A History of Cinema in Puerto Rico: The Making of "The Rum Diary"

Behind the Scenes · Old San Juan · 2011

The Rum Diary in Old San Juan: Bringing Hunter S. Thompson Back to Life

How the cobblestone streets of Puerto Rico's historic capital — and one iconic record store — helped recreate the gonzo world of 1950s San Juan.

By Frankie Vintage · Cinema in Puerto Rico Series · Part 3

Hunter S. Thompson set his semi-autobiographical novel The Rum Diary in Old San Juan for a reason. The city's layered history — Spanish colonial walls, sun-bleached plazas, streets that seem to hold onto every era they've witnessed — gave his story of moral drift and journalistic awakening a setting that felt both timeless and specific. When Hollywood finally brought that novel to the screen decades later, they came back to the same streets. And when they needed the objects that would make those streets feel like the 1950s, they came to us: Downtown Records, at the corner of Calle O'Donnell and Calle San Francisco.

▶ The Rum Diary — Official Trailer

The Book Behind the Film

Old San Juan standing in for its own past — the city as it appeared in Thompson's era

Thompson's novel follows Paul Kemp, a young American journalist who arrives in San Juan to write for a struggling newspaper, and slowly loses himself to the island's beauty, corruption, and rum-soaked late nights. It's a story about finding a voice — and losing your bearings in the process. Thompson wrote it in his twenties, drawing directly from his own time spent in Puerto Rico, and the result is one of the most vivid portrayals of the island ever committed to the page.

What makes the book so cinematic — and so challenging to adapt — is how deeply its atmosphere depends on place. Old San Juan isn't just a backdrop in Thompson's telling; it's an active force, a character in its own right. The film had to honor that, which meant getting the physical world of 1950s San Juan exactly right: the furniture, the textures, the objects that would have populated those rooms and those lives half a century ago.

Thompson's Old San Juan isn't just a backdrop — it's an active force, a character in its own right. The film had to honor that, which meant getting the physical world exactly right.

Downtown Records as a Prop Supplier

Our store became a primary source for the production team as they worked to dress the film's sets. The props department made multiple visits to our inventory at the corner of Calle O'Donnell and Calle San Francisco, sourcing furniture, decorative objects, and period-appropriate pieces that could convincingly inhabit Thompson's world.

For us, it was a natural fit. Downtown Records had spent decades accumulating objects with real history — pieces that had lived through the mid-century era the film was trying to recreate. Not reproductions, not new furniture artificially aged, but the genuine article. That authenticity is exactly what a production like The Rum Diary needed, and it's what we were able to provide.

▶ Scenes from The Rum Diary Featuring Old San Juan

Old San Juan: A City That Remembers

The filming drew visitors and curious locals in equal measure. Tourists wandered the cobblestone streets hoping to spot the production in action; residents opened their doors to cast and crew, sharing coffee and conversation in the unhurried way that Old San Juan has always welcomed strangers. There's something about this city — its scale, its density of history, its particular quality of light — that makes it extraordinarily hospitable to storytelling.

Old San Juan has stood in for other times and other places in film before. It doubled for Havana in Assassins; it gave Bad Boys 2 its textured Caribbean backdrops. But in The Rum Diary, it didn't have to pretend to be anywhere else. It was simply itself — and itself, it turned out, was more than enough.

▶ The Streets of Old San Juan on Screen

Thompson's Legacy, On Location

Beyond the production logistics, there was something meaningful about bringing Thompson's story back to the city that inspired it. The film became a kind of homecoming — not just for the novel, but for the gonzo spirit Thompson embodied throughout his career. His writing has always been about confronting the gap between how things are supposed to be and how they actually are, and Old San Juan, with all its beauty and contradictions, captures that tension better than almost anywhere.

