A Few Words About A few words about…™ San Francisco – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Ethan Riley]

Sounds good. I've always been curious about this film.

 

[M90GM]

I've never seen a quality print of W.S. Van Dyke's San Francisco. With the majority of prints for this immensely popular film probably struck from the camera original, 84 years ago, that negative was probably in less than stellar shape before it was lost.

From what I've been able to ascertain, Warner Archive's new, and surprisingly beautiful, new Blu-ray, was derived from multiple elements.

The base seems to have been an image harvest of a nitrate fine grain of the French version. That means that the track would be in French aside from Jeanette MacDonald's vocals, and other musical numbers would be sub-titled. Main and ends, would also be French.

A second element, a safety duplicate fine grain, served for the rest of the film,

Long story short, San Francisco is a love story, set during the time of the quake, and is quite representative of the top special effects available at the time.

As pure entertainment, it's a terrific film, and it finally looks very pleasing.

Gray scale, black levels, grain, all in order, and what will be expected.

A classic that deserves to be in every serious library.

Clark Gable's big picture for the 1936.

1934 - It Happened One Night
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 - San Francisco

Before he moved to color films in 1939.

Image – 4

Audio – 5

Pass / Fail – Pass

Upgrade from DVD – Without a doubt

Very Highly Recommended

RAH

This print is spectacular and almost impossible to accept the film dates from 1936. Always one of my top 5 favorites in a quick 10 minute "preview" I saw things I had not before in spite of maybe 10 viewings over the years. A masterful emotionally fulfilling masterpiece. Lets us hope this title has strong sales as there are many more where this came from ...Random Harvest, Captains Courageous, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Blossoms in the Dust, Boom Town, Test Pilot, Manhatten Meloldrama, Camille....

 

[M90GM]

I've never seen a quality print of W.S. Van Dyke's San Francisco. With the majority of prints for this immensely popular film probably struck from the camera original, 84 years ago, that negative was probably in less than stellar shape before it was lost.

From what I've been able to ascertain, Warner Archive's new, and surprisingly beautiful, new Blu-ray, was derived from multiple elements.

The base seems to have been an image harvest of a nitrate fine grain of the French version. That means that the track would be in French aside from Jeanette MacDonald's vocals, and other musical numbers would be sub-titled. Main and ends, would also be French.

A second element, a safety duplicate fine grain, served for the rest of the film,

Long story short, San Francisco is a love story, set during the time of the quake, and is quite representative of the top special effects available at the time.

As pure entertainment, it's a terrific film, and it finally looks very pleasing.

Gray scale, black levels, grain, all in order, and what will be expected.

A classic that deserves to be in every serious library.

Clark Gable's big picture for the 1936.

1934 - It Happened One Night
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 - San Francisco

Before he moved to color films in 1939.

Image – 4

Audio – 5

Pass / Fail – Pass

Upgrade from DVD – Without a doubt

Very Highly Recommended

RAH

Have any of you watched the blu ray? Is it not amazing? and as an entertainment, the film is seriously great fun! The earthquake is by no means the highlight - rather the three main stars and their interaction is what makes this film so special ...multiple viewings have not dulled its impact - emotionally connecting, good fun, and when JM belts out San Francisco & the house comes down ...and then it really does ...a CLASSIC in the true meaning of the word bandied around today for any old movie...

 

[benbess]

Finally got this one and watched it today. Saw it once before, but before this restoration it was sometimes a murky and dusty mess. Spencer Tracy is great in this movie, and works well with Clark Gable. By that way, that punch Tracy gave Gable looks fairly realistic! As does the punch the other way around. I also enjoyed Tracy and Gable in Boom Town, and wondered why they didn't work together after that. The apparent answer is found in the imdb trivia entries for San Francisco, along with some other interesting items....

San Francisco (1936) - Trivia - IMDb

San Francisco (1936) - Trivia on IMDb: Cameos, Mistakes, Spoilers and more...

www.imdb.com

"Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy would go on to make two other films together, Test Pilot (1938) and Boom Town (1940). By the end of the filming of the latter, Tracy had tired of always receiving supporting billing below Gable and insisted on shared billing going forward. Gable did not agree with this and the two never worked together again.

Jeanette MacDonald personally chose Spencer Tracy for the second male lead. Previously Tracy had mainly been cast as heavies; this role completely turned his career around. At 14 minutes and 58 seconds, Spencer Tracy 's performance in this movie is the shortest to ever be nominated for a leading acting Oscar.

The song "San Francisco"--written for the film--is now a popular anthem in the city and is sung on earthquake memorial days.

Jeanette MacDonald brought the screenplay by Anita Loos to the attention of MGM head Irving Thalberg with the express idea that she should headline alongside Clark Gable. Thalberg readily agreed although Gable did not get along with MacDonald during filming. He objected to her singing at him and would eat garlic before their kissing scenes just to annoy her.

To create the destructive nature of the earthquake, entire sets were built on hydraulic lifts and shakers which were then raised and rocked violently.

The comment that Spencer Tracy makes about the "Rooney kid" is an ad-lib (watch Jeanette MacDonald's expression reacting to it). Tracy had worked with Mickey Rooney earlier that year in Riffraff (1936) and knew that director W.S. Van Dyke abhorred retakes, priding himself on bringing in productions fast and under budget--hence his nickname, "One-Take Woody".

Spencer Tracy initially had qualms about appearing in the film because he was unsure about playing a priest. A devout Catholic, Tracy felt that he might be betraying his faith by trying to impersonate a priest for the movies. Ironically, two years later Tracy would win an Oscar for playing a priest in Boys Town (1938)"



Anyway, it's too bad Tracy and Gable didn't work together after Boom Town. I wish Gable had been more gracious about sharing top billing. Speaking of which, there's a funny song about this very issue of stars arguing about Top Billing, sung by Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby....

 

[roxy1927]

Eleanor Powell is in San Francisco? Boy I sure missed that.