Then … Scorpio crosses under the Embarcadero Freeway heading to the brightly lit liquor store across the street at 148 Embarcadero South (map), next to the entrance of the Embarcadero Hotel at 146 Embarcadero South. That’s one of the freeway’s concrete support pillars on the right.
… in 1971 … this vintage photo, taken in March, 1971 (the year Dirty Harry was filmed) captured not only the double-decker freeway in all its ugliness, but also the Dirty Harry liquor store site (arrowed). It was vacant at that time, in fact it had been vacant since 1968 when it was the Longshoreman Cafe and continued to be vacant for several more years. So clearly the Dirty Harry set designers must have created the liquor store specifically for the movie.
… and Now, there’s no concrete pillar in today’s matching shot below - the freeway was taken down after being badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Perry’s restaurant took over the 146/148 Embarcadero retail space in 2008. The hotel above it is now the Griffon Hotel.
Here’s the 1971 city directory for the 100 block of Embarcadero South which lists number 148 as a vacant property. Elsewhere in the block were two real liquor stores.
Then … another freeway pillar is seen behind Scorpio as he approaches the store. The Ferry Building is visible two blocks away along the Embarcadero.
… and Now, the Embarcadero went through a transformative upgrade after the freeway was pulled down and is now a wonderful open thoroughfare popular with walkers, joggers and visitors who enjoy the food courts and restaurants in the repurposed Ferry Building or a ride in a vintage streetcar along the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Then … In this closer view of the liquor store we see some of the detailed set design including flashing neon beer signs. Next to it are the Embarcadero Hotel entrance at 146 Embarcadero and the Admiral Tavern on the right.
… and Now, The hotel entrance is now the Embarcadero entrance into Perry’s - its main entrance is on Steuart Street.
Then … Inside the store the owner tells Scorpio he carries a gun for safety’s sake. Bad idea. Scorpio buys a bottle of whisky, violently knocks him to the ground with it, takes his gun, and leaves.
… and Now, the Perry’s space is an expansion of the 148 Embarcadero store space; the action above was filmed in the right side corner.
Then … Jo and Steve talk about Chan as they cut through Ross Alley, the oldest (dating from 1849) of Chinatown’s 41 alleyways. The alley (formerly named Stout Alley) runs north-south between Jackson and Washington (map). They are approaching 32 Ross Alley, which at that time was the Gin Alan barber shop.
… and Now, 32 Ross Alley has been Amy’s Hair Shop since 2018. But for many decades before that it was Jun Yu’s Barber Shop; he was well-known for taking breaks between customers to play his erhu (a two-stringed bowed musical instrument popular in China) for passers-by.
Here he is doing exactly that. Many celebrities have over the years stopped by at Jun Yu’s for a haircut, including Frank Sinatra and Michael Douglas. He has been featured on local TV and in The Pursuit Of Happyness, qualifying him to proudly tell his listeners “I am movie star!”. (Photo by Henk Binnendijk).
Ross Alley has come a long way from its early days when Chinatown’s population was predominantly male (resulting from the discriminatory 1875 Page Act that prevented Chinese immigrant workers from bringing their wives and family into the U.S.). They would find solace in its opium dens, drinking joints, gambling parlors and brothels. This photo of the alley, titled Street Of The Gamblers, is part of Arnold Genthe’s Chinatown series. It was taken eight years before the 1906 earthquake and fire reduced Chinatown in its entirety to ashes before it was reborn in its present form.
Then … In this shot carefully framed to add a converging lines effect Jo and Steve walk past a residential apartment doorway at 20 1/2 Ross Alley.
… and Now, here’s the same doorway today. To take this matching shot CitySleuth couldn’t stand in the narrow passage (above) because its access has been blocked off.
Here’s that blocked passage. There are many of them in Chinatown linking streets and alleys which CitySleuth thinks were included in the post earthquake and fire rebuild of the area as exit routes in case of another disaster. But over the years they have all been blocked off, as too is the one above. When Jo and Steve walked by the passage, number 37 (below) was an Asian dive bar, the Rickshaw Cocktail lounge, where John Lennon and Ringo Starr spent an evening boozing it up before and after closing hour following the Beatles’ Cow Palace performance in 1964.
Then … As they continue on they pass another since-vanished bar, Danny’s Dynasty Lounge at 20 Ross Alley, directly opposite the Rickshaw Cocktail Lounge.
