Feel Good Movies...

[0861GUNS 6]

Hi Birdguy. I remember Lombard St. Back in '51 I was stationed in SF (100 Harrison St) for a few months after I got back from Korea. Drove down Lombard a couple of times in My '48 Buick convertible, Slow and easy. Sometimes it seemed like the front end of my car was on one curve and the back on another.

[Fielder 3,167]

6 hours ago, birdguy said:

 

My youngest daughter took me to San Francisco.  We stayed at a hotel at Fisherman's Wharf.  We had breakfast early and then took the cable car to the neighborhood where I grew up.  Very little on the outside changed.

The house we lived in then now had bars on the windows and a security gate on the door.  But it was the same house.  Looking up and down Larkin Street almost nothing had changed.

We then walked down to Polk Street where all the shops were.  The buildings were the same but the names on them had changed.  The old Royal Theater is now a furniture store and the old Alhambra Theater is now a fitness center.  But standing on the corner where I sold news papers as a boy was a blast from the past.We walked by my old school

One of the best movies for old San Francisco is Vertigo.

 

[birdguy 3,742]

27 minutes ago, Fielder said:

One of the best movies for old San Francisco is Vertigo.

That's a good one.  But I love the car chase scene in Bulitt.  I like Steve McQueen but there were so many recognizable scenes that didn't geographically follow each other that it must have taken a couple of weeks of shooting to get it all.  But I recognized almost all of them.

But Highway 101 through the eucalyptus woods in Vertigo was so recognizable.  The turn of to the mission is right there as are Joaquin Marietta rocks where that bandit used to hold up stage coaches. 

Movies are great when they are shot in places you've been and recognize.

Noel

[Fielder 3,167]

Yeah the lonely Monterey cypress and the big tree Redwoods park Santa Cruz in Vertigo.

Now I'm going to have to go watch Bullet to bring back more memories.

===================

Dodgers invade Candlestick in Experiment in Terror (1961), you can hear Vin Scully doing the Dodger television commentary for the visiting team.

 

 

 

There's a villain in the crowd.

[W2DR 1,843]

9 hours ago, charliearon said:

I'm here!  I'll walk it for ya! 😄  Hey, just use Google maps and you can walk it yourself using the street view!  Before the European trips several years ago,  I used that feature to find our Air B &B rentals from either the bus stations or train stations in our destination cities!

I grew up in Monterey Charlie. Lived there from 1946 to 1964. There's not much left of the old neighborhood. Everything changed so rapidly after WWII. The town I remember most fondly is as it was when Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row. You can still walk the streets but so much of the "town" is gone now. I remember so well the decline of the sardine population, the disappearance of the fishing boats, and the burning of the canneries. It just wasn't the "same" place after that. And don't get me started on the tourists.....Doug

P.S. Every time I see KSFO below your avatar I think of Don Sherwood. I loved that guy. 

[Fielder 3,167]

And Mel Blanc.....

 

[birdguy 3,742]

5 hours ago, W2DR said:

P.S. Every time I see KSFO below your avatar I think of Don Sherwood. I loved that guy. 

And don't forget Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Baghdad By The Bay.  I sold that paper (and the Examiner) on the corner of Polk and Sacramento Streets.  And the other columnist for that paper; Art Hoppe.

Funny how I can recall those times almost instantly but have a hard time recalling what happened the day before yesterday.

Noel

Edited January 6, 2021 by birdguy

[W2DR 1,843]

I remember them well Noel. The mention of Herb Caen takes me back to thinking of the Sam Wo restaurant. It was one of his favorite places. Remember that one? That narrow little three story building up on Washington. Some say it was the oldest restaurant in Chinatown. The whole place was only about 15 feet wide and you had to walk through the kitchen (which occupied the entire first floor) to get to a flight of a really skinny stairs which then led you up to a table on the second or third floors. My second-choice for a lunch-stop in the whole town (the Iron Horse will always be my first). As you say, sometimes I can't even remember why I opened the refrigerator door, but all this stuff from over 60 years ago has never gone away.....Doug

[SteveW 1,765]

A couple of movies I saw recently good renditions of the past, both are must see:

Allied (film) - Wikipedia About a WWII Canadian intelligence agent (Brad Pitt) and French resistance fighter (Marion Cotillard) - Sad ending. Director Zemeckis.

