S.F. GETS ITS FIRST FULL FILM STUDIO

San Francisco has long been a popular backdrop for film makers. Movies ranging from “Bullit” to “A View to a Kill” have been made on the city’s hilly streets. Now, 88 years after the first movie was shot there (“Arrest in Chinatown” made by the Thomas Edison Co.), the city has its first full-service studio.

Located at 7th and Harrison streets, the San Francisco Studios Inc. includes a 30,000-foot sound stage.

San Francisco Studios was developed by Roberta Smith Riley, a veteran location manager, and Frank T. Fitzsimmons, a former advertising executive with the J. Walter Thompson Agency. The studios are financed by a group of about a dozen Bay Area investors, including Richard and Melvin Swigs, owners of the Fairmont hotels.

A benefit black-tie affair will open the studio tonight.