Hollywood has long embraced the Bay Area’s many charms, filling countless films with scenes of the Golden Gate Bridge, cityscapes and rolling hills. The islands of San Francisco Bay have gotten their share of close-ups over the decades, appearing in box office blockbusters, Oscar-nominated films and everything in between.
Here is a look at just a few of our favorite films that were shot, at least in part, on those islands.
“Escape from Alcatraz” (1979)
Directed by Don Siegel, this iconic film is based on John Campbell Bruce’s 1963 account of the infamous Alcatraz prison escape in 1962. The movie stars the Bay Area’s own Clint Eastwood as escape ringleader Frank Morris in a cast that also includes Fred Ward, Patrick McGoohan, Jack Thibeau, Larry Hankin and another Bay Area screen legend — Danny Glover — in his film debut.
The film’s attention to historic details, from costumes to setting, landed it at No. 3 on the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy’s list of the top 10 movies made in the parks. (“Vertigo” took the top spot, in case you’re wondering.)
Based on a true story, Morris concocts an escape plan with three men — bank robbers John and Clarence Anglin and inmate Charley Butts — that involves tunneling out of their cells using sharpened spoons and deceiving the prison guards by leaving dummies with papier-mâché heads in their cots. Butts eventually backs out, but the remaining trio casts off into the Bay on a raft.
Was the escape successful? The FBI closed the case in 1979. But some people — including members of the Anglin family — say not only did Morris and the Anglin brothers escape, they lived out their years in Brazil.
The prison thriller leaves its cinematic ending open to interpretation. What’s not in doubt, however, is that the movie proved incredibly popular with the public, recouping its original $8 million budget more than five times over at the box office. The film also marked the fifth and final collaboration between Eastwood and Siegel, who also teamed on another San Francisco classic, 1971’s “Dirty Harry.”
“The Rock” (1996)
You knew we wouldn’t forget the other big Alcatraz blockbuster, which ticket buyers lapped up to the tune of nearly $340 million in worldwide box office receipts.
What did folks get for their money? Michael Bay’s trademark brand of big action and thrills served up a tremendous cast that featured stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris.
Connery plays a former Special Air Service (SAS) captain who teams up with FBI chemist (Cage) to take on an evil general (Harris) and a rogue band of Marines who have taken tourists and security guards hostage on Alcatraz Island. The baddies are threatening to fire stolen rockets filled with VX gas at the city if their demands are not met. The $100 million ransom imposed by Harris’ character is intended to compensate, at least partly, the families of fallen men under his command.
Most of the film was shot on location at the prison, even though that meant having to dodge visitors who had ferried out to tour the National Park Service-governed site.
Interesting side note: The film inspired a 2003 remake in India under the title of “Qayamat: City Under Threat.”
“So I Married an Axe Murderer” (1993)
Perhaps the most underappreciated offering in the Mike Myers oeuvre, this dark comedy serves as a nice showcase for the “SNL” funnyman’s many cinematic charms — which he later used to much greater financial reward in the “Shrek” and “Austin Powers” film franchises.
Myers plays a Beat poet living in, of course, San Francisco (which is apparently the only place Beat poets are allowed to live). He doesn’t have much luck with relationships, other than as fodder for his poetry. Then he meets Harriet (played by Nancy Travis), who is really great and all, except for the fact that she may well be an axe murderer.
The film is set entirely in San Francisco, but one of its most memorable scenes occurs during a visit to Alcatraz. It’s there that we meet one of the greatest tour guides of all time — John Johnson (aka, “Vicky”) — played to weirdly menacing perfection by fellow “SNL” star Phil Hartman.
“The Caine Mutiny” (1954)
Alcatraz isn’t the only Bay Area island to have received screen time over the years. Another cinematic favorite is Treasure Island, where everything from “Hulk” (2003) to “James and the Giant Peach” (1996) to TV’s “Nash Bridges” (1996-2001) were filmed in the former naval station’s giant hangars.
One of our faves, however, is the 1954 juggernaut, “The Caine Mutiny.” This Edward Dmytryk-directed movie was based on Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, which imagined a mutiny aboard a World War II minesweeper.
The movie’s great cast included Humphrey Bogart, who was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of the erratic Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, as well as José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Robert Francis and Fred MacMurray.
Sharing the screen with these famed actors is Treasure Island’s landmark Administration Building, which gets a small spotlight in this WWII Pacific Theater tale. (We like to think that the Treasure Island inclusion helped propel the film to score seven Academy Award nominations, including for best picture.)
“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)
Built in 1937-38 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, Treasure Island’s Administration Building also had a starring moment in the “Indiana Jones” series’ third chapter, which made $474 million worldwide.
The building was used in this Steven Spielberg-directed action-adventure flick as the Berlin Flughafen or airport, the launching point for Jones (played by Harrison Ford) and his father (Sean Connery) to flee their pursuers via zeppelin, Grail diary in hand.
The impressive structure we see onscreen is draped in Nazi flags, which was historically appropriate for the scene – sure – but jarring when one realizes this was a working U.S. Navy base at the time of filming. (No worries. We’re told the flags were added in post production.)
“Bumblebee” (2018)
Granted, it’s hard to take any action film seriously that shares a name with a can of tuna. Yet, this one was partially shot on Mare Island — and features John Cena — so we’re definitely including it here.
Directed by Travis Knight (the son of Nike bigwig Phil Knight), “Bumblebee” is the sixth in what surely feels like 987,477 installments in the film series inspired by Transformers toys.
This 2018 series offering, like all the ones that came before, was a hit at the box office — grossing nearly half a billion in ticket sales around the globe.
The storyline is opaque, even by Transformer standards. The Autobots are evacuating from the planet Cybertron when Decepticon’s attacking forces arrive, so Optimus Prime sends a scout, B-127, to Earth to set up an alternative base. That plan goes badly south. Just before B-127 collapses, the bot transfers itself to a yellow, 1967 Volkswagen Beetle — and about-to-be birthday present for young Charlie (played by Hailee Steinfeld).
It’s a lot. But the graphics are cool, and it’s fun to see all the Bay Area scenery.