San Francisco City Hall - Filmography

Filmography

The beauty of City Hall has not been lost on filmmakers working in San Francisco; a good many films have shot scenes in and around the building. Ironically, that which may be City Hall's best-known scene does not take place in San Francisco but in Washington, DC. A scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed in the rotunda as a late addition to the production when it was decided that a coda was needed for Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood's relationship. The City Hall was prominently featured throughout and famously at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Dirty Harry filmed a key scene in the Mayor's office itself. In the opening sequence of The Towering Inferno, the film's dedication is superimposed over a shot of City Hall, and the helicopter taking Paul Newman to the Glass Tower is shown flying over the building.

Other films that feature City Hall include:

• The Towering Inferno (1974)
• Foul Play (1978)
• A View to a Kill (1985)
• Class Action (1991)
• The Rock (1996)
• Bicentennial Man (1999) portrays a ball taking place under the dome for the grand reopening of the building after restoration somewhere in the 22nd century.
• Bedazzled (2000)
• The Wedding Planner (2001)
• Milk (2008)

The scene from A View to a Kill (the last James Bond film to star Roger Moore) is particularly memorable for the blaze which tore through the building as a result of an attempt to kill Bond and Stacey Sutton, however they managed to escape stealing a fire truck in the process.