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World Film Locations Las Vegas
By Marcelline Block Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-590-9
CHAPTER 1
UPFRONT
LAS VEGAS
City of the Imagination
Text by DAVID STERRITT
LAS VEGAS IS ALMOST literally an imagined city, a place that entices both realists and romantics with hints that the next throw of the dice or spin of the wheel may change their luck, enrich their destinies, make their wildest hopes come true. The city's close affinity with dreams and fantasies is confirmed by the long list of movies that have used it as a location for filming, a setting for the story, or both.
Some of these pictures are as dark and serious as a losing streak – think of Karel Reisz's The Gambler (1974), a Dostoevsky-like meditation on the masochistic underside of gaming, and Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas (1995), about a ruined man bent on cutting his losses by drinking himself to death. Others, such as Barry Levinson's Bugsy (1991) and Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), zoom in on mobsters who influenced Las Vegas history. But most Vegas pictures have aimed at diverting the mind without taxing the brain. These range from The Atomic Kid (Leslie H. Martinson, 1954), with Mickey Rooney as a gambler exposed to radioactivity - at a time when Vegas entrepreneurs pushed Nevada nuclear tests as a tourist attraction - to The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009), about a bachelor party so wild no one can remember it, least of all the partiers. For the debut of 'Las Vegas as a resort in 1946', Tom Wolfe wrote in his classic essay on the city, 'Bugsy Siegel hired Abbott and Costello, and there, in a way, you have it all' (Wolfe 2009 [1965]). You certainly do.
The first all-Vegas film was Ralph Murphy's Las Vegas Nights, a 1941 concatenation of music and comedy numbers. Another early picture was The Las Vegas Story, a 1952 noir directed by Robert Stevenson for RKO chief Howard Hughes, who was moving into Vegas real estate and made sure that parts of the movie resembled what would now be called an informercial. The famous Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop - star in Lewis Milestone's 1960 hit Ocean's Eleven, playing five former GIs aiming to rob five casinos on a single larcenous night. Viva Las Vegas (George Sidney, 1964) stars Elvis Presley as Lucky Jackson, an aspiring Grand Prix racer who sings, wagers, and romances his way to a new engine for his car. Frolicsome movies like these tied Vegas more tightly than any other American city to the ideology of pleasure-seeking consumerism.
Apart from large-scale productions that pay brief visits to Las Vegas, such as Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and Martin Brest's Midnight Run (1988), three subgenres prevail in Vegas cinema. Easy entertainment is the focus of comedies and caper movies such as 3000 Miles to Graceland (Demian Lichtenstein, 2001), in which shady characters played by Kevin Costner and Christian Slater rob a casino during a convention of Elvis impersonators, and the 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven, wherein Steven Soderbergh replaces the Rat Pack with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon and Bernie Mac, all of whom reprise their roles in sequels released in 2004 and 2007. The second category, comprising melodramas and action-adventure films, is represented by the likes of Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton, 1971), the thriller that completed Sean Connery's triumphant run as James Bond, and Tony Scott's Domino (2005), starring Keira Knightley as a real-life bounty hunter.
The third group contains dramas that exploit particular facets of Las Vegas' personality. Tapping into the city's reputation for sexual license and freely flowing money, Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal (1993) centres on young Diana (Demi Moore) and David (Woody Harrelson), who lose their savings in Vegas and almost ruin their marriage when wealthy John (Robert Redford) pays a million dollars for Diana to have sex with him. Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1998) stars Dustin Hoffman as mentally challenged Raymond, whose gift for arithmetic wins a fortune for Charlie, his money-obsessed brother, played by Tom Cruise; but it is also in Vegas that slow-witted Raymond teaches fast-lane Charlie a lesson in humanity, most poignantly when they dance with each other in front of a picture window showing the city spread before them like a glittering, comforting dream.
