In 1992, responding to the AIDS crisis, former Pan Am flight attendant Emanuella DelVecchio converted a former film development drop-off booth in Cranston into a pink-and-white drive-thru condom store called the Condom Hut.
The business drew media attention from around the world – one reporter called DelVecchio from Paris – and condemnation from the very Catholic Rhode Island community, before closing a year later when business wasn’t brisk enough.
Now, director Hanna Gray Organschi is making a movie about DelVecchio’s venture, with filming set to begin Monday, June 1, in a Warwick parking lot, as crews have installed a replica of the booth and transported the Alice’s Restaurant plaza back to the 1990s, complete with public payphones.
The film, called “Rubber Hut,” is starring Grace Van Patten, known for the television miniseries “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.”
A movie crew built this replica of a late 20-century film-developing booth in the parking lot of Alice’s Restaurant, West Shore Road, Warwick, as a set for the movie “Rubber Hut,” set to start filming Monday, June 1. Photographed Sunday, May 31, 2026.
Organschi, a Connecticut native based in New York City, also wrote “Rubber Hut.”
Filming in Rhode Island is expected to last two weeks.
DelVecchio, who was 32 when she launched Condom Hut, also owned Emanuella’s nail salon, in the same shopping plaza as the photo booth turned condom store.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Movie about Rhode Island ‘Condom Hut’ starts filming
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