ABOUT

Join me on a cinematic journey through the secret history of post-WWII San Francisco.

Battles raged between the factions of dark and light in the hidden realms of San Francisco’s power elite, behind the headlines, from the celestial dominions of Nob Hill eateries and private clubs down to the nether depths of the dive bars in the heart of the Tenderloin, up to the Barbary Coast and jazz joints of North Beach and over to the banks and brokerages in the Financial District …

On one side was Bill Wren, Managing Editor of the San Francisco Examiner and consigliere to William Randolph Hearst, his knight-errant Freddie Francisco, the most powerful gossip columnist in Northern California, along with an array of politicians, the mayor, the chief of police, and most of the board of supervisors.

On the other side was crime boss Bones Remmer, owner of the Menlo Club, a Tenderloin gambling club, who controlled all the after-hours joints, brothels, and bookies in town. Extortion and loan-sharking may have fallen under his purview as well. His immediate underlings were Jimmie Tarantino, who published a tattle-sheet, Hollywood Life, and Shell Cooper, who owned Cooper & Varni’s, a notorious saloon at Pine and Jones. Along with a few politicians, a few cops, and various shady lawyers and bagmen, these guys fought to keep San Francisco wide open.

Newspapers were different then.

FRISCO will bring alive that wild and bygone era of the Cool Grey City of Love, as Herb Caen so affectionately called it.