page_title: Nob Hill (film)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Nob Hill (film) / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: "Nob Hill" poster, with George Raft, Joan Bennett, Vivian Blaine, Peggy Ann Garner, Alan Reed, BS Pully, Emil Coleman and Edgar Barrier (British Empire Films and Fox Films)
context_page_description: Nob Hill is a 1945 Technicolor film about a Barbary Coast saloon keeper starring George Raft and Joan Bennett. Part musical and part drama, the movie was directed by Henry Hathaway. It remains one of Raft's lesser known movies even though it was a big success, in part because it was a musical.
context_section_description: In March 1943, producer Harry Sherman announced he had purchased an original screen story, Crocus Hill by Eleanore Griffin, about a ten year old Irish girl in 1860s San Francisco; she arrives to discover her uncle is dead and gets adopted by gambler because she is good luck. Sherman was going to change the title to Nob Hill and film it for United Artists the following year.
  20th Century Fox had a lot of success making Technicolor musicals set during America's past, including Coney Island (1943) and Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943). Most were set in a saloon and revolved around a love triangle. In October 1943 Fox announced they had purchased Harry Sherman's interest in Nob Hill. Norman Reilly Raine was going to write the script, Andre Daven would produce and the film would be a vehicle for Peggy Ann Garner, who had just impressed in Jane Eyre. The original adult stars were to be Michael O'Shea and Jeanne Crain. Eventually the male starring role was assigned to Fred MacMurray with Gregory Ratoff to direct and Lynn Bari and Merle Oberon to be the female leads along with Garner.
  In May  1944 Ratoff dropped out and Darryl F. Zanuck offered the film to Henry Hathaway, who turned it down because he was uncomfortable with directing a musical. Zanuck put Hathaway on suspension, and Hathaway agreed to make the film. Zanuck allowed Hathaway to make some key changes, including reducing the amount of musical interludes, and removing a sequence that made fun of a Chinese servant. (Hathaway later claimed Nob Hill was the only film "a studio ever handed me that I said I didn't want to make and I made it anyway.")
  Fred MacMurray proved unavailable due to delays on Murder, He Says and was replaced by George Raft. Raft had previously made a successful film set during this period for Zanuck, The Bowery (1933). MacMurray instead went into Where Do We Go From Here?. Lynn Bari was then put in Where Do We Go From Here and Oberon dropped out; the female leads would be Viviae Blaine and Joan Bennett. Filming started in July 1944.
caption: Release poster
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