Best Modern Casino Scenes
With that said, let’s look at five of the best casino scenes in films. Considering the name of the picture is Casino, it should come as no surprise that there are more than a few scenes. Apart from the thrilling and overwhelming casino scenes where the MIT students use their skill to win money, the movie really provides a deeper insight into the gambling industry. It also shows that even if you try to turn gambling into a science, the odds are still an unpredictable as soon enough the casinos uncover their scam.
Given my affinity for casinos, sports betting, Las Vegas and Mafia movies in general, Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” with Rober De Niro in the lead role is one of my all-time favorite films!
But my fascination with casino goes far beyond these interests. The combination of these factors, along with the strong cast and brilliant script, is what really makes Casino one of those “I-can’t-take-my-eyes” movies.
Top 10 facts about the movie “Casino”
With Casino’s 25th anniversary celebrating the big screen this week, so let’s dive deep into some of the more memorable scenes, characters, and facts that instantly made this Martin Scorsese masterpiece an instant classic.
Here you can stream the movie “Casino” on Amazon Prime!
10. The book
Scorsese usually receives the most accolades for casino, but the film is based on the book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, the non-fiction book by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi.
According to a biography of Robert De Niro, which John Baxter wrote in 2003 and which bears the creative title De Niro, is the film “Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas” Pileggi had already written the book and wanted to publish it before it was made into a film but Scorsese tried to convince him to put it out after the movie. They reached a compromise, and the book came out a month before the film was released.
Pileggi also wrote the book Wiseguy and co-wrote the script for the classic mafia film Goodfellas. Speaking of which, in the De Niro biography Baxter writes: “Casino is Goodfellas on speed”.
I can only agree.
9. Despised by critics
Sharon Stone, who played her role as Ginger perfectly, won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but ultimately lost to Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking).
Scorsese was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Director and lost to Mel Gibson for Braveheart, which is hard to deny, but that’s about the big prizes. I challenge everyone to watch this movie and tell myself that it didn’t deserve more awards.
8. The cast
Despite the lack of awards, the performance of the entire cast was staggering. De Niro was, well, De Niro who absolutely embraced his role as Sam “Ace” Rothstein. Scorcese and De Niro had worked together seven times before Casino so this was a breeze.
Like De Niro, Pesci was born to play Nicky Santoro, Rothstein’s bombastic right-hand man. The scene in which Nicky wedges a smart ass head in a vice is as gruesome as it gets, and one of the most terrifying scenes comes when Nicky is finally witnessed his demise and is beaten and buried alive in a corn field. According to IMBD.com, Pesci broke a rib during this scene.
In her best performance since Basic Instinct, Stone was, as mentioned above, excellent, as was Don Rickles (God bless him; maybe the funniest man in history?) Kevin Pollak and James Woods, who both regularly play in the World Series of Poker, were also fantastic, as was Frank Vincent, who I believe has appeared on every single Mafia TV show or movie ever made was, and I totally agree with that.
7. The casinos in the film “Casino”
The plot of the film revolves around a Chicago Mafia unit asking Rothstein to direct operations at the Tangiers Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Rothstein’s character was inspired by the legendary real life Mafioso, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who not only secretly ran four casinos in Nevada for the Chicago Mafia, but was also a well-known sports betting and handicap player.
The Tangiers is also fictional and is based on the former Casino Stardust, one of the casinos operated by Lefty on the Las Vegas Strip. Although not mentioned by name in the film, “Stardust,” a song by Hoagy Carmichael, can be heard on three separate occasions during the film.
After nearly five decades on the Las Vegas Strip, the Stardust Resort and Casino closed in 2006 and was demolished a year later. The new Resorts World, a $ 4.3 billion mega-resort, is slated to open next summer on the land where the Stardust once stood.
Most of the film’s casino scenes were filmed on the former Riviera on the Strip, and since they didn’t want to close the property, everything was shot between 1am and 4am. The Riv, which was closed in 2015 and eventually demolished, was a popular location for Las Vegas-themed films, including The Hangover, another instant classic, and 21, which is one of Ben Mezrich’s bestselling Bringinging Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Made Vegas for Millions.
Another now-defunct Las Vegas property, the 31-story, needle-shaped Landmark Hotel, located on the north end of the Strip across from the Convention Center, stood in for all of Tangiers’ exterior shots.
6. Las Vegas on site
For regular Las Vegas visitors, there are a number of other recognizable locations throughout the film.
The sad ending for Stone’s Ginger character was filmed in one of the cabana suites at the El Cortez Hotel & Casino, the classic downtown Las Vegas casino we wrote about when it celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2016.
