
A Man Scours San Francisco for the Traces of Film Noir - qzervaas
http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/11/san-francisco-noir-film-locations-reefsf-brian-hollins/506993/
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JoeAltmaier
Film locations can be iconic. In a motel room, bored and channel-surfing, I
saw a '70s movie on a beach with a distinctive headland in the distance _and a
large boulder_ jutting out of the surf. Next channel, old B&W movie, same
beach, this time a suicide wading out into the surf by the same rock. Both
scenes playing at the same time on adjacent channels.

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Neeek
Did you stumble on to the final scene of "A Star is Born"? I wonder how many
films end with people wading in to the surf to take their own life...

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Graham24
The TV show the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin did that on Swanage beach.

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DonaldFisk
Fans of The Prisoner
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner))
have been doing this for years:
[http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/locationsguide.htm](http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/locationsguide.htm)

A scene from The Prisoner was shot in the GEC Marconi building in Borehamwood
(now demolished). This was where the Elliott 803 computer
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_803](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_803))
was designed and built. Tony Hoare worked there.

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bigdubs
San Francisco is a great place to do this because it looks basically the same
as it did in the 60s. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to other
people to debate.

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13of40
I like finding filming locations in modern movies with minimal evidence, like
the names from street signs, etc. It's kind of interesting how often they
totally fake filming locations. Lots of movies supposedly set in the U.S. are
filmed in Canada for some reason, and I just watched one the other day that
was supposed to be in Seattle but it was filmed in some town in the midwest.
(They had a Seattle skyline scene at one point that was about as convincing as
the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.)

Bonus, if you're into that sort of thing:
[https://geoguessr.com/](https://geoguessr.com/) (Dropped somewhere in the
world at random in Google Street View, how accurately can you figure out where
you are?)

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agret
That website is a very cool 'game' haha I like it a lot :)

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ghaff
If you're a Harold and Maude fan check out the following. (I helped out in a
small way because I'm something of a map geek and had a rental car one
weekend).

[http://www.boffo.us/haroldandmaude/](http://www.boffo.us/haroldandmaude/)

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donretag
I highly encourage everyone that is interested in this type of detective work
to read Pop Spots [http://www.popspotsnyc.com/](http://www.popspotsnyc.com/)

Bob Egan goes through such amazing detail to pinpoint exact location of still
photographs, movie frames and even paintings.

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vogt
As a die hard Noir buff, I love that there is someone who has retired from the
SV scene and now dedicates their time to not just noir film history, but
specifically as it pertains to San Francisco.

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at-fates-hands
Reminds me a lot of the documentary "LA Plays Itself":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hYg01uqz9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hYg01uqz9U)

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IvyMike
Technically it's "Los Angeles Plays Itself".

This may seem pedantic, but it's a point made in the movie itself: "The
acronym functions here as a slightly derisive diminutive. Now it’s become
second nature, even to people who live here. Maybe we adopted it as a way of
immunizing ourselves against the implicit scorn, but it still makes me cringe.
Only a city with an inferiority complex would allow it."

(Also it turns out there was already a film called "LA Plays Itself")
[http://www.standardhotels.com/culture/whatever-you-do-
dont-c...](http://www.standardhotels.com/culture/whatever-you-do-dont-call-it-
la-los-angeles-plays-itself-arrives-at-last)

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melvinmt
Thanks for the quote. Just found the entire transcript:
[http://newfilmkritik.de/archiv/2005-03/los-angeles-plays-
its...](http://newfilmkritik.de/archiv/2005-03/los-angeles-plays-itself/)

It's a good read :)

