San Francisco - 1936

Spencer Tracy, playing a priest, makes a note to himself in one scene, "That Rooney kid skipped Mass again..." Two years later, he again plays a priest in Boys Town (1938) and is charged with reforming a boy played by Mickey Rooney.

Jeanette MacDonald's older sister, Blossom Rock, signed with MGM and was given the name Marie Blake. Jeanette's character in San Francisco was named Mary Blake. Her sister used the name Blossom Rock when she played Grandma Addams on "The Addams Family" (1964).

The comment that Spencer Tracy makes about the "Rooney kid" is an ad-lib (watch Jeanette MacDonald's expression reacting to it). Tracy had worked with Mickey Rooney earlier that year in Riffraff (1936) and knew that director W.S. Van Dyke abhorred retakes, priding himself on bringing in productions fast and under budget - hence his nickname, "One-Take Woody".

D.W. Griffith directed several scenes without ever being credited.

Erich von Stroheim, who had been unceremoniously fired from MGM many years earlier, contributed additional lines in the script without studio head Louis B. Mayer ever knowing.

Debut of Robert J. Wilke.

The montage at the conclusion of the film which illustrates the re-building of San Francisco originally included a series of shots of notable San Francisco landmarks; most especially, the Golden Gate Bridge while it was still under construction. The cables had not been slung yet, but the towers of the bridge were very prominent in the shot. Subsequent releases have omitted this original montage in favor of a dissolve shot proceeding from atop of a cliff overlooking the devastation into a panorama of artist-drawn buildings as seen from the cliff.

One of Mary's opera gowns was later used for "Glinda" in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

The song "Would You," which made its debut in this movie, is perhaps better known for its appearance in the film Singin' in the Rain (1952) - it's the song Lina Lamont "tries" to sing and ends up butchering.

The dress Jeanette MacDonald wears while singing "Would You" was re-worn by Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal (1942).

In the film, Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) runs for the office of Supervisor in the city of San Francisco, the same job Harry Milk was to hold many decades later when he was assassinated.

Al Shean (born Adolph Schoenberg), who plays the Professor in the film was once half of one of the most popular teams in vaudeville - Gallagher and Shean. He was also the younger brother of Minnie Marx, the matriarch of the Marx Brothers clan, and was instrumental in writing many of the first sketches that his madcap nephews first performed on the vaudeville circuit before their enormous success on Broadway and in Hollywood.

Clark Gable and 'Jeanette Macdonald' did not get along at all during filming, and avoided each other completely off the set.

Clark Gable hated the final scene where he breaks down, and insisted he should only be filmed from behind while saying the "soppy" lines.

Cast of San Francisco

Clark Gable as Blackie Norton
Jeanette MacDonald as Mary Blake
Spencer Tracy as Father Mullin
Jack Holt as Jack Burley
Jessie Ralph as Mrs. Burley
Ted Healy as Mat
Shirley Ross as Trixie
Margaret Irving as Della Bailey
Harold Huber as 'Babe'
Edgar Kennedy as Sheriff
Al Shean as Professor