''The San Francisco Docks'' is a 1940 American

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Arthur Lubin Arthur Lubin (July 25, 1898 – May 11, 1995) was an American film director and producer who directed several ''Abbott & Costello'' films, '' Phantom of the Opera'' (1943), the '' Francis the Talking Mule'' series and created the talking-horse TV ...

and starring

Burgess Meredith Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television. Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "on ...

, Barry Fitzgerald, and

Irene Hervey Irene Hervey (born Beulah Irene Herwick; July 11, 1909December 20, 1998) was an American film, stage, and television actress who appeared in over fifty films and numerous television series spanning her five-decade career. A native of Los Angeles ...

Plot

When his sweetheart, barmaid Kitty Tracy, is annoyed by a customer, longshoreman Johnny Barnes slugs the guy. The man is later found dead. Johnny is tried for murder and convicted. Kitty and a priest, Father Cameron, believe in Johnny's innocence and search for a way to exonerate him. They discover that Monte March, a prisoner who has escaped Alcatraz prison, is the real killer, being helped by wife Frances in fleeing from the law. March is apprehended and Johnny's set free. The movie is noteworthy in that featured a fight scene between two of the actresses,

Esther Ralston Esther Ralston (born Esther Louise Worth, September 17, 1902 – January 14, 1994) was an iconic American silent film star. Her most prominent sound picture was '' To the Last Man'' in 1933. Early life and career Ralston was born Esther Loui ...

and

. Both women told director Arthur Lubin that they did not want to have stunt doubles perform the fight scene, described by press accounts as a "... whirlwind fistfight... said to overshadow the most hectic feminine movie battles seen in recent motion pictures." Hervey later described the fight as a "...terrific battle between me and Esther Ralston—with hair-pulling, kicking, the works."

Cast

as Johnny Barnes *

as Kitty Tracy * Barry Fitzgerald as Icky * Robert Armstrong as Father Cameron *

Raymond Walburn Raymond Walburn (September 9, 1887 – July 26, 1969) was an American character actor of stage and screen who appeared in dozens of Hollywood movie comedies and an occasional dramatic role during the 1930s and 1940s. Life and career Born i ...

as Admiral Andy *

as Frances *

Edward Pawley Edward Joel Pawley (March 16, 1901 in Kansas City, Missouri – January 27, 1988 in Charlottesville, Virginia) was an American actor of radio, films and Broadway. The full name on his birth certificate is Edward Joel Stone Pawley; he never u ...

as Monte March

Production

In May 1940 Universal announced the film as part of its schedule for the following year. On September 20 the studio said Meredith would star alongside Irene Harvey and Barry Fitzgerald, with Arthur Lubin to direct. The film was shot in eleven days.

Reception

The ''New York Times'' called it "routine... a lot of melodramatic foolishness."THE SCREEN IN REVIEW New York Times 26 Dec 1940: 23.

References

External links

''The San Francisco Docks''
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

''The San Francisco Docks''
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of A ...

San Francisco Docks
at BFI 1940 films Films set in San Francisco 1940 crime drama films American crime drama films Films directed by Arthur Lubin American black-and-white films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films {{1940s-crime-drama-film-stub