While The Birds and Vertigo may be some of the more obvious classic films featuring the Bay Area, a new exhibit showing at the Old Mint building in San Francisco is exploring the obvious, the not so obvious, and the downright obscure. The exhibit is entitled "The Stuff that Dreams are made of: San Francisco and the Movies," and it shows scripts, collectibles, artwork and posters from films shot in San Francisco. One room is dedicated to movie posters from classic Noir films related to the City by the Bay. They belong to local collector, author, filmmaker and self proclaimed Noir fanatic Eddie Muller, who has been collecting the posters for decades. KALW’s Hana Baba visited the exhibit with Muller, and asked him to share his experience collecting these rare examples of locally-based cinema noir.
HANA BABA: How did you choose which ones you would bring here to the Mint?
EDDIE MULLER: There has to be some connection to San Francisco. I mean, that was the point of the exhibit, right? Born to Kill was set in San Francisco… parts of the film were definitely shot here. They arrive on the ferry and there is a scene at the Ferry Building, and there is a scene in the old Sutro mansion out by the Cliffhouse, there's a scene at Ocean Beach. And the poster on the end, The Woman on the Run is shot entirely in San Francisco and it's a really, really terrific movie that we rediscovered here at the Noir City Film Festival the first year we did the festival. Nobody had seen Woman on the Run in decades and it was a film I really sought out, and it took quite a while to unearth the only existing print of the film. That poster, I was happy to find that as well. It was not easy to locate.
Listen to the complete interview above. The exhibit, "The Stuff that dreams are made of – San Francisco and the movies" is on through this Sunday, June 24, 2012 at the Old Mint building on 5th and Mission in San Francisco.
