Before "Cry Danger" director Robert Parrish made his urban western outing "The San Francisco Story" with Joel McCrea and Yvonne DeCarlo, he won an Academy Award for Best Editing on the 1947 boxing movie "Body and Soul." During his twenty year career as a director, Parrish made variety of movies, among them gangster movies, World War II military movies, and westerns. "The San Francisco Story" evokes memories of the 1935 Howard Hawks' epic "Barbary Coast," but Parrish achieved more success with his tale about crime and corruption in the colorful city by the bay before California became a state. Clocking everything in at a short and snappy 80-minutes, Parrish and "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" scenarist D.D. Beauchamp, along with an uncredited western writer William Bowers, adapted the Richard Summers story ""Vigilante" and delivered an above-average, often entertaining, but clearly predictable little western about empire building. Veteran western star Joel McCrea gets himself (as well as his stunt man) tangled up in several knuckle-bruising fistfights in this black & white Warner Brothers release when he isn't trying to kiss and cuddle with his attractive co-star. Yvonne DeCarlo and McCrea later encored as a couple in "Border River" in 1954.
The chief asset of "The San Francisco Story" is the villain that actor Sidney Blackmer, who made a career out of impersonating Theodore Roosevelt, plays with such unctuous charm. As wily Andrew Cain, the well-tailored Blackmer owns San Francisco and De Carlo is his right-hand gal. A elegant portrait of her hangs behind the bar in the saloon. Initially, Ms. Adelaide McCall (Yvonne De Carlo of "Brute Force") and Rick Nelson (McCrea) don't hit it off on their first date. Cain sends her off with Nelson for a moon-lit carriage ride along the coast so that she can pick Nelson's brain. It seems that the last time that San Francisco suffered from vigilantes; Nelson was one of the chief architects of the vigilante movement. All Nelson wants to do now is work his mining claim until he lays his eyes on Adelaide. During their first night out in a buggy ride along the coast, Nelson riles Adelaide so she uses the horse whip on him and leaves him stranded. Later, she apologizes to Nelson in person, but he says something that she doesn't like and she has him shanghaied. Nelson awakens in the hole of a ship bound for Asia and fights his way out of it.
Interestingly, McCrea never brandishes his six-shooter in this oater as he romances DeCarlo and scheme with Blackmer. There's one very good twist about midway through the action when our hero tries to infiltrate the villains. Tor Johnson, who made a name for himself in the films of Ed Wood, has a small role here as a saloon bouncer.
The chief asset of "The San Francisco Story" is the villain that actor Sidney Blackmer, who made a career out of impersonating Theodore Roosevelt, plays with such unctuous charm. As wily Andrew Cain, the well-tailored Blackmer owns San Francisco and De Carlo is his right-hand gal. A elegant portrait of her hangs behind the bar in the saloon. Initially, Ms. Adelaide McCall (Yvonne De Carlo of "Brute Force") and Rick Nelson (McCrea) don't hit it off on their first date. Cain sends her off with Nelson for a moon-lit carriage ride along the coast so that she can pick Nelson's brain. It seems that the last time that San Francisco suffered from vigilantes; Nelson was one of the chief architects of the vigilante movement. All Nelson wants to do now is work his mining claim until he lays his eyes on Adelaide. During their first night out in a buggy ride along the coast, Nelson riles Adelaide so she uses the horse whip on him and leaves him stranded. Later, she apologizes to Nelson in person, but he says something that she doesn't like and she has him shanghaied. Nelson awakens in the hole of a ship bound for Asia and fights his way out of it.
Interestingly, McCrea never brandishes his six-shooter in this oater as he romances DeCarlo and scheme with Blackmer. There's one very good twist about midway through the action when our hero tries to infiltrate the villains. Tor Johnson, who made a name for himself in the films of Ed Wood, has a small role here as a saloon bouncer.