These prestige pictures notwithstanding, the title of Wolfe's essay - 'Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can't Hear You! Too Noisy) Las Vegas!!!' - says a lot about Vegas movies, which are often boisterous and flashy, using the city's vitality to boost their own energy levels. Even the titles tend to make a racket, as in Crashing Las Vegas (Jean Yarbrough, 1956), Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (Randal Kleiser, 1992), and Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996). The airplane of Con Air (Simon West, 1997) crash-lands on The Strip and skids into the lobby of the Sands Hotel, and the eponymous hero of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997) races from the Stardust to the Riviera to the Imperial Palace, among other locales. Top-flight action stars who have touched down in Vegas include Clint Eastwood in The Gauntlet (Eastwood, 1977) and Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2 (Brett Ratner, 2001). Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls (1995) is a concatenation of sex, violence, nudity, nastiness, and craziness that fared dismally in theatres but became a video cult favorite. And then there is Terry Gilliam's brilliantly inventive Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), adapted from Hunter S. Thompson's 1972 book about a journalist (Johnny Depp) and lawyer (Benicio Del Toro) whose Vegas experiences are fuelled by drugs, addled by alcohol, and punctuated by hallucinations.
The films that get closest to the heart of Vegas are the ones that share its view of life as a blend of the perilous, the unpredictable and the exhilarating. Describing the 'electronic stimulation' offered by Las Vegas at every hour of the day and night, Wolfe said the city 'takes what in other American towns is but a quixotic inflammation of the senses [...] and magnifies it, foliates it, embellishes it into an institution' (Wolfe 2009 [1965]). That sounds exactly like the movie business. Vegas and Hollywood, twin dream factories of the American West, are linked now and probably forever in the popular unconscious.
THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (1957)
Outside the Pioneer Club on Fremont Street and The Sands Casino 3121 Las Vegas Boulevard South (now the Wynn Las Vegas)
LOCATION
GIANT MONSTER MOVIES of the 1950s were reaching a high water mark when director Bert I. Gordon's The Amazing Colossal Man rampaged into cinemas in 1957. Concerned, as many of this genre's films were at the time, with the effect and subsequent fear of atomic warfare, TACM could be seen as a loose Godzilla remake - simply replacing Tokyo's lizard king with US army Colonel Glenn Manning (played by Glenn Langan) who suffers the ill effects of plutonium radiation from a bomb blast which causes him to grow at an alarming rate. As a crack team of scientists are brought in to find some sort of cure and the colonel's girlfriend attempts to instill hope, Manning continues to grow until both the army base and his own fragile mind can no longer contain him, so off into the desert he stomps, towards the bright lights of Sin City like an oversized moth to a flame. While people panic, newsmen report and the police take aim, Manning's giant lays waste to a slew of Las Vegas landmarks including The Sands Hotel and Vegas Vic, the iconic 40-foot neon cowboy that was erected on the exterior of The Pioneer Club on Fremont Street in 1951. The Sands Hotel would be demolished for real in 1996 to make way for The Venetian, and while Vegas Vic still exists, he now hunkers beneath the 1,500 foot long canopy of The Fremont Street Experience, looking more like an enlarged thrift-store trinket than the imposing but friendly figure that used to welcome newcomers to the city. ->Gabriel Solomons
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (1960)
Flamingo, Sands, Desert Inn, Riviera and Sahara Hotels, Las Vegas Strip
LOCATION