▶ The World of The Rum Diary

▶ Hunter S. Thompson's Legacy in Film

When the final scene wrapped and the crew packed up, what remained was something quieter than the film itself: the memory of a collaboration between a great writer's world and the city that shaped it, filtered through the objects and streets and people of Old San Juan. For Downtown Records, it was yet another reminder that the things we collect and preserve — the furniture, the artifacts, the pieces of daily life from other eras — carry more meaning than they might appear to at first glance.

▶ Final Scenes: The Rum Diary in Old San Juan

Visit Frankie Vintage in Bayamón

Downtown Records has a new name and a new home, but the same deep inventory of objects that carry real history. Find us at Frankie Vintage in Bayamón — where Puerto Rico's cinematic legacy lives on.

Visit Frankie Vintage →

Also in the Cinema in Puerto Rico Series

• How a Record Store in Old San Juan Became a Hollywood Film Set — Assassins (1995) →
• The Props of Bad Boys 2: How Frankie Vintage Helped Build a Hollywood Blockbuster (2003) →

A History of Cinema In Puerto Rico: The Filming of Bad Boys 2 Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence

Behind the Scenes · Puerto Rico · 2003

The Props of Bad Boys 2: How Frankie Vintage Helped Build a Hollywood Blockbuster

Every drug lord's mansion, every hideout, every carefully dressed set — the pieces that made it real came from us.

By Frankie Vintage · Cinema in Puerto Rico Series · Part 2 of 2

When director Michael Bay brought his crew to Puerto Rico in 2003 to shoot Bad Boys 2, the island didn't just provide the scenery. It provided the soul of the film's interiors — the furniture, the antiques, the carefully chosen objects that turned empty rooms into fully realized worlds. Much of that came from us: Frankie Vintage, then operating as Downtown Records in Old San Juan.

This is the second installment in our Cinema in Puerto Rico series. If you haven't read about our earlier experience with the 1995 film Assassins, you can find that story here. But the Bad Boys 2 chapter is a different kind of story — not about our building being transformed into a set, but about our merchandise doing what vintage always does best: making something feel true.

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Part One

Interior Design: Dressing the Scenes

From sleek penthouse apartments to underground criminal hideouts, Bad Boys 2 moves through a wide range of interior environments — and each one had to feel distinct, lived-in, and believable. The production's props team came to our inventory looking for exactly that: pieces with character that a standard prop house couldn't replicate.

Plush sofas, ornate statues, sleek coffee tables, heavy dining sets — each item was selected not just for how it looked on camera, but for what it said about the person who supposedly owned it. No prop was incidental. Every object was a storytelling choice.

▶ Interior Scenes Featuring Frankie Vintage Props

Part Two

Character Through Décor: What Objects Reveal

One of the most underappreciated arts in filmmaking is the way a room communicates character before a single line of dialogue is spoken. The minimalist, utilitarian space of a hacker's lair tells you one thing; the baroque excess of a cartel boss's estate tells you something entirely different. Bad Boys 2 relied on this language throughout.

Our inventory gave the props department the range they needed — from stripped-down, functional pieces for the grittier scenes to opulent, oversized décor for the film's more dramatic environments. The goal in each case was the same: make the audience feel the world of the film without ever stopping to question it.

Every object was a storytelling choice. The goal was to make the audience feel the world of the film without ever stopping to question it.

▶ Character-Driven Set Design in Bad Boys 2

Part Three

Atmospheric Accents: The Details That Matter

Beyond the statement furniture pieces, it's often the smaller details that hold a set together. A particular lamp. A specific piece of artwork. The right decorative object on the right shelf. These atmospheric accents are easy to overlook as a viewer — but their absence is immediately felt.

The Bad Boys 2 props team understood this, and they returned to our collection repeatedly for these kinds of finishing touches. Items that might seem minor in isolation became essential threads in the visual fabric of each scene, drawing viewers deeper into the film's world without calling attention to themselves.

▶ Atmospheric Details on Screen

Part Four

Set Design: The Bigger Picture

Taken together, the work that went into Bad Boys 2's set design was a genuine collaboration — between the film's production designers, the props team, and the sources they trusted to deliver. We were proud to be one of those sources.