… and Now, post-pandemic visitors were back in force when CitySleuth took this matching photo. The crowd down the alley is lined up at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory at 56 Ross Alley.
The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory has, since 1962, attracted more visitors to Ross Alley than any other business. In its compact space three part-time employees hand-fold, by their estimate, around 10,000 fortune cookies a day. (Fortune cookies by the way are a San Franciscan creation, unheard of in China).
Then … Along from the Dynasty Lounge they walk by the Canton Flower Shoppe at 12 Ross Alley. Steve tells Joe that Chan has no sense of humor because he didn’t get a joking comment he made. In voiceover Jo tells us that to the contrary, that was Chan’s way of pulling Steve’s leg.
… and Now, the Chinese Christian Mission, closed when this photo was taken, now occupies the number 12 address.
Ross Alley has been a magnet for more than gamblers, drinkers, addicts, johns and tourists; artists too have found it hard to resist. On the left is a 1921 etching by John William Winkler with a focus on family; on the right a contemporary ink-on-paper drawing by Paul Madonna, who resides in San Francisco. Paul leaves the alley’s goings-on to the imagination of the viewer.
Then … Bannister is about to begin his defense of O’Hara. Elsa meets him at the courthouse, worried that he is intent on losing the case, a verdict that would conveniently send his wife’s lover to the gas chamber. At first glance, this appears to have been filmed in the Fairmont Hotel’s Laurel Court at 950 Mason Street in Nob Hill.
… in 1907 … here’s a vintage image of the Laurel Court taken when the rebuilt Fairmont Hotel reopened after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire. Note the chandelier hanging from the diamond-patterned domes, the marble pillars topped with ‘ram’s horn’ capitals and the ornate lamps attached to the side of the pillars. All of these features are seen above.
and Now, the ceiling of the Laurel Court has three of those large domes; the center one, below, still has its original chandelier. The wall and ceiling surfaces have been redone and the lamps removed from the pillars but the architecture remains unchanged. Note the design of the railings in the center of the room, also evoking ram’s horns, the same as in the movie view in the ‘Then’ image above.
But the movie scene was filmed not at the Fairmont but on a Columbia Pictures movie set that reproduced in great detail the Laurel Court architecture. Why go to so much trouble and expense? Just ask Alfred Hitchcock who recreated San Francisco’s Ernie’s restaurant, both interior and exterior, at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for a scene in ‘Vertigo”.
While Elsa greets her husband and his associate a couple climbs a staircase behind them. This is the biggest clue revealing that the location was a movie set - the only staircases in the Laurel Court are and always have been the two large curved staircases in the center of the room (above).
and Now, for additional confirmation, CitySleuth walked the Fairmont’s Laurel Court with chief concierge Tom Wolfe searching for the same alignment of doorway, pillars, railings and steps as in the movie scene. The closest match in the room is that pictured below but in comparing it with the Then image above, the alignment is different and there are no railings or stairs here. Neither do the striations in the marble pillars match. Tom and CitySleuth both concluded the movie scene could not have been filmed here.
In the 1948 movie I Remember Mama there was another amazingly realistic studio recreation, this one of the Fairmont’s lobby area, described in more detail here.
Then … Callahan visits Chico recovering in hospital from the injuries suffered in the shootout at the Mount Davidson Cross. The south-facing view shows the Army Street gas holder on the left, BayView Hill in the center and San Bruno Mountain in the far right distance. This was filmed on a rooftop patio at San Francisco General Hospital in the Mission district where San Bruno Avenue (seen through the window) tees into 23rd Street (map).
… in 1937 … that building has since been demolished but here’s a great 1937 photo of it showing the building as it still was in 1971 for Dirty Harry. Situated on 23rd Street facing San Bruno Avenue, it was known as the Chest Building. The arrow points to the rooftop patio where this scene took place.
and Now … the building was replaced by the hospital’s Building 5 in 1976 but that in turn has been recently replaced by this new Research and Development Building, scheduled for completion in 2023.
Callahan tells Chico there’s a place for him in the department when he gets back but he and his wife have decided it’s best he should leave. The gabled roof seen through the window behind them is the one in the center of the building in the 1937 image above.
The visitors leave via a stairwell that’s open on two sides on each level all the way down.
The south-facing openings can be seen at far left in the 1937 image above and below; this camera’s POV of the opening seen in the capture above is the west side of the building around the corner as indicated by the arrow (note in each image the border of vertically oriented bricks at the top of the opening).
