Film Noir as a genre was really born in San Francisco, in 1922, when a series of short stories by a writer called Dashiell Hammett appeared in literary magazine The Smart Set. That’s right, it started as a literary genre, but it wasn’t called ‘Noir’ at first, the stories were looked down on as being, more or less, just pulp crime yarns. However, Hammett had worked as a private dick for the Pinkerton Detective Agency and he was also a really good writer, so the characters and situations had a realism very rarely seen before in the detective-mystery genre. Since San Francisco was his home at the time, Hammett used many locations around the Bay Area, mostly in San Francisco, in his stories. For that reason, right from the beginning, San Francisco became very associated with what would become Noir.

Soon other writers, like Raymond Chandler and James Cain, were also publishing hard-boiled detective stories in a similar style. It could only be a matter of time until the new literary genre was transferred to the silver screen by Hollywood, where it would later become known as Film Noir (at the time the movies were usually called melodramas).

Birth of Film Noir

With the release of The Maltese Falcon (from a story by Hammett), in 1941, the new film genre made its triumphant debut. The story is set in San Francisco, but the movie was almost entirely shot on the Warner Brothers studio backlot in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, it made a star of its lead actor, Humphrey Bogart, who was to become particularly associated with Film Noir.

Eventually other filmmakers would come to the Bay Area to make their own Noir movies, chief amongst them was Alfred Hitchcock. He made two of his most famous films in San Francisco, Vertigo and The Birds (the latter being a horror movie, another genre of films often associated with San Francisco, for which we should probably create another list).

What is Film Noir?

The main characteristics of the genre are a dream-like state, an unsettling strangeness, moral ambivalence, cruelty and eroticism. Generally these movies were black and white, with dramatic use of shadows and lighting. Most of the directors were Europeans, who’d moved to Hollywood to take advantage of the huge opportunities there, and to escape Nazism in Germany. These immigrants brought with them the techniques of German Expressionism and, later, Italian documentary-style realism.

It wasn’t until the mid 1950’s that the genre started becoming known as Film Noir. The name itself was first used by a group of French film critics, ironically just as the genre was dropping out of fashion, with the publication of the 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953.

Why was San Francisco such a popular location for Film Noir? Its landscape and history were very suited to the genre. The hills, bridges and bay all make the city very cinematic and its background as a lawless Gold Rush boomtown gave it a dangerous edge. San Francisco’s old Chinatown, with its connections to Asia and the East, figured prominently in many of these stories too. Finally, there is the fog, a natural meteorological phenomenon that is perfect for creating a sense of mystery and danger on film.

San Francisco could have been designed for Film Noir.

Noir Movies Made in San Francisco

Bearing in mind that two of the most famous movies in the genre, Out of the Past and The Maltese Falcon, which were at least partly set here did not film in the city, with this list I’ve just focussed on Noir movies that were filmed in San Francisco, and which made stunning use of it as a location.

DARK PASSAGE (1947)

There is a debate to be had about whether this thriller is true Film Noir or not, but it does have many of the genre’s elements – not least an anti-hero protagonist played by Humphrey Bogart. Dark Passage is noteworthy for being technically ambitious, the first quarter is seen entirely from the POV of Bogart’s character.

There’s a memorable sequence about half-way through the movie when Bogie has to climb the Filbert Street Steps, near Coit Tower, and having done it myself a few times, I can testify to the fact that the great man wasn’t over-acting when he appeared to be dying of exhaustion upon finally reaching the top.

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948)

The great Hollywood auteur Orson Wells made The Lady From Shanghai with then wife, Rita Hayworth, and it’s one of his best (which is definitely saying something), Wells and Hayworth were the star couple of the day, although she was arguably the bigger one by that point. The marriage was already on the rocks by the time filming began, but it was over by the time the reshoots were wrapped, and they divorced not long after the movie was released.

Wells had insisted on expensive location filming in San Francisco, instead of the then common practice of using a soundstage in Hollywood and sending a second unit to get some local footage to edit into the movie. Many locations around the Bay Area were used, including in Sausalito, Playland at Ocean Beach (for the famous climax in the hall of mirrors), Portsmouth Square and Li Po’s, the bar in Chinatown.

THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951)

Filming on this Richard Basehart starring, Robert Wise directed, minor classic took place in the very San Francisco neighborhood that gives the film its name. In fact the park at Coit Tower, which stands at the top of Telegraph Hill, stood in for the garden of the titular house.

The plot of The House on Telegraph Hill involves a concentration camp survivor assuming a deceased prisoner’s identity, in order to gain a new life in San Francisco. I’m not spoiling it by revealing that it doesn’t end well.

THE SNIPER (1952)

One of the first films to feature a serial killer, The Sniper used a host of San Francisco locations, although the city is not identified as being SF. The director, Edward Dmytryk, had been blacklisted by the Hollywood Studios for having once been a communist during the Red Scare, and this was his first movie in several years.

