 According to Middle East expert Daniel L. Byman, "The movies were an affront to God, encouraging vice and Western-style decadence.So in August 1978, four Shiite revolutionaries locked the doors of the Cinema Rex in the Iranian city of Abadan and set the theater on fire…"

As the event took place during the revolutionary period, it was quite difficult to identify the perpetrators, making ill-conceived accusations rather prevalent.Many elements of the revolutionary bloc laid blame on Mohammad Reza Shah, the now deposed monarch of Iran, and SAVAK ("Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar"), the country's domestic security and intelligence service.