One of my favorite spots in Las Vegas for breakfast and cocktails (not necessarily at the same time, but it’s already done) is the famous Peppermill Restaurant, which serves as the venue for one of the many irritable Ginger and Ace meetings.
Elsewhere, Nicky pokes an unhappy soul in the neck with a pen downtown at Atomic Liquors, hailed as the oldest “free-standing” bar in Las Vegas. The film’s opening scene, in which Ace’s car explodes when he turns the ignition, was also filmed in the parking lot of Main Street Station Casino Brewery and Hotel with the California Hotel & Casino as the backdrop.
5. Oscar und Oscar’s
The venerable Oscar Goodman announced his well-deserved presence at the casino. Goodman plays himself as a lawyer during the divorce proceedings between Ace and Ginger. In addition, the steakhouse at the Plaza Hotel and Casino that bears his name – Oscar’s – is also used as the setting for another memorable scene in which our favorite couple argue over spending habits and their former friend, the obnoxious Lester played by Woods . (Oscar’s is a frequent stop on our visits to Sin City and ranks # 1 on our list of the top 10 Las Vegas Happy Hours).
The affable Goodman, who pats at his restaurant and usually carries his signature martini with him, was a famous mafia lawyer in Las Vegas for more than 30 years and began a 12-year tenure as mayor of the city four years after the casino was fired . His wife Carolyn succeeded him as mayor and is still sitting in the big chair today.
But at an event last week to commemorate the movie, Goodman said that most of the time when people see it they say, “There’s the guy from the casino”.
4. “$ 100 who gets on the plane.”
We end the film with some of our favorite scenes and believe me it was a chore that has been reduced to just four of them.
We couldn’t miss the part where an FBI plane ran out of gas while chasing Nicky during a round of golf and the plane had to land on the fairway, right in front of Ace’s house.
The real left-hander owned a house on a golf course, but that scene was not filmed there. The actual 3,266 square foot home, located at 972 Vegas Valley Drive by the Las Vegas Country Club, went up for sale for $ 835,000 in October and is pending sale, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
3. “Oh, Nicky, I thought you would lay?”
Sports bettors like this scene with Nicky when he goes into a sports betting shop and confronts a bookmaker about a “misunderstood” bet.
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The “confused” bookmaker actually thought that Nicky had laid the points and lost the bet when, as Nicky “remembers”, he actually took the points and should therefore be paid on the spot. Unsurprisingly, Nicky got his role of modeling clay after a brief chat.
As Ace says, “When Nicky won, he raised the money. When he lost, he told the bookies they could do it. ”(Speaking of the“ F ”word: According to IMBD, according to IMBD it was used 435 times in the film).
2. “The longer you play, the more you lose.”
A lesson for all of us gamblers. The casino wants you to play long, especially if you are tall and “play with the house money”.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a $ 10 a hand gamer or “another billionaire who is tight-fisted” like in this scene.
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I love Ace’s wisdom at the end of the scene when he says, “In Vegas, everyone has to watch everyone. With the players eager to beat the casino, the dealers watch the players. The lodge people watch the dealers. The vendors on the floor watch the lodge people. The mine bosses watch the groundskeeper. The shift bosses watch the mine bosses. The casino manager watches the shift bosses. I’m watching the casino manager. And the eye in the sky is watching us all. “
1. “The city will never be the same again.”
The final scene and montage of Las Vegas is both brilliant and forward-looking. Ace regrettably points out that with the city’s takeover by “big corporations”, the city “looks like Disneyland.”
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For better or for worse, this is pretty much what happened to the Las Vegas Strip in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when flashy properties like The Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio featured exploding volcanoes, pirate ships with guns and dancing water fountains the city were opened. Las Vegas was no longer a place to go just to play, see a show, and eat a $ 2 steak. It has become and has become more and more of an “entertainment” destination as income from gambling on the Strip was overtaken by income from nightclubs, restaurants and other non-gaming amenities.
Or, as Ace Rothstein complains: “Today it’s like checking in at an airport. And if you order room service, you’ll be lucky if you can get it by Thursday. Today everything is gone. A whale shows up with $ 4 million in a suitcase, and some 25-year-old hotel student wants his social security number.
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Las Vegas has certainly changed dramatically since Ace and Lefty roamed the streets. Fortunately, we have casinos popping up randomly in our living rooms for us to have fun remembering what “old” Las Vegas looked like.
The top 10 facts and scenes from the movie ‘Casino’ is being republished by Online.CasinoCity.com.