OCEAN'S ELEVEN is perhaps most notable for its ensemble cast: the notorious 'Rat Pack', whose core members were Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) plan a heist on five Las Vegas casinos with fellow World War II veterans. The heist is planned with military precision: they hit each casino simultaneously at the strike of midnight on New Year's Eve. The lights go out and they go in. The whole plan rests on cutting the power to the casinos, so the trick is to see in the dark. Each casino has an inside man. This key sequence involves garbage man Josh (Sammy Davis Jr.) driving his truck to each casino to deliver an infra-red spray to the crew members. The spray is to cover all significant points and doors: while undetectable to anyone without infra-red goggles, it is fully visible to Danny's crew. The first casino Josh reaches is the Flamingo, which still operates today on Las Vegas Blvd and Flamingo Road. Second is the Sands Hotel (today, The Venetian). Third is the Desert Inn (opened in 1950 but closed in 2000, and now the Wynn Las Vegas). Fourth is the Riviera, which opened its doors in 1955; despite declaring bankruptcy in 2010, the Riviera's doors remain open. Finally, Josh delivers the infra-red spray to the Sahara which closed its doors in May 2011. It was the last of the vintage 'Rat Pack' hotels. -> Zachariah Rush
VIVA LAS VEGAS (1964)
Pool, Flamingo Hotel, 3555 Las Vegas Boulevard South
LOCATION
VIVA LAS VEGAS INDEED! From the opening credit scenes of glittering casinos to the car race across the Hoover Dam finale, Vegas eye candy abounds, but nothing is more fun to look at than the two leads. Their chemistry and war-of-the-sexes dynamic makes every song and dance number incredibly watchable, especially their first duet "The Lady Loves Me." Lucky Jackson (Elvis Presley) is a racecar driver from LA who still needs to buy a car engine before the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret) is a woman who speeds out of the garage before Lucky and the European racing champion, Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova), can get her name. Lucky and the Count search every show in Vegas for Rusty, only to find her in the Vegas equivalent of their own backyard: the Flamingo Hotel swimming pool. Lucky grabs a guitar and sets out to woo the charming swimming instructor. However, his attempt to convince the lady that she loves him runs in to some melodic resistance. To the amusement of the other Flamingo guests, the crooner ends up all wet, figuratively and then literally after Rusty pushes him off the high dive. Poor Lucky not only loses the girl (at least in this number), but also, the money he won (for his car engine) down the swimming pool drain. So, in true Las Vegas fashion, there will be a lot more gambling, singing, and dancing before these two end up at the wedding chapel. ->Kristiina Hackel
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)
Palm Boulder Highway Mortuary & Cemetery, 800 South Boulder Highway, Henderson
LOCATION
THE JAMES BOND SERIES has continuously employed multiple locations from around the world for the globe-trotting spy. Diamonds Are Forever features settings in South Africa, Egypt, Amsterdam, and a locale off the coast of Baja California, but Las Vegas serves as the backdrop for the bulk of the film. With unprecedented access to the major sites and streets of Las Vegas, thanks to producer Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli's friendship with Howard Hughes, Diamonds Are Forever showcases some of the most memorable locations of Sin City from any film of its era. In this noteworthy scene, Bond's first destination upon arrival in Vegas is the fictional Slumber Mortuary, actually the exterior of the Palm Boulder Highway Mortuary & Cemetery which opened in 1964, where Bond will pass on the coffin with the diamonds to smuggler Shady Tree (Leonard Barr). Sean Connery - returning as Bond after George Lazenby quit the role following his sole performance - showcases his droll sense of humour with amusing bogus mourning. The flamboyant villains, Mr Kidd (Putter Smith) and Mr Wint (Bruce Glover), feign enjoying the flowers in the Garden of Remembrance, before hitting Bond over the head with an urn. Bond wakes up to find himself in one of the stickiest situations yet in the long-running series: namely, inside a coffin being burned in the crematory furnace. Without the means to escape, the coffin opens in an incredible deus ex machina, with Shady Tree blurting out, 'Youdirtydoublecrossinglimeyfinkthosegoddamndiamondswereph onies!' Bond wasn't paid in real money, but those weren't the real diamonds. ->Zachary Ingle
THE GODFATHER (1972)
Tropicana, 3801 Las Vegas Boulevard South at Tropicana Avenue
LOCATION
