Cavalcade of San Francisco

This is a colorful James A. FitzPatrick TravelTalk featuring a look at San Francisco (circa 1940), with views of several landmarks, including the Oakland Bay Toll Bridge completed in 1936 at a cost of $77 million and a gateway to Northern California; glimpse of a 1769 Spanish mission built by the Franciscan Fathers; a stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the world's longest single span bridge; and culminating in scenes from a World's Fair exposition in 1939 that was a cavalcade of the Golden West.

The pageantry includes covered wagons showing pioneers from the east making their way westward in caravans with nothing more than faith in the potential of the Golden West; the Wells Fargo stagecoach establishing contact between east and west; the advent of the Iron Horse and the meeting of the Union Pacific with Central Pacific; and finally, views of San Francisco at the turn of the 19th century.

Summing up: Well done documentary with many points of interest.

James A. Fitzpatrick sends the Technicolor cameras north to San Francisco under the supervision of Robert Carney, and then banally orates about the city by the bay, as if there isn't a long-standing sense of rivalry between Angelenos and San Franciscans.

San Francisco did not change much between the time this movie was shot and when I knew the city almost fifty years later: a little dirtier, and the palm trees which flourished so absurdly in summer's 40 degrees Fahrenheit mornings a little taller, but basically unchanged. Even then the absurdity of the city, its insistence on nostalgic pageantry and the municipal roller coaster -- the cable cars -- made it seem more like an amusement park tha a working city. Apparently the same impulse was present when this short was made.

Having just watched San Andreas-where the Golden Gate bridge was depicted as being shaken and falling in debris-it was nice to see it very much intact in this James A. FitzPatrick travelogue short. We also see the Oakland Toll bridge as Fitzpatrick mentions its cost and it being completed in 1936. We also see some churches built by some missionaries in the 18th century as the narrator mentions the city's name being inspired by Saint Francis. And then, we see some highlights of SF's World's Fair as there are reenactments of the pioneer settlers going west for gold, the Wells Fargo stage coaches, the final spike hammered in starting a new railroad line, and the Union and Central Pacific trains meeting. This was a nice look at San Fran during the early '40s. So on that note, Cavalcade of San Francisco is worth a look. P.S. I saw this as an extra on the Go West/The Big Store DVD disc.

This TravelTalks episode starts with the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge. They go to San Francisco and begin talking about its religious origins. Then they go to the Golden Gate Bridge. They visit the Palace of Fine Arts from the International Exposition of 1915. Next, it's Treasure Island and the Cavalcade of the Golden West from the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939/40.

The bridges and the city scenes are postcard ready, but not that interesting. It is nice to have footage from the Exposition. It is kitschy to have the footage of the performance. It's old fashion and familiar.

Cavalcade of San Francisco (1940)

** (out of 4)

Weaker entry in James A. FitzPatrick's TravelTalks series takes a look at San Francisco and starts off by looking at the Oakland Bay Toll Bridge, which we're told took $77 million to complete. From here we get a great look at the Golden Gate Bridge and then it's off to various Old West things like seeing the Wells Fargo stagecoach, the Iron Horse train and several re-enactments. Also on hand is some footage from the World's Fair aka Treasure Island. Overall this entry isn't too bad but I just felt that we really didn't get to see San Francisco all that much and instead we were just watching local re-enactments. The stuff dealing with the Treasure Island World Fair was somewhat useless because there were two previous TravelTalks shorts that looked at it. Overall, this is certainly worth checking out if you're a fan of the series but it doesn't offer anything overly special.