San Francisco in Cinema: The Lineup

O'Donnell Copper Works, corner of Folsom and Fremont streets.
Associates of The Man have stuffed heroin in the trinkets of travelers and tourists returning to the City from the Orient in The Lineup, director Don Siegel's 1958 film noir classic. Eli Wallach is the hit man who has to retrieve the goods from The Man's pigeons in the City with the help of a driver who drinks because it helps him drive better, and an accomplice who writes down the final words of each of Wallach's victims. The Lineup is the cinema's best document of a San Francisco that's almost entirely of the past. Not only does every man wear a hat, but detectives communicate with headquarters via call boxes in a City teeming with sailors and death trap automobiles. The San Francisco International Airport of 1958 looks like a bus stop compared to today's SFO. Scenes of Pier 41 are completely void of the contemporary wharf's familiar trappings of tourism. Wallach's face-off with The Man takes place at Sutro's, after the baths had been closed and the main attraction was a popular skating rink. The film's climax takes place on the Embarcadero Freeway (it was under construction!) where the O'Donnell Copper Works is all that remained of the scene in 2003. Includes a realistic but condensed pursuit from Sutro's to the Golden Gate Bridge. Warner Anderson appears as the detective, Lt. Ben Guthrie, from The Lineup TV series.

Opera House
Old Hall of Justice
Golden Gate Bridge
2090 Jackson Street
Bay Bridge
Pier 43
SF Gas Light Co.
Mark Hopkins Hotel
Steinhart Aquarium
De Young Museum
Palace of the Legion of Honor
Ferry Building
Balcutha

More about The Lineup


Copyright 2003 Hank Donat
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