Nevada’s Legalized Gambling and Bugsy in the Movies

Bugsy Siegel On March 19, 1931, Nevada state legislators voted to legalize gambling in the state. The measure was passed out of concerns about people leaving the state and how hard times had hit the state during the Great Depression.

After the U.S. acquired the territory in 1848 after the Mexican War, a large number of settlers moved to the state following the discovery of gold and silver. Nevada became a state toward the end of the Civil War, but by the time the Great Depression arrived, the state was not doing well.  So, the move to legalize gambling was seen as a way to save the state’s economy.

During the early decades of legalized gambling, organized crime controlled much of Las Vegas. Among the organized crime leaders was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

Siegel arrived in Las Vegas in the 1940s.  His life is portrayed in the movie Bugsy (1991), directed by Barry Levinson and starring Warren Beatty.

The most famous gangster film also features a character based on Bugsy Siegel. The character of Moe Greene in The Godfather (1972) is based on Siegel.

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone arranges to have Greene killed in a massage parlor with a bullet in the eye after Greene refuses to sell his casino interest. Alex Rocco plays Greene/Siegel in this clip below.

In Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather, Greene is killed in his Hollywood home.  That version is a little closer to the real-life death of Siegel, who was shot and killed while he was at an associate’s home in Beverly Hills.

Speaking of the real man, you can see the real Bugsy Siegel and the 1940s Las Vegas scenery in this footage posted on YouTube by one of Bugsy’s daughters. Check it out.

While Bugsy is no longer around, celebrate the anniversary of the Nevada law by recognizing you are lucky to be alive. Enjoy the day.

What is your favorite movie set in Las Vegas? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    John Carter & How Ishtar Cost Me a Job

    John Carter The $250-million-film John Carter (2012) has made news recently as being a big bomb. The Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure film about a Civil War veteran who ends up on Mars in the middle of a war there and falls in love with a princess reportedly will lose an estimated $200 million on its U.S. release. Commentators note a number of reasons the film did not do will, with a lot of blame going to poor marketing and a generic title. Unfortunately, sometimes the fact that a film is expensive and called “the $250-million John Carter” leads to bad press when the film is not making back the money spent. The bashing of such films is okay if you are talking about bad business decisions, but if you are talking about the quality of the film, the fact that a movie lost a lot of money should not scare you away.

    There are a number of famous bombs that are decent movies and of equal if not better quality than other similar films that got better press. As Kevin Costner’s post-apocalypse Waterworld (1995) became more costly in production the bad press started even before the film was released. Then it did not do well. But it is a decent science fiction film. Director Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) is famous for costing so much money it brought down United Artists. But if you give the movie a chance and go into it with modest expectations, it is an entertaining, albeit long, film about Wyoming’s Johnson County War with excellent actors and nice cinematography. Are these movies great? No, not by a long shot. But they are as good or better than a lot of decent movies.

    Ishtar Warren Beatty Dustin Hoffman One such bomb cost me a job years ago when I was on a job interview. The job had nothing to do with film, but during the interview the subject of favorite movies came up. I asked the person in charge what his favorite film was, and with a smile on his face he said, “Ishtar.” They asked me what I thought of the 1987 movie starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, and I answered honestly that despite all of the bad press because it was so expensive, the movie entertained me when I saw it in the theater and was not as bad as a lot of other comedies. The interview continued, and the next week I found out I did not get the job.

    The rejection letter made me realize that when the boss brought up Ishtar, he was testing me to see if I had the guts to disagree with him. To test me, he picked the most ridiculous favorite movie he could think of. So from his viewpoint, I failed the test because I did not stand up to him and tell him that Ishtar was a horrible movie. Little did he know though, that while he really believed Ishtar was one of the worst movies of all time, I did disagree with him on that point. But because he said the opposite of what he thought, he missed the real chance to test me. So I will disagree with him here. I was right. Wherever you are, you were wrong.

    So now I will conclude this review of John Carter that does not talk about John Carter with my point: John Carter, starring Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins, is a fun movie if you are only paying the price of a ticket and not the $250 million production costs.

    What did you think of John Carter? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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