Crimen en Las Vegas

Shady business man and compulsive gambler Vincent Price and luscious wife Jane Russell get off the trans-continental train they're on on their way to LA to do some gambling in Las Vegas. They stay at the Fabulous Hotel where Price convinces the management to extend him $100,000 in credit so he can have money to gamble with. The movie has a somewhat interesting back story about Price and a ruined business partner in Boston. As well there is another back story about Russell and Las Vegas detective Victor Mature, who seem to have met a while ago when she was a singer at a casino where Hoagy Carmichael is the long time pianist and band leader. He (Carmichael) does a great number about a little over half-way through the film that must be seen. As well, Russell is wearing a super expensive diamond bracelet that is the object of an aggressive insurance investigator. For my money, Price, Carmichael, and the vintage Vegas scenes are the only really compelling reasons to watch, except for a decent chase between a helicopter and a Mercury woody across the desert which leads to an interesting fight in an abandoned military base.

Substitute Victor Mature for the part that Robert Mitchum normally played in these RKO films of the Fifties and you've got The Las Vegas Story. Wonder what Mitch was doing at this time?

Nothing terribly groundbreaking in this film. Jane Russell and Vincent Price arrive back in Las Vegas where Jane used to be a singer when she was a single gal. Also working there is ex-boyfriend Victor Mature now with the Clark County Sheriff.

When casino owner Robert J. Wilke turns up dead, there's a host of suspects out there. Jane's diamond necklace also is missing which is seen quite reasonably as a motive as Price said it was in the hotel safe.

Things pretty much go as they normally do in these noir films, some good action sequences a nice car chase through an atomic bomb testing site in the end.

What sets The Las Vegas Story apart is the presence of that old music master Hoagy Carmichael. ANY film he either appears in and/or writes some songs for is a cut above average just for that. He and Russell end the film singing his Academy Award nominated song My Resistance Is Low.

So will your's be once exposed to the talents of Hoagy Carmichael.

Las Vegas 1952 would have been the place to be so a film starring the beautiful Jane Russell being the affection of not one, not two, but three men made it a place that all men would want to visit. Jane Russell who plays a former Las Vegas lounge singer named Linda Rollins and is currently married to an addictive gambler named Lloyd Rollins (played by Vincent Price) who prefers the crap tables to bedding his gorgeous wife Linda.

Linda would prefer to avoid Las Vegas all together since her past memories have her in the arms of a recent army veteran named Dave Andrews (Victor Mature) who she abruptly left Las Vegas apparently never to see him again. Now Dave Matthews is a Lieutenant with the Las Vegas police department and when Linda's expensive but insured diamond necklace goes missing and the slimy Fabulous Las Vegas casino owner is found murdered, it is up to Lieutenant Dave Matthews to find the killer and he has a couple of suspects in mind which include his former lover Linda Rollins and her husband Lloyd.

I chuckled when I saw Victor Mature with his overly exaggerated broad shoulders (nothing that hidden shoulder pads under his suit jacket couldn't assist with) meeting his former lover the now unhappily married Linda Rollins. There is an insurance investigator named Tom Hubler (Brad Dexter) also trailing the Rollins couple to ensure her very expensive diamond necklace stays safe but needless to say it vanishes under mysterious circumstances and the Fabulous casino owner is murdered on the floor of his own casino.

The film was novel for its time having the early Las Vegas strip as the backdrop, the gorgeous lounge singer Jane Russell with her piano playing Hoagy Carmichael having one or two numbers to shine, an insurance investigator, a lieutenant of the Las Vegas police department and what film would not be complete without a despicable addicted gambler like Vincent Price?

It is a decent crime/drama/romance film which holds up pretty well for being 66 years old.

A fizzled romance rekindles when the lady (Russell), now married (Price), returns to her old stomping grounds in Las Vegas, Nevada where the struggling husband hopes to beat the casino odds, she crossing paths with that former flame (Mature), now a Clark County Deputy Sheriff, before murder and aerial mayhem ensue.

A fabulous figure framed first in The Outlaw (43), it was Jane's pair of pretty, wide-set eyes that always had ME captivated. In her crime drama catalog (noirgesse), it's those gorgeous glims, long limbs and teamings with pal Bob Mitchum that typically starts the conversation (His Kind of Woman, Macao), but a couple can get along TOO well, for drama's sake, anyway, and Victor Mature is no downgrade, quite the contrary. I prefer their passionate, sometimes prickly pairing in this dicey drama and rate Vegas, Jane's best, while praising Price in a role better suited to his non-horror persona (vs Cardigan).

Directed by Robert Stevenson (Jane Eyre), a regular at Disney studio (Mary Poppins), noteworthy too is screenwriter Paul Jarrico (The Search) (Felton Essex / Dratler) whose blacklisted name was removed from premiere credits by producer Howard Hughes, even as the recluse retained his writing product. In support are ivory-tickler and narrator Hoagy "Happy" Carmichael, the jaunty Jay Flippen, blue eyed bad boy Brad Dexter, old timer Will Wright, familiar face Robert Wilke and real life Flamingo dancer Colleen Miller who'd quickly step up to leading roles at RKO and Universal (3/4).

This is a 1952 film, and you can tell we haven't quite left the '40s. Jane Russell plays a former Las Vegas club singer who travels to Vegas with her wealthy. somewhat slimy husband (Vincent Price) - but she has a past with a local police officer (Victor Mature). And you just know what's going to happen.

Russell sings as well, she looks sexy, and does a great job with the snappy dialogue. Hoagy Carmichael is terrific, and the two of them make the movie. There's a huge chase on foot scene at the end that is quite elaborate.

This is a Howard Hughes production; because he interfered so much with the filming, it lost money.