Fisherman's Wharf

"Fisherman's Wharf" is the sixth of nine films that young singing star Bobby Breen made from 1936 to 1942. These were mostly B musicals put out by RKO. His earliest films were the best, before his voice began to change. This film was toward the end. The songs aren't quite as good as his earlier ones.

The production quality of this film is quite rough. But, it's worth viewing for Breen's singing and for its shooting location. The film depicts the Italian immigrant fishing fleet that had developed in San Francisco Bay over the previous decades. While commercial fishing still operates out of the wharf area in the early 21st century, the boats are larger and of more recent vintage than the smaller boats common back then.

I've visited San Francisco a number of times, and always go to Fisherman's Wharf. What struck me as odd in this movie was the arrival of a car that the locals noted were tourists. Apparently, the wharf was not yet widely visited or established as a tourist place in the 1930s. Surely, by the end of WW II, it began to attract tourists as much as fishermen.