Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Vertigo Era

San Francisco 1958 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

Old Super-8 home movies of San Francisco in 1958--the year that Vertigo came out. Beautiful and fascinating time capsule. Amazing to see the skyline sans Transamerica Pyramid and Embarcadero Tower buildings!

4 comments:

  1. That is awesome! Did you notice "The Playhouse" back behind the cable car turnaround? Wonder what that was? An old theater?

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  2. You have sharp eyes, Tim--I hadn't noticed that! Very cool!

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  3. The angle of the film indicates The Playhouse would be on Beach Street. If you look under Google Maps, you will see the same building with a new facade and roof (next to a gallery).

    From http://www.archive.org/stream/printingbook00wilsrich/printingbook00wilsrich_djvu.txt

    "In the meantime, of course, we were constantly on the lookout for a building, Finally we found one at the corner of Hyde and Beach Street, which is now occupied by the Playhouse. The building was owned by the Davis Hardwood Company. Mrs. Lulu Davis, who presided over the wonderful old San Francisco firm, had a soft heart for the theater. So she leased the building to us for $150 a month."

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  4. How interesting! Thanks for doing the sleuthing. Looks like the theater company in this building was called "The Interplayers."

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