Bridge of Spies (film) - Wikipedia About the exchange of spies during the cold war. Features the U-2 spy plane that went down over USSR. Starring Tom Hanks. Director Spielberg.

[birdguy 3,742]

Doug, my Dad printed menus for several restaurants in Chinatown and Italian restaurants in North Beach.  Every couple of weeks we would go to one and the owner would always stop by and chat with my Dad and pick up the check.  I do recall that narrow Chinese Restaurant.  We went there several times.

Do you remember Julius Castle on the west slope of Telegraph Hill?  It was an Italian food restaurant owned by the father of my best friend on Larkin Street.  We were guests there several times.

But I am a seafood lover who lives a thousand miles from anything but Red Lobster which is third rate sea food although I like their snow crab legs.  But whenever I am in San Francisco I always eat at least one dinner at Scoma's.  When I was in the National Guard I went out to the 6th US Army HQ at the Presidio for three or four days every quarter.  They were always short of quarters for senior NCOs so I got a rental car and stayed at a motel or hotel near the Wharf.  (Oh, the things I had to do for my country!)  Although I am saddened about the way they have turned it into a tourist trap.  But the good restaurants like Alioto's and Scoma's survive.

The year after I got out of the Marine Corps and before I joined the Air Force I worked as a file clerk for the Southern Pacific Railroad at 1 Market Street.  On Friday afternoons several of us (a car load) would go to Fisherman's Wharf and buy  two or three crabs right out of the pot and a bottle of wine and head to Marina Greens and sit on the grass and feast.  My Dad taught me how to take a whole crab apart.

Do you remember the Fisherman's Wharf song?

Allo,

I am a Joe.

I work at Fisherman's Wharf you know.

A halibut a tuna fish, the barracuda she delish

We catch 'em fresh at the crack of dawn,

So how about a shrimp or prawn?

Toot Toot (boat whistles)

Oh here she come, my heat's delight,

She come to see me every night,

My darling Rosalie.

The finest ship that sail the sea,

My darling Rosalie.

How come I can remember that?

Noel (Death to those who call it Frisco)

 

[Penzoil3 465]

"San Francisco, open your Golden Gate
You'll let no stranger wait outside your door
San Francisco, here is your wanderin' one
Saying I'll wander no more. "

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Penzoil3

[birdguy 3,742]

The miner's came in 49,

The whores in 51

And when they got together,

They made the native son!

Noel

[W2DR 1,843]

I don't remember the song Noel but I do remember the Castle. I was only there once. Some time in the summer of 1962. I had just gotten married. My wife was in her final days of nurse's training at St. Luke's. We lived in a tiny apartment in the Mission. I was working a summer job for Pacific Tel. down on Montgomery St. for almost no money (summer college intern). One of my wife's classmates told her about Julius'. So....we went there. All I remember about that night was that the meal was VERY (for me) expensive and the view that evening from Coit Tower was spectacular. I just wish that you and I could meet in The City someday to relive so many of the memories. I know that you could tell me things that I can't even imagine. And, I agree, death to anyone who calls it "Frisco".....Doug

[charliearon 2,820]

I have walked by Julius' Castle many times on our walks around the North Beach area.  It's been closed for several years now.  Never had dinner there.  I have also taken many ride-alongs on the trip down winding Lombard Street!

 

[birdguy 3,742]

You can see the base of Coit Tower in that picture of Julius' Castle Charlie.

When my daughter and I took our long walk two summers ago the bottom intersection of Lombard Steet  was packed with tourists and cameras.

Noel