San Francisco

San Francisco is a 1936 musical-drama directed by Woody Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film a hit, coming on the heels of her other 1936 blockbuster, Rose Marie. The Internet Movie Database reports that famous silent film directors D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim contributed to the screenplay without screen credit. Griffith also helped direct the famous earthquake sequence. "Blackie" Norton (Clark Gable), a saloonkeeper and gambler in the notorious Barbary Coast, owns the Paradise Club on Pacific Street. He hires a promising but impoverished classically-trained singer from Benson, Colorado named Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald), who becomes a star attraction at the Paradise. The Professor (Al Shean) can tell Mary has a professionally trained voice. Mat (Ted Healy) feels Mary...