Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 9-September-07
Spoiler Rating: Low

San Francisco (1936)

Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Step this way and behold a speck-tack-u-lar show from the days when a loaf of bread cost a penny — and folks didn't have much more! Yes, "San Francisco" has double the old-timey goodness, set in 1906 and filtered through the lens of 1936. This is the "Titanic" of the Roosevelt era, the blockbuster of the Great Depression, with something for every person in the crowd.

Now, I know some of you are music fans, and our show has got you covered. Smack dab, front and center stage is Miss Jeanette MacDonald, who models the dazzling fashions of a bygone age in the persona of a Colorado songbird trying to make it in the city. This pretty lady could break glass from two blocks away, and she belts out a slew of numbers in high operatic style. And I do mean high and operatic.

If do-re-mi aren't your cup of tea, we present Mr. Clark Gable as the kind of fella who carved cities out of the West — and turned them into dens of debauchery! He recreates the habits of a nightclub owner on San Francisco's infamous "Barbary Coast" and demonstrates how a Real Man at the dawn of the last century made his own rules and stuck to his own code of conduct ... and drove the ladies wild.

Lest anyone accuse me of being amoral, ungodly, and altogether impious, let me assure you that our production will not corrupt the innocent. The entertainment also includes a man of the cloth (Spencer Tracy) whose benevolent influence touches all. Feast your soul on his words of wisdom about life, which are handed out bravely — and sometimes reciprocated by a sock on the jaw!

Don't worry, the father can dish it out as well as he can take it; old San Francisco was no place for softies. That's good news for you adventurous types. Our show might satisfy you most of all, because we've got the biggest, eye-poppingest, most amazing finale you will ever see. It won't spoil your fun to hear that we — don't crowd to the front now — we deliver an honest-to-God earthquake! That's right, we reenact the famous earthquake of nineteen-aught-six, and it's guar-on-teed to send shivers down your spine. Buildings falling, fires raging, people dying, love on the rocks: folks, you just have to see it to believe it.

Yep, "San Francisco" has all these attractions and more. Put them together and you've got a variety show with one intent: to take you back to a time when people needed to believe that sinful, searching, hopeful humans can rise after a fall. Now I'll let you decide if that's worth the price of admission.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.