San Francisco -- Oakland Bay Bridge

Year Published: 1935

Creator: none indicated

Complete Record: NO SOUND. Opening shot: Pan American World Airways fabled China Clipper (Martin M/130 Flying Boat) left Alameda Marina on November 22, 1935. Under the command of Captain Edwin C. Musick, the flight would reach Manila via Honolulu, Midway, Wake, and Guam. The inauguration of ocean airmail service and commercial air flight across the Pacific was a significant event for both California and the world. This flight is also referred to as the First Commercial Clipper Flight across the Pacific Film footage includes plane outside its hanger with workmen making it ready for flight. Tractor is seen to side of plane (pulled the plane out of hanger (?) and old ‘woody’ station wagon in distance by nose of plane. Cut to clipper drifting on the water and huge crowd on shore. This is a big plane and that fact is emphasized by the size of people looking on. Shot of a animated map showing the stops that the clipper will made as it goes across the Pacific. Clipper shown as it goes across the water from above. Was this taken from a tower on the Golden Gate Bridge or airplane? Unique camera position for the times to look down on the plane. Off the the left is the indication of either a bit of the GG Bride tower or strut of biplane. [Extra information, no images: November 23, 1935 - China Clipper arrives in Pearl Harbor. 3,000 people showed up to watch the arrival of the Pan Am China Clipper. --STRINGING THE PEARL.] Humphry Bogart and Pat O'Brian starred in a film called China Clipper. Released in 1936. ________________________________ Title of the ‘San Francisco -- Oakland Bay Bridge’ film, then shot of seagulls flying. [NOTE: Was the Bay Bridge footage shot in 1935 or after to be so connected to the bridge footage that follows? The clipper footage has been spliced to the Bay Bridge film.] LS of the Ferry Building area and surrounding wharves. Panning shot to show piers and towers for Bay Bridge sticking out of bay. Panning continues to far end of Yerba Buena Island. MS shot of pylons and towers. CU of bundle of cables. Camera tilts to follow the path of the cables into a tube and up to the top of the tower. CU of cable bundle that goes up to tower. CU looking toward the other end of the bundle showing bundles of bundles as accretion of wires come together. Looking out from a pier (?) towards Navy ships in the bay. Looking towards Yerba Buena Island with what looks to be a barge in foreground and ferry boat spewing black smoke near the island. Towers with primary cables hung gives a sense of proportion of the bridge to island and boats. Camera does a slow MS tilt from base of one of the towers to its top. The geometric shapes are seen clearly against the sky. Sign on tower reads: “American Bridge Co., US Steel.” LS shot near the edge of the tower closest to San Francisco towards Yerba Buena Island. The grace of the arcing cables is emphasized. 30 second or so of a pelican floating on the water. LS shot from boat (?) of a ferry boat coming under the bridge, cables draping above. From Yerba Buena Island looking toward Oakland, the Yerba Buena Island to Oakland bridge structures jutting out towards each other, gap in middle. LS from Yerba Buena Island looking towards Oakland, same idea as previous shot except camera is even with the road bed of the bridge. Oakland Ferry building seen on right. Camera on the road bed looking through the bridge to Oakland. People strolling on bridge walk. LS four men in suits and three with hats standing on the outer edge of the bridge portion that juts from Yerba Buena Island towards Oakland. Men wave and point. LS from where those men may have been standing towards the gap and the last pier from the Oakland side. View of the Oakland Mole buildings on a projection from Oakland. Two men walking Wet towards Yerba Buena along a narrow strip of the bridge while on their left the unfinished bridge opens to the water below. From the narrow strip of the unfinished bridge where the men above were walking, a view through the struts to a fleet of Navy ships on the bay. Two men on Yerba Buena Island with the Yerba Buena to Oakland portion of the bridge behind them, gesticulate towards the Island. Camera moved to the men’s left, viewer’s right side, to another LS view of the Oakland portion of the bridge. Camera is placed higher on Yerba Buena Island so there is a VLS of the Oakland portions of the bridge with the gap yet to be filled. LS of Bay (probably from Yerba Buena Island’s north side). Evening shot. Bay is silvered. Ships are black but still recognizable in silhouette as Navy fleet ships. Almost POV atop a chute from which rock is rolling into the bay. This is fill for the towers and piers of the bridge. Not clear if it is for the Oakland end or for the SF end of the bridge. LS from between the cables on Yerba Buena Island looking towards San Francisco at dusk. Bay is silvery and towers and cables are silhouetted. Camera tilts down slowly to show boat going by the bridge towers and close to the island shore. Shadow of tower’s