Crime Hotspots: San Francisco

The Law & Order series alone make New York the undisputed television USA crime hotspot. LA had years of Columbo and Perry Mason cases. Miami had Miami Vice, now CSI and Dexter. And of course Baltimore has made a late bid with The Wire and Homicide.

But today, our attention turns to another US city, San Francisco. Perhaps not so prominent recently (there is no CSI SF for one thing) but my reason for featuring it is more personal. I’m off to San Francisco this week.

In a bid to prepare myself for the trip, I was planning on absorbing some San Francisco crime drama. Sadly, I didn’t have access to ‘The Streets of San Francisco” which I remember vaguely but fondly from my childhood, but I did manage to watch a few episodes of Ironside, one of which featured the post office on Geary Street prominently in its plot.

Looking for something more contemporary, I was going to indulge myself in some Monk, which is set in San Francisco. But it is just set there – it is actually filmed in Canada.

I turned my attention then to cinema. I’d already seen Vertigo which is quite famous for its use of San Francisco locations, but watching another SF based Hitchcock, The Family Plot. The location didn’t play quite as big a role in this one though. I also attempted to watch Bullitt which shamefully I’d not seen. The city looked great in it, plenty of shots of the cable car, but I’m afraid I fell asleep in it.

Of course, the big one in San Francisco crime is the real-life crime of the Zodiac case. I loved the film and am still intrigued by the case. So in between photographing the bridge, vintage shopping, visiting galleries and bars, I’m determined to solve the case!

Rooting for the Bad Guy

When looking for the Talking Heads clip, I came across this quote from David Byrne about his inspiration for the song, Psycho Killer:

"Both the Joker and Hannibal Lecter were much more fascinating than the good guys. Everybody sort of roots for the bad guys in movies"

I understand why many actors prefer playing the bad guy, as it is more of a challenge than playing a bland goodie and I've also worried about what it says of me that I enjoy crimes so much - but actually rooting for the bad guy takes this further. So I started to wonder, do I ever root for the bad guy?

Unfortunately I think the answer is 'Yes, sometimes'.


Moral ambiguity is integral to both The Wire and The Sopranos, and are designed to make you identify with what would traditionally be a baddie. There would be no point in watching the Sopranos if you didn't like Tony at all and the same is true of the drug dealers in The Wire. So I don't think these count.


But I have sometimes rooted for the bad guy when they are definitely the all round baddie.

The most recent case was watching 'Dial M for Murder' the other week. Ray Milland was just so charismatic that I really wanted him to get away with it. Grace Kelly, I didn't care about one way or another. Or was that Hitchcock's intention with his love of making his blondes suffer?

Whilst I do love Columbo, it does sometimes get on my nerves that he solves the case so easily, that he immediately instictively knows who the culprit is. So sometimes while he plays his cat-and-mouse games with the murderer, I do want them to get away with it. Just for once. Especially if its an episode I've seen before, I hope that somehow it may have an alternative ending.


Watching Profiler, the main character did get annoy me and I was bored with watching the show and wanted it over with, so often found myself hoping that Jack of All Trades would hurry up and do her in. I kind of got into it towards the end, but then the first series finished, and I was still none the wiser about his identity and haven't seen any more of it. So I still wish he'd have finished the job off.

But then there are some shows where I always want the good guys to win - Morse, Monk and the Law & Order lot, so perhaps there is hope for me yet.