1938 Talbot-Lago 'Special' T150 C SS "Goutte d'Eau" Coupe photographed at the 2012 Marin-Sonoma Concours d' Elegance. Goutte d'Eau means "teardrop" in French. Handbuilt by the Paris Coachbuilding Firm, Figoni & Falaschi (Italian designers). One of the most expensive cars of it's era; only 16 were made in the teardrop coupe style. These cars could reach 140 mph and some were raced at LeMans. The "C" stands for "course" or "competition" (i.e. racecar). A true masterpiece of aerodynamic design and craftsmanship. These rare cars sell at auction for well over 3 million dollars. Hear what it sounds like...video.
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Blood Alley (1955) tells the story of Captain Tom Wilder (John Wayne) whom locals rescue from the Chinese Communists. He ends up attempting to take the people of the village to Hong Kong in a small, rotten paddle steamer.Most of the location filming was done at historic China Camp in Marin County, Ca. Artificial sets and buildings were added to create a small Chinese village. Ansel Adams (1902-1984) American photographer. Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. In 1903, his family moved to a new home near the Seacliff neighborhood. The home sat on a bluff surrounded by sand dunes and had a view of the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. (From wikipedia:) Uninjured in the initial shaking of the 1906 earthquake, the four-year-old Ansel Adams was tossed face-first into a garden wall during an aftershock three hours later, breaking his nose. The house still stands today in it's original location although it has been extensively remodeled. Adams built another house adjacent to it that he lived in until 1962 when he moved to Carmel, Ca. The Godfather (1972) Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece. Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay. Ranked no. 2 in the AFI's top 100 films list of all time. The reconciliation scene between Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) was filmed in Ross, Ca. in early autumn to substitute for New Hampshire. Video Clip Academy Award winning movie Bullitt shot on location in 1968 in San Francisco. Famous for the great car chase scene with Steve McQueen driving green '68 Mustang chasing Dodge Charger through the streets of San Francisco. This is the sequence at Larkin and Chestnut streets when McQueen misses the turn and backs up. The Charger had just clipped the Ford parked on the corner taking out one of the film cameras on Chestnut St. Dirty Harry, 1971 classic movie. The first in the series of Clint Eastwood (as SFPD Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan) crime films that was shot on location in San Francisco and Marin County, Ca. The final action scene was shot in Larkspur, Ca. where Dirty Harry chases the bad guy to the old rock quarry after jumping on top of the school bus. The rock quarry and pond, that he throws his badge in at the end of the movie, have been developed over the last 40 years into commercial office, shopping and residential buildings. Video clip. American Graffiti, (1973). George Lucas' classic about cruising in the early sixites that was nominated for 5 Academy Awards. The cruising scenes were originally planned to be shot in downtown San Rafael, Ca. but because of disruptions to local businesses the San Rafael City Council revoked permission after one night of shooting and the rest of the movie was shot in Petaluma, Ca. Nonetheless there are several classic scenes that were shot that first night on Fourth St., San Rafael. Fourth St. is actually a two-way street but for the movie it was made one-way going West, which make the scenes shot in San Rafael easy to distinguish from the ones shot in Petaluma. Michelangelo Antonioni's cult classic Blow-Up filmed on location in London in 1966. This is the film that helped make the Nikon F the icon of 35mm photography. I was familiar with Blow-Up in 1966 when it came out but I was not a photographer at the time and did not see the film until 1975 when I saw it in a theater in Madrid, Spain. In those days (before VCR's) if you missed a first run movie in a theater you were out of luck unless it was later shown on television. In 1974 while visiting London I happened to be staying on Draycott Place where I took a photo of the street. Turns out, by sheer coincidence, I almost duplicated Antonioni's view of the Rolls Royce coming down the same street....but didn't realize it until a few years ago when I bought the DVD of the movie!
Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece, filmed on location in San Francisco. This is the house at 900 Lombard St. where James Stewart's character Det. Scottie Ferguson lived. Update:
Citing privacy concerns, in 2012 the current owners of 900 Lombard St. remodeled the front entrance to the house with a wall and stuccoed over the brick chimney. The elaborate Cliff House and Seal Rocks, San Francisco, Ca., c.1900. Built in 1896 by Adolf Sutro, the Cliff House was a seven story Victorian Chateau (called by some "the Gingerbread Palace") below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Cliff House survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage but burned to the ground in 1907. The Cliff House Restaurant has gone through many incarnations and modern remodels. It has presently been restored to it's 1909 version.
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