Puerto Rico's richness as a filming location goes well beyond its landscapes. The island has a deep inventory of history, culture, and craftsmanship that shows up in the objects that get made and kept here. When Hollywood productions come to Puerto Rico looking for authenticity, they find it — in places like ours.

▶ Full Set Design: Scenes from Bad Boys 2

The next time you watch Bad Boys 2, pay attention to what's in the background. The objects on the shelves, the furniture in the frame, the textures that make each room feel real. Some of those pieces came from our store — and we couldn't be more proud of the role they played.

Visit Frankie Vintage in Bayamón

Downtown Records has a new name and a new home, but the same love for objects that carry history. Find us at Frankie Vintage in Bayamón — where the spirit of Puerto Rican cinema history, and great vintage, is always alive.

Visit Frankie Vintage →

Also in the Cinema in Puerto Rico Series

Behind the Scenes: How a Record Store in Old San Juan Became a Hollywood Film Set for Assassins (1995) →

Remembering Frankie Vintage — and the Man Who Built It | Frankie Ramos, 1940s–2024

✦ In memory of Frankie Ramos — founder of Downtown Records and Frankie Vintage ✦ April 2024 ✦

Bayamón, Puerto Rico · Est. from Downtown Records, Old San Juan

Remembering Frankie Vintage — and the Man Who Built It

A tribute to Frankie Ramos, the store he loved, and the community he brought together.

Frankie Vintage · Originally published before April 2024 · Updated in memory of Frankie Ramos

In Memoriam Frankie Ramos Founder of Downtown Records & Frankie Vintage  ·  Passed April 2024

A Note to Our Community

It is with deep sadness that we share that Frankie Vintage has permanently closed its doors following the passing of its founder and heart, Frankie Ramos, in April 2024. The post below was written while Frankie was with us and the store was open. We leave it here as a tribute to what he built, what he loved, and the joy he brought to everyone who walked through his door.

What follows is the story of a store — and really, the story of the man behind it. Frankie Vintage, located at the busy intersection of Calle Betances and Carr. 167 in Bayamón, was the newest chapter in a decades-long journey that began on the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan. It was born from Downtown Records — the record shop at the corner of Plaza Colón that had become, over the years, one of the most beloved institutions in the old city. When Frankie brought that spirit to Bayamón, he didn't just open a thrift store. He opened a place.

Inside Frankie Vintage — a treasure hunt at every turn

Walking into Frankie Vintage was like stepping into a very particular kind of dream — one where every object had a story and every shelf held a surprise. Vintage clothing hung alongside quirky home décor. Records filled the crates. Books, electronics, antiques, and collectibles crowded every surface. It was overwhelming in the best possible way, the kind of store where you arrived looking for one thing and left with something you never knew you needed.

That was entirely intentional. Frankie had spent a lifetime curating objects that carried history, and he understood that the best vintage stores aren't organized — they're discovered. You didn't shop at Frankie Vintage so much as you explored it.

You didn't shop at Frankie Vintage so much as you explored it. Frankie understood that the best vintage stores aren't organized — they're discovered.

A Store with a Starring History

Every object had a reflection — and a story

What set Frankie Vintage apart from most thrift stores was the weight of the history behind its inventory. This was not a store that had existed for a few years. Downtown Records — its predecessor and soul — had been a fixture of Old San Juan for decades, and along the way it had supplied props for major Hollywood productions filmed in Puerto Rico: Assassins (1995), Bad Boys 2 (2003), and The Rum Diary (2011), among others. The same objects that filled these shelves had appeared on screen alongside Antonio Banderas, Sylvester Stallone, Will Smith, and Johnny Depp.

That heritage gave the Bayamón store a unique character. Local film and theatre productions continued to come to Frankie Vintage for prop rentals, knowing that the inventory was the real thing — not reproductions, but genuine pieces with genuine history.

