Pecadores en San Francisco

Joel McCrea had made these his home ground and this independent effort, picked up by Warners, was pushed along by the amiable Robert Parrish who obviously found some elements more involving than others.

The dialogs between McCrea and Yvonne De Carlo, in her spotless Fifties outfits, are lifeless and often filmed against back projection. However when Tor Johnson opens the hatch to Florence Bates' waterfront dive bar with a back room full of drunken sailors that she's sold to shanghai-ing captains, thing pick up. The scenes are played for comedy and the smoke filled, low roof ship's hold decor is striking.

Easy to get nostalgic for a time when these came two a time in neighborhood theaters.

Arriving in the small 1856 western town of San Francisco, former vigilante and present miner Joel McCrea (as Rick Nelson) is invited to help root out corruption. Claiming he's only in town for a few days of rest and relaxation, Mr. McCrea declines. McCrea witnesses a well-staged hanging and checks out the lay of the land. Very soon, rest and relaxation appears in the form of alluring Yvonne De Carlo (as Adelaide "Addie" McCall). McCrea gives her a wink and we're off to the races. Trouble is, Ms. DeCarlo is attached to cigar-smoking power broker Sidney Blackmer (as Andrew Cain). This crook is about to install himself a US Senator. McCrea becomes involved with Ms. De Carlo, of course, although she may come with a price...

An old hand at this, McCrea is reliable albeit mechanical; the blocking shows. While she never became a top-line actress, De Carlo really picks up the slack. She is very attractive, obviously, but also sells her character. When required to flash emotions, De Carlo is able to give the precise fraction necessary. This is a De Carlo movie. Best known for her campy 1960s "Lily Munster" TV character, De Carlo proves to be more than decorative, which was her usual lot as a movie star. Director Robert Parrish doesn't always get the best angles, but generally uses his resources well. In the Marie Dressler tradition, rum-soaked waterfront hag Florence Bates (as Sadie) is most memorable, and Richard Erdman (as Shorty) is a reliable sidekick.

****** The San Francisco Story (5/9/1952) Robert Parrish ~ Joel McCrea, Yvonne De Carlo, Florence Bates, Sidney Blackmer

The only real positive distinction this movie has is Joel McCrea in the lead. He was terrific in westerns and he's very good in the this one. However, the plot is not great. 95% of all westerns basically boil down to 3 or 4 plots...and this one has the big baddie who is trying to take over the new state of California. Yep, Andrew Cain is yet ANOTHER big greedy baddie...a plot seriously overused in westerns. And, not surprisingly, there is a hot babe who comes between the two men (Yvonne DeCarlo).

While the acting is good an makes up for the dullness of the plot, there is something that retired history teachers would not like about this film--the highly inaccurate details. The guns are all circa 1870s and the set clearly is a typical western set--but it's supposed to be San Franciso in the 1850s. Hand guns were almost never revolvers and very few folks in the town would have been walking about in cowboy apparel. After all, by then it was an up and coming coastal city...not Deadwood or some other western locale.

So is this one worth seeing? Well, possibly. McCrea is great...he almost always is. But the plot might be too familiar and you need to look past the fact that it's not at all historically accurate.

This is sort of a desultory effort on the part of the star, Joel McCrea, a man who usually takes command of a scene merely by his presence, but here looks tired and like he would rather be on his own ranch instead of this talky, studio-bound production. The thing probably looked good on paper--and if you've got the knowing sultriness of Yvonne DeCarlo, things are set up for some hot romance, at the very least. But the script is a little unfocused, and there's a lot of chatter about the legal Vigilante group, and Sidney Blackmer attempts to show some menace by mouthing menacing lines--but for an action-packed Western or a thoughtful revisionist history lesson, this effort falls flat, and would be a loss leader except for two brilliant, lively scenes with character actor Florence Bates, sporting an eye patch and plenty of life as her own Shanghai Lil (helped along by a massive, silent Tor Johnson) and this viewer perked up and wondered how the rest never recovered; even the final confrontation lacks either suspense or tension, and just allows almost everybody to go home quietly.

All dressed in white ,except in the last sequences,Yvonne De Carlo reigns over the movie.At the time,IMHO,only Ava Gardner surpassed her in beauty.So we can forgive Robert Parish if he often forgets his script which is rather desultory for a western and anyway is not much interesting in the first place .You can't make new things out of (already) old :a tycoon who wants to have the whole town under his thumb (Sidney Blackmer was a fine villain,remember Roman Castevet?),shameless politician,bribery and corruption... and a noble hero played by aging Joel McCrea who could be De Carlo's father.His first line when he sees the hanged man is full of humor.

Parrish made better westerns in the late fifties such as "saddle the wind" and " the wonderful country".His foray into sci-fi gave an (overlooked) memorable movie: "Journey to the far side of the sun" aka "doppelganger".