The Stab Premiere

This weekend I dragged my boyfriend out to South Pasadena to do some more stalking of the movie

. This time we set out to stalk the Rialto Theatre where the premiere of the movie within the movie,

takes place. The interior and the exterior of the Rialto are both featured quite prominently throughout the opening scenes of

and it is at the Rialto that Jada Pinkett Smith and Omar Epps meet their untimely end.

Interestingly enough, my new book,

, states that only the exterior of the Rialto was used in the filming of

and that interior filming took place at the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, but that information is actually incorrect. As you can see from the above screen capture and photo, the lobby area of the Rialto was featured in the movie. The only reason for this inconsistency that I can figure out is that quite possibly the actual auditorium where Omar and Jada watch

was not at the Rialto, but at the Vista. But since the Rialto was closed while we were stalking it, I was not able to get inside to verify. 🙁

I do believe, though, that the bathroom where Omar Epps is killed was, in fact, located inside the Rialto. The reason I believe this is that the bathroom in the movie features Egyptian style writing and hieroglyphics on the wall, and the Rialto'”‘”‘s first owner, L. Lou Bard, created all of his movie palaces with an Egyptian theme. But again, I could not go inside to verify this. Looks like I am going to need to re-stalk the Rialto in the near future. 🙂

The Rialto was built by designer Lewis A. Smith for theatre owner and entertainer L. Lou Bard and premiered its first movie,

, in October of 1925. In July of 1976 the Landmark Theatre Corporation bought the Rialto and due to fledgling ticket sales made plans to tear it down. Residents of South Pasadena protested, saved the Rialto from the wrecking ball, and in 1978 the theatre was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But sadly, the Rialto still fell into a sad state of disrepair and closed its doors for good on August 20, 2007. Due to low patronage, the Landmark Corporation could no longer afford to keep the theatre open. And while the Historic Register prevents the theatre from ever being demolished, the Rialto currently sits vacant and delapidated, a distant memory of what once was. For those stalkers who want to see the inside of the historic theate – even though the Rialto is closed to the general public for day to day movie viewing, special events are still sometimes held there. In honor of Halloween there is even going to be a midnight performance of the

held there on Saturday, November 1st. You can

for more information.

The Rialto has been featured in numerous productions over the years. Besides

, it also showed up in the movie

as the location where Tim Robbins first meets Vincent D'”‘”‘Onofrio and later kills him. The killing actually takes place in the alley behind the theatre (pictured above). The Rialto was also featured in

and

.  The Rialto'”‘”‘s interiors were also featured in Michael Jackson‘”‘”‘s

video, as the location where MJ and his girlfriend Ola watch the video'”‘”‘s movie within a movie.  The Rialto'”‘”‘s exteriors, however, were not used in

.  Instead, all of the exterior theatre scenes took place at

.  🙂  Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

: The Rialto Theatre is located at 1023 South Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena.

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