If you caught the new FOX series Alcatraz last night, you probably also caught several classic movie references, the most obvious being the nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. We're introduced to SFPD heroine Rebecca (Sarah Jones) as she's in pursuit of a criminal across the rooftops of San Francisco. Her partner slips and falls -- and she takes the blame for his death -- in a clear homage to the classic sequence in Vertigo, which was also set in San Francisco.
Here's a few more homages you might have missed:
- When Rebecca shoots at fleeing suspect Jack Sylvane (Jeffrey Pierce), she does so from a location well known to film noir fans: It looks very much like the Stockton Tunnel, where Sam Spade's partner Miles Archer was gunned down in The Maltese Falcon.
- In the second episode, a sniper terrifies the city, a possible nod to the lesser-known 1952 noir The Sniper, in which a mentally disturbed man goes on a shooting spree through San Francisco, mostly targeting women.
- Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia) has a classic green muscle car that recalls the one Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt.
- And of course, the prison setting can't help but make me think of Escape From Alcatraz, although the means of escape here is hardly the traditional one.
Did you catch any other film references? As the series is set in San Francisco, I'm sure we can expect to see a lot more.
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