The film is also notable for the use of psychological profiling in the plot, as the police hunt the killer of the title. The production made extensive use of locations around San Francisco.

HELL ON FRISCO BAY (1955)

Alan Ladd was a popular Noir star, having played the lead in The Blue Dahlia in 1946 (one of the first films to deal with PTSD). In Hell on Frisco Bay he pitches up in San Francisco after a stint in San Quentin for a crime he didn’t commit and has to try to clear his name.

Extensive filming took place around Fisherman’s Wharf, before it had been turned into the tourist attraction that it is today, in North Beach, and on San Francisco Bay.

VERTIGO (1958)

Vertigo isn’t usually considered Film Noir, but it’s actually a great example of the genre. The director, Alfred Hitchcock, had brought many of the elements of German Expressionism to Hollywood, when he moved there in 1940 (he’d got his start as a director in the film business in the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s).

This classic is up there with the great director’s finest works (it’s one of my all-time top movies for sure) and has many plot elements of noir – a private investigator lead, a beautiful and dangerous femme fatale and an insurance scam. San Francisco has never looked more beautiful, and more unsettling, than when Hitch shot it.

POINT BLANK (1967)

This Lee Marvin thriller was directed by another British director, John Boorman, who had just arrived in Hollywood. Point Blank made extensive use of the prison on Alcatraz Island (which had only recently been closed at the time) for the opening sequences and was a big hit.

The film follows Marvin’s hard-boiled double-crossed criminal hunting down his ex-partner, who has (unwisely) taken off with Marvin’s stolen cash and moll. It’s now considered a classic and has been remade several times.

By the time the film was released in the late 1960’s Film Noir as a genre was finished – ironically just as the name was becoming popular. The big Hollywood studios were no longer making cheap B movies to pair with star vehicles and big budget films for their theatre chains, and sex and violence could be shown much more openly.

Nevertheless, the style continued to influence writers, directors and stars. Around 1970 the term neo-noir (meaning simply new noir) began to be used to describe new films that were heavily influenced by the genre.

SF Neo-Noir

Arguably the first SF neo-noir movie was one of the most famous films to be set in San Francisco, Dirty Harry. Although it was marketed as an an action-thriller, its roots lie in Noir. Also of particular note is The Conversation, a 1974 Francis Ford Coppola movie, which follows Gene Hackman as he tries to solve a murder in which he’s become inadvertently involved.

Following those earlier entries, by the 1980;s a new generation of Hollywood directors, writers and actors were getting interested in Film Noir – and San Francisco was to prove just as popular with them as it had been with the previous generation of filmmakers.

The first out of the gate was Jagged Edge, starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges. Bridges plays a possibly homicidal, and incredibly attractive and charming, homme fatale (in a gender-reversal of the usual femme fatale role). The screenwriter of Jagged Edge, Joe Esterhas, had an even bigger hit in 1992 with Basic Instinct, which was also heavily influenced by Noir. Not least in Sharon Stone’s portrayal of the ice-cold, and incredibly seductive, female lead. Complete with platinum blonde locks.

The same year Final Analysis (notice a trend for hard-hitting two word titles here?) came out to slightly less acclaim and financial success, although it’s so Noir the male lead, Richard Gere, is an actual Bay Area psychiatrist. Kim Basinger plays his potentially psychopathic patient, with support from Uma Thurman as her sister, and… need I say more?

We should also give an honorable mention to Play It Again, Sam, a 1972 Woody Allen parody of 1940’s Film Noir. In the movie Allen tries to navigate life in San Francisco aided by the ghost of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) from Casablanca, who gives him advice on how to date women. Diane Keaton also stars and it’s hilarious.

Noir City Festival

If you enjoy the genre and you’re in San Francisco at the right time, then the Noir City film festival is a must. It recently celebrated its 20th year, with screenings and events held at the Grand Lake Theatre, in Oakland (previously the event was held at the Castro Theatre). The Grand Lake is a magnificent movie palace from the 1920’s, so it’s a perfect place to watch these classic movies, especially when you remember that they were designed to be seen on a big screen.

There’s a great ten day program, including double bills and talks, and you can even dress-up as a seductive femme fatale or a hard-bitten gumshoe. It’s the perfect excuse!

Investigate the Noir Underbelly of San Francisco

We don’t currently have any tours that fully focus on Film Noir, but our Notorious SF: Ghost & Crime Tour has many of the classic elements of the genre: crime, scandal, secrets, beautiful and seductive ladies and Chinatown (we can even visit Li Po’s bar).

The tour operates every Saturday night, at 6 pm, as we take guests on a noir investigation of San Francisco true crime. So, don your fedora, or make like a femme fatale, and join us for a fun and interesting night.

For a list of famous movies filmed in San Francisco read this article.

If you have any feedback on San Francisco in Film Noir please email us or reach out on social media, we’d love to hear from you.

– By Damien Blackshaw (Twitter)