San Francisco’s Potrero Hill is unlikely star of SF movies
You’ll catch glimpses of it in an abundance of memorable San Francisco-set films.
A Victorian perched on the corner of a quiet intersection in a psychological thriller. At the top of a steep hill overlooking the city skyline in a frenzied car chase scene. Inside a cozy café fit for a romantic comedy.
While Potrero Hill might be a bit of an unlikely choice as far as location scouting goes, it’s easy to understand why the neighborhood has become a star in its own right — and a popular choice for Hollywood filmmakers over the years, regardless of whether the movie is actually set in Potrero Hill or not.
“Productions can capture a residential area with a magnificent skyline in the background, combined with our very steep hills, all in one shot,” said Susannah Robbins, executive director of the San Francisco Film Commission. “It’s a visual feast to directors to be able to combine those three elements through a camera lens.”
Peter Linenthal, director of the Potrero Hill Archives Project, couldn’t deny the neighborhood’s allure either. “Filmmakers like Potrero Hill’s SF views and relatively uncrowded streets,” he said.
At the same time, Linenthal noted the striking abnormalities of life in San Francisco captured on film. His organization is headquartered at 298 Missouri St., where 1987’s “Burglar” starring Whoopi Goldberg was filmed, followed by 2001’s “Sweet November” with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron and 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”
“What strikes me is the unreality of SF real estate in movies: Charlize’s character would not have been able to afford such a large SF apartment. Ditto with Paul Rudd as a single dad in Ant-Man,” he said.
It’s true that North Beach has its own claim to San Francisco movie fame, but this month, we decided to feature eight of Potrero Hill’s most memorable scenes captured on the big screen. See where Roger Moore’s James Bond knocked over a gas station sign during an iconic firetruck chase and Keanu Reeves fell for Charlize Theron.
1. ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ (2021)
Exterior shots of the Tenderloin and Grace Cathedral were captured in this sequel to Marvel’s blockbuster franchise that was filmed in February 2020, but one popular Potrero Hill spot also stood in for police station scenes: Anchor Brewing Company on 1705 Mariposa St.
A spokesperson for the brewery said the surrounding Mariposa and De Haro streets were shut down to accommodate for stunt work, including a scene with stunt doubles simulating Venom as he bursts through a wall on the third floor to escape prison. He then lands on an SFPD cruiser, resulting in a small explosion.
“We had a good crowd of our neighbors on site for filming, and there was lots of excitement and curiosity in the air,” the spokesperson told SFGATE, adding that the “Venom” cast and crew utilized Anchor’s Public Taps for pre-production staging, talent trailers and craft services. “Many of the crew also enjoyed a pint or two of their favorite Anchor brews upon wrapping.”
It wasn’t the first time a production crew had taken over the brewery: Arnold Schwarzenegger was in an episode of “The Streets of San Francisco” that was filmed there and aired in 1977.
“It was very cool to see some ‘movie magic’ firsthand,” the spokesperson said.
Starring Tom Hardy as the titular villain/protagonist, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” follows his everyday persona, a San Francisco journalist named Eddie Brock, who is writing a profile on serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Brock frequently visits Kasady in San Quentin State Prison for interviews as his death penalty sentence looms, and during their last conversation, Kasady bites Brock, causing Kasady to transform into another supervillain, Carnage.
Director Andy Serkis, left, and Tom Hardy on the set of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”
Jay Maidment
2. ‘Vegas in Space’ (1991)
“Barbarella” meets “Mystery Science Theater 3000” in this campy cult classic with an all-drag cast. Director and member of the legendary San Francisco drag troupe Sluts-A-Go-Go Phillip R. Ford was still a film student at San Francisco State University when he co-wrote the screenplay with drag icons Miss X, Doris Fish and Tippi, who would also star in the film as a band of intergalactic soldiers who undergo a drag transformation to infiltrate a planet of all women and secure the rare gems hidden there to save the universe. Shortly prior to the world premiere of “Vegas in Space,” Fish and Tippi would die of illnesses related to AIDS, but the film has gone on to be remembered as a landmark in queer cinema, with reunions and drag tribute performances hosted by Peaches Christ, filmmaker and “Dragula” writer Michael Varrati and Frameline Film Festival at the Clay and Victoria theaters.
Laden with kitschy stop-motion sequences and wry humor, “Vegas in Space” was largely shot inside Fish’s Victorian apartment at 422 Oak St. in 1983. However, the climactic final scene in the lair of the villainous Queen Veneer was shot at The Farm, a commune and performance space under Highway 101 at Potrero Avenue and Cesar Chavez Boulevard that ended with an eviction in 1987. Large sheets of iridescent plastic cellophane draped around the venue “create[d] the illusion of an ice palace of sorts,” Ford wrote in a blog dedicated to the making of the film, which is truly B-horror at its best.
“This was shot in black and white and is my favorite sequence in the finished film,” wrote Ford.
3. ‘Bullitt’ (1968)
Starring Steve McQueen, this neo-action thriller based on the 1963 novel “Mute Witness” follows SFPD detective Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) as his team keeps close tabs on Chicago mobster Johnny Ross. The production crew spent three months filming throughout the streets of San Francisco, but it’s the infamous car chase scene that makes this movie memorable.
That said, most locals will find the path of the Mustang and Charger rather disorienting as they jump from Bernal Heights to Potrero Hill, racing along 20th and Kansas to 20th and Rhode Island before suddenly materializing in Russian Hill and later North Beach. In any case, the resulting sequence proved entrancing for viewers, and editor Frank P. Keller would win an Academy Award for his efforts.
