The reel Philly: City's famous movie locations

THE MOMENT Sylvester Stallone hit the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the original "Rocky," there was no denying that this city was more than ready for its close-up.

Who could have known that that indelible shot of Rocky Balboa, the ham-and-egg club fighter played by Stallone in the iconic 1976 film, climbing the steps and doing an exultant dance as the lights of the Ben Franklin Parkway sparkled in the predawn, autumnal air would mark a seminal moment in Philadelphia's pop-culture history. That's because it - all of the film, really - proved to Hollywood that Philly was a wonderfully photogenic movie set.

Since then, dozens of flicks, from blockbusters like "Philadelphia" and "National Treasure" to more obscure works (ever see the Mark Wahlberg-starring political thriller, "Shooter"?) have been made or shot scenes in our little corner of the universe.

Watching these movies isn't the only way to get a look at the shooting locations. Every Saturday, the Greater Philadelphia Film Office offers a 2 1/2-hour tour of more than 50 such sites, all of which lie within a few square miles of each other.

The Philadelphia Movie Sites Tour departs in a 32-seat minibus at 10 sharp from the Market Street side of the Independence Visitor Center. Among its stops are the Italian Market, Eastern State Penitentiary, City Hall, 30th Street Station and Rittenhouse Square.

The tour's hook is that it just doesn't point out the sites as the bus rolls by them. Instead, each site is accompanied by a corresponding film clip screened on the coach's video system. For instance, as Famous 4th Street Delicatessen, on the southwest corner of 4th and Bainbridge streets, comes into view, tourgoers watch a segment from "Philadelphia" that used the venerable eatery as a backdrop.

All 50-plus points of interest are represented by exterior views only. The sole break is a brief leg-stretcher at the "Rocky steps."

The tour had its genesis in the days leading up to the Republican Party's 2000 National Convention, when George W. Bush was nominated as that year's GOP presidential candidate.

"Those of us who worked in tourism were asked by the city to come up with a marketing plan - in a city where, if you drop an atomic bomb, you'll kill six Republicans," offered Sharon Pinkenson, founder and executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, which lures movie and television shoots to the Delaware Valley and facilitates production once they're here.

"We thought, we're going to have press here from all over the world. How do we take advantage of this? So we decided to put together all these tours. I was charged with putting together a tour of movie [sites]."

The private excursions proved popular with the convention crowd, but they ended when the event did because, as Pinkenson noted, "I'm not in the tour business."

Then she noticed that "all of a sudden, these [movie] tours were popping up in other cities. So several years ago, we decided we'd revive the tours" in partnership with Specialty Tours USA.

The tour stops were picked, Pinkenson said, based on "a combination of geography and wanting a broad scope of films people really knew . . . And we wanted to make it family-friendly."

The bulk of the trip is focused on Center City and Old City, a particularly appealing area for filmmakers, thanks to its abundance of Revolutionary-era buildings and internationally known landmarks. The outer reaches of the tour include Eastern State Penitentiary, at 23rd and Fairmount, (where scenes from the sci-fi thriller "12 Monkeys," among other productions, were shot), the Italian Market ("Rocky") and the 2300 block of St. Alban's Street (home of the "I see dead people" kid in "The Sixth Sense").

Tour guides are armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of the movies in question, as well as numerous anecdotes and trivia about individual shoots.

There are some unintended bonuses for those who take the Philadelphia Movie Site Tour, be they out-of-towners or city residents. The excursion offers the chance to see what a vital, bustling, visually interesting and architecturally diverse place this town is. And, although they are not singled out by tour guides, the city's murals are on excellent display as well.

But the cinematic context is the tour's real draw, even for folks who live in the midst of the film-shoot locations.

"I thought it was a lot of fun," Center City's Pat Weigand said at the conclusion of a recent tour. "It's really neat to see movie clips and look out the window and see the real thing. It really brings it home."

Philadelphia Movie Sites Tour, 10 a.m. Saturdays through Sept. 25 (no tour Sept. 4), departing from Independence Visitors Center, 6th and Market streets. $35. Private and "Date Night" tours also available. Information and reservations, 215-625-7980, or go to moviesitestour.com.