Independent Films, Film Profiles

San Francisco (film)

San Francisco is a 1936 drama-adventure film directed by Woody Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film a hit, coming on the heels of her other 1936 blockbuster, Rose Marie. The Internet Movie Database reports that famous silent film directors D. W. Griffith and Erich Von Stroheim contributed to the screenplay without screen credit. Griffith also helped direct the famous earthquake sequence.[2]"Blackie" Norton (Clark Gable), a gambling hall tycoon in the notorious Barbary Coast, hires a promising but impoverished classically-trained singer from Colorado, Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald). She becomes a star attraction, and a romance develops between them. Complications arise when she is offered an opportunity to sing in the opera. Meanwhile, Blackie's childhood friend, Roman Catholic Father Tim Mullen (Spencer Tracy), keeps trying to reform him, while the other nightclub owners attempt to convince Norton to run for the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors in order to protect their crooked interests.Despite Father Tim's best efforts, Blackie remains a jaunty Barbary Coast atheist until the famous 1906 earthquake devastates the city. He "finds God" upon discovering that Mary survived.