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| Cable car 510 from pg. 334 |
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| Cable Car 514 from pg. 332 |
To wrap up his discussion of the Powell Street cable cars, Mr. Smallwood mentions: It is interesting to note that the Powell-Mason cable line has provided service from terminal to terminal over the same route, using the same method of propulsion and operated by the same cars, for more that 90 years! Certainly this must be a world's record for city transit.
So, if Dark Passage was made in 1947, car 520 had been in operation for around 56 years - not a bad service life.
It’s amazing to me that the age of a single car can be tracked down. I wonder if this might be the first time anyone’s scrutinized the car in Dark Passage.
ReplyDeleteIt turns out there's an extensive literature (if I can call it that) on streetcars, trams, and trolleys. Many of the books on particular streetcar lines dedicate a lot of pages to cataloging the particulars of each car that ever ran on the line. I suspect there's a small, hidden history of streetcars in the movies. It probably starts with A Streetcar Named Desire, but where it goes from there is anybody's guess.
DeleteRegarding Dark Passage, I'm not sure if the same cable car appears in each photo. I think the first photo might be different, but I couldn't read its number. I'm going to have to track down the movie and watch it. With Bogie and Bacall, I'm sure its fun and interesting beyond its streetcar content :-)
Now that I look again, I think you’re right — the number in the first image looks like 500 to me.
ReplyDeleteThey may have shot the scene over a few hours, or maybe a few days, and figured - not incorrectly - that one cable car looks more-or-less like the others. It turns out though that if Mr. Smallwood's book is correct, there wasn't a #500. Numbering started at 501 for some reason. I was thinking the first digit might be a 2, 6, or 8 - some sort of 'curvy' number :-)
DeleteI deliberately live in a bit of a time warp here, and I've asked my friend who owns one of the last movie rental stores on the planet if he can find a copy of Dark Passage. After enjoying the adventures of Bogie and Bacall, I'll leave the time warp and see if I do some image analysis on the number :-)
I just looked again at my screenshots and the DVD, zooming in as far as possible. The number in the first shot definitely looks like 500 to me — the same tight 5 as in 520. But I could be wrong.
DeleteThat's interesting. I'm going to dig around a bit and see if I can find out anything else on #500. Mr. Smallwood's book was first published in '71 and reprinted and updated in '78. No doubt other information has surfaced since then. Thanks for taking another look!
DeleteI see over at The Cable Car Home Page:
Deletehttp://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccsfros.html
that car #519 (which is from the same production run as the others) was renumbered to 500 from 1968 to 1973, and was scrapped in 1986 - obviously both these milestones are outside the 1947 date we're looking for.
Also, the page notes that the cars were built in 1893, not 1891 as in Mr. Smallwood's table. A quibble.
This might take a little while to resolve; however, it looks like the video store has a copy of the movie, so there'll be pleasurable viewing ahead :-)
Yes, with or without an answer. :)
ReplyDeleteI walked over to the store and Sara found the copy, so no doubt there's good viewing ahead.
DeleteIt looks like 3 cars were used in the cable car sequence: #507 when Parry gets on somewhere in SF; another one (whose number is not clear in the digital print, but sure looks like 500) that arrives at the turntable; and #520 is the one turned around on the turntable and Parry exits to the bus station.
DeleteOh, and the remainder of the movie is interesting too :-)