Book excerpt: Exploring a city famous for its role in film settings and television backdrops, this book is a comprehensive guide to thousands of movie and television locations in the San Francisco Bay area. From the cement steps in Alta Plaza Park as featured in Barbra Streisand's What's Up, Doc? to the actual nightclub of Frank Sinatra's character in Pal Joey and the haunts of Don Johnson's Nash Bridges, this jaunty expedition around San Francisco and the surrounding bay explores an area featured in more than 1,500 movies. Easy-to-follow maps identify significant historical film sites, locations for classic and contemporary films, movie palaces, and production companies, making this travel guide a best bet for planning a tour of locales associated with Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, as well as current film-makers such as George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Clint Eastwood.