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More Than a Store

Frankie's real gift wasn't the inventory — it was the atmosphere he created around it. Whether you were a longtime Bayamón resident, a collector from across the island, or a tourist who had wandered in out of curiosity, Frankie and his staff made you feel like you belonged there. He knew his collection intimately and loved to talk about it: where a piece came from, what it might have meant to the person who once owned it, why it had ended up here.

Frankie Ramos — in the place he loved most

That warmth was the store's real inventory. It drew people back again and again — not just for the objects, but for the conversation, the memory, the sense of being part of something that had been going on for a long time and would keep going. Frankie Vintage felt, in the best sense, like a place that had always been there and always would be.

A Legacy That Remains

Frankie Ramos passed away in April 2024, and with him, Frankie Vintage closed its doors. But what he built over a lifetime — first on the cobblestones of Old San Juan, then in the heart of Bayamón — doesn't close. It lives in the memories of everyone who found something unexpected on his shelves, in the Hollywood films his objects helped bring to life, and in the simple, enduring idea that the things people make and keep and pass along carry more meaning than they might first appear to.

This blog, and the stories it holds, will stay up as a record of that legacy. Frankie was proud of what he created here in Puerto Rico. He deserved to be.

The Cinema in Puerto Rico Series

Stories from the Hollywood films Frankie helped bring to life

• How a Record Store in Old San Juan Became a Hollywood Film Set — Assassins (1995) →
• The Props of Bad Boys 2: How Frankie Vintage Helped Build a Hollywood Blockbuster (2003) →
• The Rum Diary in Old San Juan: Bringing Hunter S. Thompson Back to Life (2011) →

A History of Cinema In Puerto Rico: The Story of How the 1995 Film "Assassins" Was Filmed In a Record Shop In Old San Juan

Behind the Scenes · Old San Juan · 1995

How a Record Store in Old San Juan Became a Hollywood Film Set

The untold story of Downtown Records and its unexpected starring role in the 1995 thriller Assassins.

By Frankie Vintage · Cinema in Puerto Rico Series · View on IMDB

On the busy corner of Calle O'Donnell and Calle San Francisco in Old San Juan, something extraordinary happened in 1995. What had long been one of the neighborhood's most beloved record shops — Downtown Records — was about to be transformed, floor by floor, into a gritty Cuban hideout for a major Hollywood production. The film was Assassins, directed by Richard Donner. And nobody who witnessed the transformation would ever quite forget it.

The storefront, dressed for film — Old San Juan standing in for Havana

Though Assassins was shot primarily in Washington State, the production team needed a location that could convincingly double as Havana, Cuba for the film's pivotal final scenes. Old San Juan — with its centuries-old Spanish colonial architecture, crumbling pastel facades, and cobblestone streets — offered exactly the right atmosphere. Director Richard Donner made an unconventional choice: instead of scouting a purpose-built set, he chose an actual working record store in the heart of the old city.

Downtown Records wasn't just any shop. Its history in New York City's music scene stretched back decades before it landed in Puerto Rico, and by 1995 it had become a fixture of Old San Juan street life — packed floor to ceiling with vinyl records, vintage finds, and antiques that told stories of their own. That layered, lived-in quality was precisely what made it perfect for the screen.

Emptying the Building, Scene by Scene

The crew worked through multiple floors, removing thousands of records and vintage items

The transformation was a logistical undertaking unlike anything the store had seen. The production crew descended on the building and methodically emptied the top two floors — an enormous task given the sheer volume of records, antiques, and vintage merchandise that had accumulated over the years. Everything was carefully moved out to make way for the cinematic vision: a decaying, abandoned building in Cuba where one of the film's assassins, played by Antonio Banderas, would take refuge with a sniper rifle.

The exterior received an equally dramatic makeover — weathered, aged, and stripped of anything that might suggest a thriving Caribbean record shop. By the time the crew finished, Downtown Records bore almost no resemblance to its former self. It had become a set.

"Having these famous iconic movie stars perform their roles inside Downtown Records during that time was something truly magical."

