Where to watch San Francisco online

Storyline

A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.

Released

1936-06-26
Revenue

$5,273,000
Budget

$1,300,000
Runtime

1hr 55m
Genre

Drama, Romance, Music
Status

Released
Language

English
7.1
Production

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Crew

W.S. Van Dyke

Director

Anita Loos

Screenplay

John Emerson

Producer

Keywords:

epic san francisco, california earthquake priest belief in god saloon owner opera singer saloon singer crisis of faith disaster movie nob hill loss of faith great fire 1900s tough man

Stream and watch San Francisco

similar movies

Gran Torino

The God Who Wasn't There

Death of Hope Part 1: Anarchy Reigns

There Will Be Blood

The Towering Inferno

The Great Escape

Fanny and Alexander

The Woman in Red

Europa

The Thread of Life

Funerals of Terror

The Phantom of the Opera

The Prince of Egypt

The Mistress of Spices

Whipmaster: Ballad of Murder

My New Year

The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater

The Good Heart

Airport '77

Alive

Cast

Videos and Photos

Movie Reviews

Reviews for San Francisco

A Review by Geronimo1967 7

Written by Geronimo1967 on 2024-10-30

I sometimes found Jeanette MacDonald to be a sort of singing hybrid of Bette Davis and Binnie Barnes! She reminds me very much of that here ... read more

I sometimes found Jeanette MacDonald to be a sort of singing hybrid of Bette Davis and Binnie Barnes! She reminds me very much of that here in this engaging, if slightly long, romantic tale set just before the infamous San Francisco earthquake. "Mary Blake" arrives in the city looking for a job and she alights on the owner of the "Paradise Café". He's the suave and savvy "Blackie Norton" (Clark Gable) and he takes quite a shine to her. So too does his rather wealthier and more high-brow competitor "Burley" (Jack Holt) who might be a better fit for this girl's operatic ambitions. What now ensues sees the chemistry between MacDonald and Gable ebb and flow against a background of crookedness, envy and some good old-fashioned thuggery. Trying to help everyone stay on the right track is his childhood friend "Tim" (Spencer Tracy) who now just happens to be the local priest, a dab hand with a boxing glove, and a man who refuses to see evil in just about anyone. "Mary" has some tough choices to make, and those around her seem perfectly happy to make it for her if she doesn't - so which way is she going to turn? There's no doubt that MacDonald could sing, and her performances here are powerful and at times quite mischievous as her semi-operatic numbers illustrate quite well her character's struggle to fit into a society that wanted music hall numbers and not a good dose of "Faust"! Gable brings his usual lighthearted charm to the proceedings and there are a couple of amiable scenes from the rags-to-riches "Maisie" (Jessie Ralph) to remind us that just about everyone in that city started from nothing - even those on it's exclusive Nob Hill. The photography and visual effects at the end are really quite impressive and the audio of both the musical and thunderous elements of destruction work really quite well on a big screen too. It's not a plot that really stands out, but everyone here works well together to provide an enjoyable reminder of not just these stars, but also of the variety of Vaudeville entertainers that our forebears watched on stage.