Old time footage of San Francisco

February 20, 2007 4:23 PM

I need some old-time footage of San Francisco in the 40s or 50s, and of Shanghai in the 20s. Anyone have any ideas of DVDs I could rent and rip some shots off of?

I'd prefer documentary or real shots on old B+W film rather than staged Hollywood re-enactments or contemporary stuff.

posted by wavejumper to media & arts (5 comments total)

What are you using the footage for? I suggest you call the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley; KQED-TV in San Francisco; Xinhua News Agency in New York; Reuters in New York; Pathe-ITN in New York; and the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, CA.
posted by parmanparman at 4:37 PM on February 20, 2007

Archive.org has some footage of SF from the 30's and the 40's.
posted by brownbeards at 5:09 PM on February 20, 2007

Vertigo (1958)
posted by ShooBoo at 8:56 PM on February 20, 2007

The Prelinger Collection has a lot of historical footage of cities, particularly San Francisco. Some of it is available for free on archive.org, and some of it you have to license.
posted by brevity at 9:06 PM on February 20, 2007

Not sure what you need it for but the GLBT history society has some stuff on youtube that might be of interest. I was thinking of this panorama in particular.
posted by serazin at 9:22 PM on February 20, 2007