— Frankie Ramos, owner of Downtown Records (now Frankie Vintage)

The Fight Scene: Watch It Here

▶ Fight Scene Filmed Inside Frankie Vintage

With the space transformed, cameras began to roll. The cast that walked through those doors was something few small businesses ever get to witness: Antonio Banderas, Sylvester Stallone, and Julianne Moore, all performing in the space where, just weeks earlier, customers had been flipping through crates of vinyl.

The transformed exterior — Old San Juan as old Havana

Store owner Frankie Ramos and his cousin Hector Fort, who co-owned the space, played an active role in helping the production team realize their vision. Their deep familiarity with the building — every room, every corner, every creaking floorboard — made them invaluable partners in the process. Their expertise and enthusiasm helped create an atmosphere that went far beyond what any purpose-built set could have offered.

As the cameras rolled, the noise and energy of Calle O'Donnell faded into the background. In its place: the focused intensity of a Hollywood production, and the strange, electric feeling of fiction becoming real inside a place that had always been very much alive.

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A Place That Became a Character

Frankie Ramos and Hector Fort — the men behind the store, and the shoot

What made the filming of Assassins at Downtown Records so memorable wasn't just the star power. It was the way the building itself contributed to the film's atmosphere. The worn wooden floors, the high ceilings, the quality of light coming through those old colonial windows — none of that could be faked on a soundstage. The space had soul, and the camera found it.

Downtown Records didn't just serve as a backdrop. It became a character in the story — one with decades of history embedded in its walls, giving Antonio Banderas's scenes a gravity and authenticity that a conventional set simply couldn't have delivered.

▶ Additional Footage from the Filming

▶ More Scenes from the Old San Juan Location

When the final scene wrapped and the crew packed up, Old San Juan returned to its familiar rhythm. But something had shifted. For everyone who had been part of it — from Frankie and Hector to every crew member who hauled a crate of records down those stairs — the memory of those weeks was sealed into the walls of that corner building.

Downtown Records is no longer at its original location on Calle O'Donnell. But its spirit lives on. The magic of storytelling, of transformation, of Puerto Rico as a stage for world-class cinema — that legacy continues.

Visit Frankie Vintage in Bayamón

Downtown Records may have moved, but the story keeps going. Find us at our new home — Frankie Vintage in Bayamón — where the love of music, vintage culture, and Puerto Rican cinema history thrives.

Visit Frankie Vintage → Assassins on IMDB →

Next in the Cinema in Puerto Rico Series

Cinema In Puerto Rico: The Filming of Bad Boys 2 with Will Smith & Martin Lawrence →

Welcome back!

Hello Everyone! Welcome back!

Coronavirus has changed the world but we here at Frankie Vintage Downtown have been weathering the storm. Lots of changes have happened. The most important thing you should know is that:

• We continue selling antiques and collectibles in Puerto Rico!
• We have moved our store from Old San Juan to Bayamon!

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A Stroll Thru a Vintage Shop

Many people come and go through Downtown Vintage, amazed at the quantity of items found here on a daily basis. Folks from all over the world catch something from the corner of their eyes, and upon grabbing the object, reminisce about their childhood. They find toys that haven't been in their hands for decades or something that used to belong to a family member—old pictures from the past. Others share stories of when they first saw certain items or recount tales of the past, like when their grandmothers wouldn't let them touch their fragile and cherished china out of curiosity.

People from all over the world come to the store, so you can find anything here. Every country in the world is represented, so take a look around and see what you can find.

Treasure Finds of The Week!

These Three Kings wood figurines were made in the last 60 years. This is a wonderful find from Old Puerto Rico since these kinds of figurines are very hard to find and are highly collectible items here in the island.

This is a dress from the 1950s. It is in very delicate condition due to its age, and we have it in the store!

This is an engraving from the 1960s made out of wood and tin which displays an image of Mary with her newborn son Jesus.

This is a Copus de Monte Italian Lamp from the late 1950s!