When San Francisco Kicked Hollywood to the Curb
Angered by Negative Depictions of Their City, in the Early 1970s Civic Leaders Regulated Filmmakers Out of Town
Canada’s motion picture industry earned the nickname “Hollywood North” because the country so often serves as a center of location production for American films. But in the early 1970s, this term referred to San Francisco and even headlined a series of newspaper columns covering the boom in Hollywood production in the city.
After the success of the 1968 Steve McQueen film Bullitt, which was set in San Francisco, dozens of feature films, TV movies, and television series were shot on location there. Mayor Joseph Alioto, a former attorney to movie …
