Cheap San Francisco (Video) (W.S. Van Dyke) Price

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Customer Reviews of San Francisco

ravishing screen entertainment!
SAN FRANCISCO must surely count as one of the top ten films of the 1930's, an era unnaturally-rich in movie masterpieces. Jeanette MacDonald stars in one of her greatest roles. <
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>The film recounts the months leading up to the Great Earthquake of 1906. Jeanette MacDonald plays Mary Blake, an aspiring singer from the country determined to make her fortune. She crosses the path of Blackie Norton (Clark Gable), an enterprising Barbary Coast opportunist from the wrong side of the tracks, who runs a saloon called the Paradise. He employs her, though she's soon being courted by the manager of the Tivoli Opera. You can guess the rest (Mary torn between the two men), making her debut with the opera only to be dragged back to the Paradise when she decides to marry Blackie. <
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>The climactic sequence is still an impressive piece of film-making, shocking and harrowing in it's realism (if the film works as it's supposed to, the earthquake should come as a surprise because we are so caught up in the drama). Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy (in one of his first big roles) are superb, though the show belongs solely to Miss MacDonald. Determined to excert her Hollywood superstardom without Nelson Eddy, she made a bold choice in starring opposite Clark Gable in what is really a non-musical film. There are, however, ample moments for MacDonald to musically shine (the numbers "Would You?" and "San Francisco" as well as excerpts from FAUST and LA TRAVIATA). <
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>A riveting, ravishing screen entertainment!

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I love this movie.
One of the all time great pictures. The kind of epic with big stars that is rapidly dying off. I only wish this movie was available in DVD format. I have no idea why this and so many other classics haven't made it to that format yet. I presently own the Laserdisc version of it in glorious black and white.

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THIS REALLY DESERVE A "6"
Now this is what all-timers must have meant when they snapped "they don`t make`m like that anymore!".
MGM`s San Francisco offers us star names, good plot and dialogue, superb photography, special effects, scenary(Cedric Gibbons), sound(Douglas Shearer, brother of Norma), music, song.... The Hollywood of 2day should look back and really learn that you just can`t throw in spcial-effects, PRAY - a n d have hope for a good movie. The Day After Tomorrow is great, but sadly lacking star names like in this 1. Today - more often - the effects are the stars... It didn`t use 2 be like that(The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno to name but a few)...

I name SAN FRANCISCO(with Mutiny on the Bounty), the best MGM b&w melodrama of the 30s... 20th Century-Fox made "IN OLD CHICAGO" 1937 but as with the MGM musical.... NO ONE COULD TOP METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER AT THEIR ZENITH.