Lost buildings: Revisiting Trail’s Rio Theatre

In 2011, I wrote a short history of the lost Rio Theatre in East Trail for the Trail Journal of Local History. Since then, I’ve learned much more about its proprietor and the bad luck that plagued him and the business.

The Rio was Trail’s shortest-lived and least remembered moviehouse. It was built in 1941 at 1601 2nd Avenue, in what is now the Safeway parking lot.

The lone known photo of the Rio Theatre from a 1946 booklet published by the Trail Board of Trade.

The energetic and restless man behind the theatre, Domenico (Gene) Sorrentino, was born in 1892 in Cessaniti, Italy. He came to Canada in 1919 and the following year married Amabile Breda in Blairmore, Alta. They would have three daughters and a son. They show up on the 1921 census in Bellevue, Alta., where Sorrentino was a shoemaker. His instincts as an entrepreneur and impresario would quickly become apparent.

The 1924 civic directory showed he had opened a cigar and confectionery stand. An ad from that year revealed he was also manager of the Silver Spray Brewing Co.

Blairmore Enterprise, June 19, 1924

Sorrentino next headed to Cardston, Alta., where he bought an interest in the Palace Theatre.

His honesty was exemplified in 1926 when he was involved in a car accident near Michel in the East Kootenay. Unaware that he was required to report the incident to authorities, he went back to Cardston, whereupon a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Before it could be served, Sorrentino returned to BC to give himself up, making the trip from Cardston “in one day by hard driving.” The judge recognized Sorrentino didn’t know he had broken the law and had returned as quickly as possible to answer to the charges, so he only issued a nominal fine.

The following year Sorrentino sold his interest in the Palace for $15,000 ($268,500 today) and headed to Salt Lake City to work for the Eddington-Cope Radio Corporation. From there, the family moved to South America to establish agencies for the company, for whom he was described as a “prominent official.”

I don’t know what ensued but they returned to Bellevue in 1932. While economic times were tough, Sorrentino figured it was “as good as any place” to weather the storm. He formed a band, the Venetian Strollers, who performed in Oyen, Bassano, Crossfield, and Didsbury that year in a “costumed musical program of distinctive melody type.”

In 1934, the family moved to Natal, now part of Sparwood, and bought the opera house there. They stayed for four years, although I haven’t found much about their time in the community.

Next stop was Creston in 1938, where Sorrentino took a three-year lease on the Grand Theatre. He also headed a five-piece band, which performed for a delegation from the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, among other gigs.

Nelson Daily News, Sept. 30, 1938

World War II made life difficult for Italian-Canadians whose loyalties were questioned. In Creston, an organization formed in 1940, with Sorrentino elected vice-president, to swear allegiance to Canada and the King.

Sorrentino delivered the main address at a mass meeting where he declared that “all Italians who, so ever hear tell or speak against King George and his Empire or friends, immediately report to the police, president, or secretary of the meeting.”

Sorrentino’s full speech was carried in a newspaper account, the only example we have of anything in his own words. He explained:

All of us left Italy years ago because of the adverse living conditions. We came to this country, and the people of this country gave us hospitality, and a chance to work and raise our families decently, but the dearest above all and everything else we have received from the people of Canada [is] Liberty and Freedom, and to live our own lives without any interference from the other people.

Sorrentino condemned Italy for joining the Axis powers, a decision that had “broken the hearts of many honest and good Italian workers all over the world.” He revealed he had fought in World War I but wasn’t sure if he should be proud of his service because he feared it had been in vain. The meeting concluded with the 58 people present singing an oath of allegiance.

Sorrentino didn’t stay much longer in Creston, however. In November 1940, fire broke out in his home at Victoria Avenue and Hillside Road. By the time firefighters arrived, “the interior was a blazing inferno and little could be done to salvage the contents.” The cause wasn’t reported. The house was built in 1914 as a home for the Roman Catholic priest and was later home to a Lutheran pastor.

A few months before his lease was due to expire, Sorrentino gave up management of the Grand Theatre (which ultimately closed in 1960 and became Webster’s store) and set his sights on Trail.

At last, we get to the Rio Theatre, built at the corner of Second Avenue and Clark Street (Block 16, Lots 1 and 2) by the Trail Theatre Company, incorporated in February 1941. The concrete building went to tender the following month. I don’t know who the contractor was and I’m not sure if Sorrentino had other investors or put up all the money himself, but it cost $45,000 (about $833,000 today).

One day while the theatre was under construction, a sandstorm began to blow, common in those days when Trail’s hills were bare. Workmen at the Rio urged passersby to shelter inside. “Soon the lobby was overflowing,” Beryl Davis recalled in Trail of Memories. While the storm plastered people with “caked-on mud to be scrubbed off,” she felt the inconvenience was worth it, “as we got a sneak preview of the Rio and a private tour by the kindly workmen.”

The theatre was Trail’s third, in addition to the Strand and Rialto (renamed the Odeon in 1945 and the Royal in 1977). With 440 seats, the Rio was smaller than its competitors. Unlike the other theatres, it did not belong to a circuit and was independently-run.

East Trail was then a growing suburb with many businesses and Sorrentino was gambling that there was enough business for a theatre on that side of the river. The Rio opened on Sept. 1, 1941 with a screening of Northwest Mounted Police, starring Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll.

