San Francisco (1936)
Cassie Vogelpohl
San Francisco
is probably best described as “a disaster film with songs.” The opening scene details a New Year’s Eve
celebration in the streets of San
Francisco in the year 1906. The spirited party is interrupted by a fire
in a nearby building, from which Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) witnesses two
children jump to the firemen below. The
fire is assumed to be part of the lawlessness contributing to San Francisco’s
reputation as “the most wicked and corrupt city in America”. After the fire scene, a group of townsmen
approach Blackie and ask him to run for Supervisor in hopes he will bring order
to the city.
As Blackie sits in his cabaret, a
mysterious lady walks in looking for work.
Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) is the beautiful daughter of a country
parson with a phenomenal voice – which she displays over and over again
throughout the movie. Blackie hires Mary
to sing on stage at Norton’s Paradise. Shortly thereafter, socialite Jack Burley of
the Tivoli Opera House offers Mary an audition.
The remainder of the film plays out
Mary’s struggle to choose between the man that she
loves--bad boy Blackie--and Jack, the man that holds her ticket to singing opera. Mary does perform in an opera at the Tivoli and is an instant
sensation. She returns to the Paradise to star in a show, but she storms out after a
befriended priest, Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy), forces her to realize the
damaging effects that Blackie has on her reputation. It would seem as if the leading love affair
would end there, but as the back cover of the DVD states, “If love and religion
can’t reform Blackie, Mother Nature will.”
Enter the onset of a long earthquake sequence. The ground shakes, buildings collapse, bricks
crush innocent bystanders, streets split, and the city begins to burn out of
control. Blackie, realizing his love for
Mary, searches endlessly through the rubble for her. After walking around the city in a daze,
Blackie finally comes upon Mary. The two
lead a singing chorus through the streets and a vision of a rebuilt San Francisco is left as the
final image.
MGM’s San Francisco
is a romantic drama released in 1936 and was part of the production trend
called the prestige picture.
Traditionally, prestige pictures were injected with star
power, glamorous trimmings, and elaborate effects. San
Francisco fits all of these criteria; it contains big stars, elegant
costumes, and the fantastic special effects of the earthquake scene. The picture was a huge success and inspired a
series of big-budget disaster films.
There are also elements in this film which are suggestive of the Western
genre. As previously mentioned, Blackie was
called upon to run for office and clean
up the town. The city of San Francisco is
portrayed as a corrupt place to live, and as one of the movie’s posters reads,
[Mary] “Fell In Love . . . with the toughest guy on
the toughest street in the world!”
Although the disaster aspect of this film moves in and trumps any ideas
that might have occurred of Blackie cleaning up the lawless town, the Western
sentiments are felt by the audience nonetheless.