Synopsis
San Francisco (1936) is a Hollywood musical melodrama you can watch online on iFILM. Director W.S. Van Dyke assembled three of MGM's biggest names — Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy — for a film that splits its energy between a Barbary Coast love story and a disaster picture.
Mary Blake arrives in the city broke, lands a singing spot at Blackie Norton's notorious nightclub, and is immediately signed to a contract by a man who has no intention of sharing her. She wants the opera stage and a place in Father Tim Mullin's church choir; Blackie wants her on his terms and no others. The standoff between them escalates past the point where either can back down — and then the earthquake of April 18, 1906 settles the argument for everyone.
The disaster sequence was a technical landmark for its era and still lands. As a pairing, Gable's roughneck charm against MacDonald's operatic register is an unlikely combination that somehow holds together across two hours. Stream San Francisco (1936) on iFILM.
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