Year of Release: 1936Country of Origin: USA
Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy
Plot outline: Leading up to the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and a Nob Hill impresario are rivals for the affections of a beautiful singer, both personally and professionally (IMDb).
Sixty years before James Cameron set a love story against the backdrop of the Titanic disaster, W. S. Van Dyke tackled the same challenge with the same results, if not better. San Francisco has a great deal of interesting story, real and fascinating characters, excellent performances, beautiful cinematography, meticulous and authentic sets and superb special effects (yes, special effects!). Blackie Norton (Clark Gable's best role of his career) is a marvelous example of the duality of human nature, a bad guy who does good deeds in secret - just like a good guy who does bad deeds in secret; Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy's first Oscar nominated performance) is a minor yet important supporting role, Blackie's best friend and conscience of the movie, giving good male bonding chemistry between Blackie and him; while Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) is a magnificent opera singer, a preacher's daughter tormented between two lovers. Please don't overlook her part ... her singing was incredible! Many times I was stunned by her voice, it accentuates the movie at several key moments. You get so wrapped up in the story that you even forget that there's an earthquake coming ... until it hits, and right in the middle of the human drama. The special effects are very well done, considering the time the movie was made, with crashing walls, tumbling buildings, cracking ground and the inevitable fire. Meticulous and authentic. But the story takes precedence over the special effects and when the special effects do come, they are in service to the story. Unfortunately, the ending is rather theatrical, but I can forgive that.
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
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