and other tricks, the illusion of a tragic chapter in the city's history becomes almost real.

As to the performances, Clark Gable is well, Clark Gable playing the cynical wise cracking, fast talking character he usually played in those days. And yes he is out to make money, is not committed and has several girls (Shirley Ross, Margaret Irving) in waiting. Jeanette MacDonald seems a little out of her depth in this setting although she is in fine voice as always. Spencer Tracy does the best he can in a limited role. And oh yes, there is another of MGM's sweet crusty old ladies in the person of Jesse Ralph as Burley's wise old mother.

Superb production values, great direction (W.S. Van Dyke) and jaw dropping special effects make this a better film than it ought to be. Watch out for a typical hokey Hollywood ending.

"Pay attention to her singing" is what another reviewer wrote. Well, it would be kinda' hard NOT to pay attention since 90% of this movie is nothing but Jeanette McDonald's caterwauling. I can appreciate music of just about any kind, but I did not think I would literally be watching a musical, starring a goody two-shoes, who has about as much stage presence as a turnip. I also did not know I would be captive to so many meddlesome people in one movie.

Spencer Tracey played the local priest, and I wanted to slap him until my arms got tired. He was always into everybody's business. Jeanette McDonald's character was so wishy-washy, you never knew from one minute to the next which man had become her flavor of the month. Clark Gable was, well, Clark Gable. This is certainly not one of his best, and it was nice to know it took some MAJOR persuasion to convince him to do the role. He and McDonald had absolutely ZERO chemistry.

The ending, which was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was pretty spectacular for a movie made in 1936, but was ruined by a Joan-of- Arc McDonald again wailing "Nearer my God to Thee." The director (and all others involved) managed to choke people on the "better quit your sinning" message, which finally tolled the death knell for me.