4. ‘Pacific Heights’ (1990)
This movie was featured on Bravo’s “100 Scariest Movie Moments” and today reads as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the power dynamic between landlord and tenant. But don’t let the title fool you: The home’s exterior was actually shot in Potrero Hill, and it’s still perched on the corner of 19th and Texas Street.
“Filming it in Pacific Heights would have been a nightmare because of all the crazy things we did in that movie,” former location manager Laurie Noll, who also worked on “The Princess Diaries,” told SFGATE. (I won’t spoil too much, but live cockroaches are involved.)
Described as the “first eviction thriller” by New York Times film critic Janet Maslin upon its release, this psychological horror film stars Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine as a privileged young couple who decide to purchase their dream Victorian abode and move in together. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but they decide to renovate it anyway and become landlords, renting out the units in order to afford the place. Michael Keaton plays the nightmarish but cunning tenant who moves in, changes the locks and refuses to pay his deposit or his rent — but his behavior becomes increasingly creepy from there.
5. ‘Dirty Harry’ (1971)
“We Potrero Hill boys, we got to stick together,” a doctor says to the titular rogue police officer played by Clint Eastwood in the first film of this San Francisco-set action franchise. A prescient signal of the conservative turn of the Ronald Reagan era, it’s a right-wing fantasy of a film laden with gratuitous bloodletting that hasn’t aged well, but undoubtedly paved the way for a slew of crime dramas that would follow in its footsteps in addition to spawning four of its own sequels.
Several scenes, including the aforementioned exchange between Harry and the doctor, were filmed at San Francisco General Hospital on 1001 Potrero Ave., while a car chase sequence similar to “Bullitt’s” zips along Mississippi toward 20th Street (the Potrero Hill gas storage tank is visible on the horizon, though the structure has since been demolished). The final film in the series, “The Dead Pool,” also features this remote control car pursuit.
6. ‘A View to a Kill’ (1985)
Move over, “No Time to Die.” This campy James Bond classic starring Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones not only boasts an iconic fight scene on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, but perhaps one of the best title sequences of any Bond film, with a quintessentially ’80s theme from Duran Duran thrown in for good measure (it would go on to claim the No. 1 slot on the Billboard Hot 100).
In the film, Bond (Moore) tracks down Max Zorin (Walken) and May Day (Jones), who are responsible for crafting microchips that release adrenaline in racehorses, though Bond fears the technology could be used for something far more sinister. Knowing their leading competitor in the microchip industry is Silicon Valley, the villainous duo plots to destroy the area by inducing an explosion beneath the lakes in the Hayward and San Andreas faults.
An iconic sequence follows Bond and state geologist Stacey Sutton (Roberts), whose family oil business Zorin attempts to buy out for the sake of his sinister scheme. When Bond and Sutton sneak into San Francisco City Hall to secretly review his plans, the police get involved, and the pair evades them by jumping onto a fire truck and careening through downtown San Francisco, knocking over the Chevron sign where the McDonald’s on 16th and Potrero stands today.
7. ‘Sweet November’ (2001)
Long before Keanu Reeves flung himself off Embarcadero skyscrapers in the soon-to-be-released “The Matrix Resurrections” or dated Ali Wong in “Always Be My Maybe” he appeared alongside a fresh-faced Charlize Theron in a 2001 remake of the 1968 romantic comedy “Sweet November.”
We see Potrero Hill front and center in several scenes: the exterior of Sara’s apartment is at 298 Missouri St. (where the Potrero Hill Archives Project is today) on the corner of 18th, and the couple is seen wandering into the now-shuttered Daily Scoop ice cream parlor nearby, which was made to look like a produce stand and convenience store. They also dine nearby at Farley’s, where you can still stop in for a cup of coffee.
Linenthal said he decorated a model boat and a skateboard for the film, and remembers that Keanu Reeves bought some reading material at Christopher’s Books during production. He also recalled a particularly funny anecdote:
“A friend came over and wondered who the woman sitting on my front stairs was,” he said. “It was Charlize Theron.”
Directed by Pat O’Connor, the tear-jerker of a film follows the unlikely romance between robotic ad executive Nelson Moss (Reeves) and free-spirited dog groomer Sara Deever (Theron) who cross paths while taking a test at the DMV. Afterward, she suggests a dubious proposition: that he come live with her for the month of November in order to shed his workaholic ways and ultimately learn how to appreciate the simple pleasures of life. The pair fall for one another, but little does Nelson know, Sara is hiding a secret that will change everything.
8. ‘The Joy Luck Club’ (1993)
In this film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Oakland-based author Amy Tan, the shared home of couple Lena St. Clair (Lauren Tom) and Harold (Michael Paul Chan) — still at 610 Rhode Island St. — is cold, industrial and gray, and seems to mimic their detached relationship.
This coming-of-age drama traces different generations of Asian American women, weaving together multiple story lines from the past to present day that examine their complicated relationships and cultural differences. Once married to an abusive husband in China, Ying-Ying (France Nuyen) only wants the best for her daughter, Lena, who is unhappily married herself to her boss from her architecture firm, Harold. He cares more about tallying Lena’s expenses than being a good husband to her, which frustrates Ying-Ying.
“One million dollars, and the walls are still crooked,” she laments to her daughter of the modern interior. Later, as Ying-Ying stands in the guest bedroom alone while Lena and Harold argue, she thinks to herself, “All around this house I see the signs. My daughter looks, but she does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces.”
However dismal, the architecture of the three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom home was inspired by the Kronos House, where cellist Joan Jeanrenaud once lived.