geometry mirrored in bay. Two enormous spools of wire. Label on one reads, “American Steel Wire Co.” VCU of the texture of the wire wrapped on the spools. MS shot of the Yerba Buena tunnel. Dirt roadbed has not been finished. A man on a tractor or some sort of special use vehicle is into the next shot. This gives expression to how very large this tunnel is. LS of dump truck dumping rock into the bay. Seems to be the Oakland side or could be part of the process of making the US Navy extension(North) to Yerba Buena Island. Navy ships in background. View of some of the geometric forms of the SF bridge. View of wires resting in those forms. Three men walking out on the SF portion of the bridge. They are in silhouette and wave. There appears only to be the narrowest of walkways. They appear to be daredevils in full suits and hats. Camera looking down LS on ferry boats passing on water. LS looking down on a single motor boat. High up on Yerba Buena or the bridge structure itself looking towards SF. Cables and towers reflected in silvery bay water. Ferry boat passing to SF. Unusual shot of tower framework in which it seems to be lit up with lights. I think this is a fortuitous shot of the sun hitting the gleaming new bolts of the bridge. Camera is on the tower looking outward MS and then tilting downward. Since the next shot is the back to the previous shot of the ferry traveling towards SF, maybe the camera was on a tower for that shot as well. Camera on fragile walkway of SF bridge looking down through the web work of the construction of the roadway, and then down further onto a ferry boat. Shot of ferry boats in the water. LS from the first tower of the SF bridge that connects to Yerba Buena Island towards the Oakland bridge segments. Camera pans slightly to pick up Oakland on the right. MS of four men in hats and suits from the position of camera as above. Oakland Bridge in background. Those four men walking away from the camera down the walkway from that SF tower next to Yerba Buena. The turn to wave. West end of the tunnel is in front of them. Descent is steep. Camera in LS takes in the cabling that goes towards the tunnel. Art shot: Silhouette shot from inside the tunnel looking towards SF with rebar pillars and towers. Various views of the Oakland and SF extensions of the bridges. Tilting shot of the tower with the US Steel sign. Shot that shows the bundles of mesh that are to be run between the towers. One can see the wires from the cables that will connect to this mesh and eventual roadway. View looking up at the SF bridge extension from below. Steel girders that lie below the cables are shown. Tilting shot from base of tower to top. MS shot of a worker descending the curved pathway from the tower. He wears overalls. Various art shots of the mechanisms of the bridge, cable connections, etc. Worker in silhouette sitting on one of the cables pulling down other cabling and climbing forward. MS of how the massive tower cable will hold up and attach to the struts of the bridge. MS of tower struts and SF skyline in background. Tilting downward to another ferry passing below. Ferry emphasizes scale of bridge project. MS to LS looking through the towers towards SF. Fog in background. Camera tilts down through lateral struts to ferry passing. MS view of two men in suits with hats. They are standing next to the giant wire spools. MS tow men working above nets as they guide up a lateral girder for the road bed. Group of six men in suits and hats. One has a tripod with motion picture camera pointed at the cameraman doing this shot. Shot looking down through wire meshes of what will eventually be the roadbed. Ferry passes below. Shot looking at bottom half of towers towards Yerba Buena while ferry passes. Strut work and towers are in silhouette. Bay waters are silver. Yerba Buena Island in background. Two mean descending from walkway on cable towards camera that must be situated on that walkway, but further down or up on second tower walkway. Another man in background. Men in suits seem to be power brokers or the bridge builders. Their lack of fear of heights makes them seem invincible. Camera positioned between towers so that tower is white, and cables and walkways are black. Several shots repeating those above. LS of a group of people as in some sort of ceremony as a girder is raised above them toward the what will be the roadbed of the bridge. This seems to be occurring on the SF end of the bridge. Camera tilts up as girder is put in place. Camera looks up through cabling towards a tower. A single girder is in place and the rest of the bridge is open -- no roadbed yet. Further LS of both bridges in various stages of completion. Camera (on boat ?) switches to Golden Gate Bridge and pans along its magnificent span. FILM SPLICE TO COLOR AND THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE. Various construction views of the Golden Gate Bridge. One art shot looking up through the cables that will be the roadbed and catching shadows. An ocean liner passes under the bridge, and a large format photographer is seen shooting the ship.