WINNER OF THREE OSCARS, five Golden Globes, and countless other awards as well as ranked third on AFI's list of the greatest films of all time, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather is undeniably a cinematic masterpiece. The Godfather ushered in an endless vogue for mafia films as everyone sought to create their own version of the crime family drama that Coppola made to look so authentic. In this scene, Michael Corelone (Al Pacino) meets with his brother Fredo (John Cazale) in Las Vegas to convince big shot casino owner Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) to sell his Vegas property to the Corleones. Michael's offer to buy him out results in nothing but insults and abuse from Moe, and Fredo's efforts to smooth things over earn him a harsh word from Michael as well. The Godfather famously starts in the darkness of Vito Corleone's (Marlo Brando) office, as numerous men plead for the help or justice that only the powerful Godfather can give. This shadowed office is contrasted with the joy of his daughter's wedding: the bright public face of the family outside versus the dark secrets of the family inside. In this Las Vegas scene, we can start to see the beginning of that division in Michael's own life as the brightness and expansiveness of Vegas' exteriors give way to the claustrophobic hallway and dark dealings of the Tropicana. ->Kristiina Hackel
THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974)
The Desert Inn Hotel and Casino, now the Wynn Las Vegas, 3121 Las Vegas Boulevard South
LOCATION
THE GODFATHER TRILOGY is revolutionary inasmuch as it narrates the vicissitudes of the Corleones as those of a typical family, of a father and his three sons, of their attempts to safeguard their loved ones, with an eye- for-an-eye philosophy. With this romanticized depiction, Coppola casts a shadow on his characters' criminality and heightens their good intentions. Coppola's Michael (Al Pacino) is, first and foremost, an obedient son as well as a loving father, and a traditionalist at that, mixing business deals with family affairs, and following patriarchal, if not misogynistic, mores. The scene of Michael's return from Cuba to Las Vegas is a clear example of these innate traits. With a backdrop of the Desert Inn, the famed hotel/casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip, which gently hints at his power and corruption, Coppola makes sure to show boldly that Michael cares for his son(s): Michael asks whether Tom (Robert Duvall) has delivered his boy a Christmas present on his behalf. As the bodyguards are dismissed, Tom reveals that Kay has lost the baby they were expecting. Michael's first concern is the gender of the baby: 'Was it a boy?' he repeats angrily, while the narrative reverts to a flashback of young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) suffering to care for his own baby boy's health. The Corleones are not depicted as a contemptible criminal gang; on the contrary, their portrait has a nostalgic patina like that of an old photo to cherish. Inspiring many films and TV series on the same subject, the Godfather trilogy has passed on that sympathizing perception of the Mafia. ->Giovanna Summerfield
LAS VEGAS LADY (1975)
Old Nevada, Bonnie Springs Ranch, 1 Bonnie Springs Road
LOCATION
THIS DISTAFF HEIST MOVIE follows three women who attempt to even the score, fighting back against the corruption and sexism of a Las Vegas casino owner. Las Vegas Lady opens with an apparent flashback to Old West justice, with an undertaker reading the last rites for an outlaw who is about to be hanged, a Spring Mountain peak rising behind the executioner's platform. The desert landscape with the quickly built town recalls the constant battle between outlaws and lawmen that defined the Old West. However, the camera reveals that this is not a Hollywood recreation of the Old West, but rather, the tourist attraction of Old Nevada on the Bonnie Springs Ranch, with families in sunglasses cheering and applauding the mock hanging. As the actors take their bows, Lucky (Stella Stevens) walks through the crowd and down the dusty main street, passing the trading post, the saloon, the sheriff's office and a mock shootout between several cowboys. The announcement for the last bus to Las Vegas establishes the physical proximity as well as the shared values performed in Old Nevada and Las Vegas. When Lucky walks into the now-closed wax museum, the soundtrack recalls the violence and decadence of the past; in this setting, she meets her mysterious contact to discuss the final details of the upcoming casino heist. By beginning and ending in Old Nevada/Bonnie Springs, Las Vegas Lady highlights the physical and psychological landscape on which Vegas was built. ->Elizabeth Abele
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Excerpted from World Film Locations Las Vegas by Marcelline Block. Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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