CATCH A CLASSIC
San Francisco
TCM, 8 a.m.
Musicals were such a predominant and popular genre during the 1930s that even this disaster film/romantic drama set around the infamous 1906 earthquake that devastated the title city found time to squeeze some singing into the production. That aspect seemed to help the film become a box office success in 1936 and is part of why it remains a beloved classic, especially among Bay Area residents. Costar Jeanette MacDonald sings the title song a number of times in the film, and it eventually becomes an anthem for the earthquake survivors. It’s had a similar effect in real life, with “San Francisco” becoming a sentimental favorite singalong at public events and one of the city’s two official songs. As for the onscreen presentation of the earthquake itself in this film, its street-splitting, building-crumbling, fire-raging special effects are still very impressive, and the quake maintains its place as one of the most thrilling action sequences in movie history. Of course, amid all the dramatic destruction there is also human drama, as we follow the story of rakish Barbary Coast kingpin Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) and Mary Blake (MacDonald), the singer torn by her love for Blackie and her need to succeed among the operagoing elite. Spencer Tracy costars, and earned the first of his nine career Best Actor Oscar nominations, as a priest who supplements spiritual advice with a mean right hook. He urges Blackie to change his ways, but if love and religion can’t reform Blackie, perhaps Mother Nature will.