San Francisco Noir The City in Film Noir from 1940 to the Present

All cities have their secrets, but none are so dark as San Francisco's, the city that Ambrose Bierce famously described as "a point upon a map of fog." With its reputation as a shadowy land of easy vice and hard virtue, San Francisco provided the ideal setting for many of the greatest film noirs, from classics likeThe Maltese FalconandDark Passageto obscure treasures likeWoman on the RunandD.O.A., and neo-noirs likePoint BlankandThe Conversation. In this guide to more than forty film noirs and the locations where they were shot, readers visit the Mission Dolores cemetery, where James Stewart spies Kim Novak visiting Carlotta's grave inVertigo; the Steinhart Aquarium, where Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth rendezvous inThe Lady from Shanghai; and Kezar Stadium, where Clint Eastwood, inDirty Harry, captures the serial killer, Scorpio, in a blaze of ghastly white light.

Nathaniel Rich is an editor at the Paris Review and the author of The Mayor's Tongue and San Francisco Noir.