Nelson Daily News, Sept. 1, 1941

The theatre’s decorating rated a mention in Canadian Paint and Varnish Magazine:

East Trail, BC — Color plays an important part in the artistic appearance of the new Rio Theatre which has just opened here. The foyer of the building is finished with forest green marble tile floors, pale pink walls and sky blue ceiling. The theatre itself is finished in natural tints with red leather seats and mohair backs on the seating equipment.

I sure wish we had interior photos, even if only in black and white.

Leonard Brown, who grew up on Fifth Avenue, told me about going to the Rio almost every week with his brother. He said kids reigned supreme on Saturday afternoons.

As to the decor of the theatre, I remember it was more modern than the other two theatres in downtown Trail. One unique feature, which I never saw in any other theatre, was the double seat bench on the aisle side for couples. They could sit together without blocking the view of the screen of others behind them.

My mother used to clean the theatre. During the war the smelter put out a call for aluminum. So if you came to any of the theatres with an aluminum pot, roaster, fry pan, etc., that was your ticket into the show.

After a promising start, the theatre was beset by a series of disasters. The first was on July 10, 1942 when a fire broke out on stage 10 minutes after moviegoers went home. It took more than an hour to put out and caused extensive interior damage. I don’t know how long the Rio was out of commission.

Then on July 21, 1943, after locking up at 1 a.m. following the late show, Sorrentino noticed a light in the office. He reentered and was startled to see a man escape on a bicycle. But he trapped two other young men in the office who refused to give their names and begged him not to call police. He did anyway and they took off on another bicycle. It was presumed they had hidden in the theatre after the show hoping to rob the box office, but all they got away with was about 30 cents.

That fall, vandals broke in to the theatre and smashed projectors, screens, and lenses valued at $1,000. The theatre was closed for more than a month. It doesn’t appear that anyone was caught in either incident. Nor was there any suggestion they were related. Despite the setbacks, Sorrentino kept the theatre going for a few more years but placed it for up sale in June 1945.

Calgary Herald, Oct. 9, 1945

Trail Daily Times, Nov. 19, 1945

Sorrentino eventually sold or leased the place to Romeo Rinaldi, who may have been a friend of his from Bellevue. Rinaldi brought in former United Artists booker Harry Page from Vancouver to run the place, but the arrangement only lasted a couple of months. I haven’t pinned down the exact date of the last screening at the Rio, but it looks to have been sometime in 1946. So the theatre’s life was about five years.

The following year the property was sold to United Dairies for $70,000 (over $1 million today) and the building was turned into a pasteurization plant. According to Ron Greene and Barb Ethier, who wrote a history of United Dairies, entry was through the rear and two aisles in the theatre led to the plant. Theatre seats initially remained in the front but they were gone by the mid-1950s. The company office was behind the former ticket booth.

In 1960, United Dairies moved to a new building in Glenmerry. One source says the old theatre then sat empty for a decade until Safeway, which opened a new store nearby in late 1959, bought it and demolished it to create more parking. However, a Trail Daily Times story when Safeway opened suggested the dairy’s demolition was imminent. If so, the building lasted less than 19 years.

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Gene Sorrentino lived in Trail at 1366 McQuarrie Street, just around the corner from the theatre, but none of his family appears to have joined him. He and his wife Amabile divorced sometime between 1935 and 1941. Amabile then married Dominico Giacomazzi and lived in Bellevue with son Gino. In 1948, Gino and another boy drowned during a school picnic at Burmis Lake. He was 13.

Sorrentino moved to Vancouver around 1947 where he bought Jex Grocery at 799 Windermere St. In 1956, he met and married a recent immigrant, Nazzarena (Nena) Rubino. But more tragedy followed. Seven months after their wedding, Domenico suffered a brain bleed and died, age 63. Two months after being widowed, Nena gave birth to their daughter Maria. Nena continued to run the store to support herself until she remarried in 1960. She died in 2020.

Gene was also survived by his children from his first marriage, daughters Caterina and Elisa, and son Paulino, who oddly was not mentioned in his obituary. The daughter he never saw eventually had a marker placed on his grave at Ocean View Burial Park in Burnaby bearing this epitaph: “Never met/Forever remembered/Your daughter Marialena Rubino Sorrentino.”

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The exact spot where the Rio Theatre stood can be gleaned by studying fire insurance maps. At one time Clark Street was a thruway between Second and Third Avenue but Safeway’s expansion blocked the street off.

1943 fire insurance map showing the Rio Theatre in blue.

1953 fire insurance map showing United Dairies in blue.

Today, if you’re standing on Second Avenue facing Safeway, the Rio was just to the right of the crosswalk seen in the foreground below.

(Odd thing, though: the 1943 map shows the theatre as only occupying Lot 1, whereas the 1949 and 1953 maps shows the dairy occupying both Lot 1 and Lot 2. I think the 1943 map was in error because I’m not aware that the building was ever expanded.)

The theatre’s only legacy is a mention on a heritage sign about East Trail at the leisure centre.

Updated on Nov. 10, 2024 to correct the date that the East Trail Safeway was built and add the likelihood that the Rio was demolished in 1960.