Casino movies special edition New Casino Films on Las vegas Nevada Desert

Casino chronicles the mobs infiltration of Las Vegas in the 1970s when they controlled the action, skimmed fortunes in cash from the count rooms, and poured their profits into building even bigger, flashier temples of chance. Bookmaker Sam Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro) was the Chicago mobs point man, running their Vegas casino (the fictional Tangiers) and making sure the cash kept flowing to his bosses. Under Aces watchful eye, the Tangiers became a moneymaking machine, and he was rewarded handsomely: He had respect, riches, a wardrobe full of eye-popping pastel suits, and a hooker turned-trophy wife named Ginger (Sharon Stone). It seemed that in Las Vegas, Ace and the mob had found paradise on earth.

Then it all came crashing down. Aces past caught up with him in the form of his old pal Nicky Santoro, a diminutive mob enforcer with a volcanic temper who came to Vegas to grab his own piece of the action. What followed on that casino film was an explosion of greed, betrayal and violence that eventually gave the feds the evidence they needed to crush the mob and end their influence in Vegas. When the film concludes in 1983, its the end of an era the corporations have begun their takeover of the Strip, turning it into the safe (mostly), sanitized Disneyland for adults that it remains today. This month, Universal released an anniversary edition DVD of the film. Though the film received a lukewarm response upon its release, this version shows why its now regarded as a modern crime classic. For movie buffs, Casino is a feast for the senses-filled with flashy camera moves, wall-towall period music and Vegas in all its garish, glammed-up 1970s glory.

A second disc is packed with documentaries and extra features, explaining every aspect of the f1lmmaking process-from writer Nick Pileggi adapting his novel for the screen, to extensive interviews with the always insightful Scorsese, to the logistically complex production. (The filmmakers explain Ace Rothstein (Robert DeNiro, above) was the mobs no-nonsense point man in Sin City his marriage to Ginger (Sharon Stone, I.), a hooker and hustler, was the ultimate longshot bet that nearly ruined him pity the guy dealing the cards when Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci, above) was on a losing streak how scenes involving the Tangiers were ftlmed on location at the Riviera, late at night, so as not to disrupt too many gamblers.)

Names and certain events were changed for the movie Frank Lefty Rosenthal was the real-life Rothstein, and Tony the Ant Spilotro was the inspiration for Nicky Santoro. But the story is all too true, and Casino explores one of the wildest, bloodiest, most fascinating tales in the history of American crime.