The San Francisco Story

Robert Parrish

(Saw this film in French television).

The San Francisco Story is directed by Robert Parrish (1952) and constitutes in a way a 'classical' western story blended with the fight for freedom of speech and against a one man rule and press monopoly. 

Of course we can see the influences from Citizen Kane, the powerful publisher who runs everything and it's therefore somewhat parodical that the tycoon and politician - though not being a publisher - running the town and its inhabitants, is given the name Andrew Caine (Sidney Blackmer).

There is also a 'good guy', though not being a poor individual, economically, namely Rick Nelson (Joel McCrea), a mine owner invited to town by his friend and editor Jim Martin (Onslow Stevens) who tries to fight the supremacy of Cain but need the help of Nelson.

Initially Nelson refuses as he doesn't want to get involved, having a CV including some violent incidents in the past but little by little - and not least thanks to the wife of Cain, une femme fatale, Adelaide McCall (Yvonne de Carlo) - he becomes a part of the struggle against Cain.

This leads up to him being 'shanghaied' (as one said at the time) and shot at but he overcomes all these problems in the end - and of course he gets the girl.

The end is melodramatic and to much of a 'macho-solution' and it's an extremely predictable film with no surprises when it comes to the plot or the mis-en-scène.

Seemed to have been made rather routinely.

(Picture movie poster copied from: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ncqv5pTtL.jpg)

(Photo Robert Parrish copied from: http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_04_img1575.jpg)