Casino (lm)

For the 1998 lm Ho Kong Fung Wan (aka Casino) board from every casino, and his name is placed in the
about Macau triad leader Broken Tooth Koi, see Wan Black Book. In retaliation, Nicky gathers his own crew,
Kuok-koi.
opens a jewelry store and a restaurant, and begins running
unsanctioned shakedowns and burglaries.
Casino is a 1995 American crime drama lm directed by
Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-ction book of
the same name by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the
screenplay for the lm with Scorsese. The two previously
collaborated on the 1990 hit lm Goodfellas.

Ace, meanwhile, meets and falls in love with a hustler,

Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone). Ace soon proposes
marriage and a family, but Ginger refuses. She changes
her mind after Ace assures her that even if it doesn't
work out, he will make sure she is taken care of for the
rest of her life. They soon conceive a daughter, Amy,
and marry. Their relationship begins to deteriorate when
Ace and Nicky catch Ginger giving money to her former
boyfriend, her pimp from her days as a prostitute, Lester
Diamond, now a small-time con man. Ace also makes an
enemy in Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb by ring Webbs brother-in-law Don Ward for incompetence,
and refusing to reinstate him. Webb retaliates by pulling
Aces casino license application from the backlog and
forcing him to have a license hearing in 1980, while secretly arranging for the gaming board and State Senator Harrison Roberts to reject the license. Ace responds
by appearing on television and openly accusing the city
government of corruption. The bosses, unappreciative
of Aces publicity, ask him to return home, but he refuses, stubbornly blaming Nickys reckless lawbreaking
for his own problems, which leads to a heated argument
with Nicky in the desert.

The lm marks the eighth collaboration between director Scorsese and Robert De Niro, following Mean
Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York
(1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983),
Goodfellas (1990), and Cape Fear (1991).
De Niro stars as Sam Ace Rothstein, a Jewish American top gambling handicapper who is called by the Italian
Mob to oversee the day-to-day operations at the ctional
Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. His character is based on
Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the
Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outt
from the 1970s until the early 1980s.

Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, based on real-life Mob

enforcer Anthony Spilotro. A made man, Nicky is sent
to Vegas to make sure that money from the Tangiers is
skimmed o the top and that the mobsters in Vegas are
kept in line. Sharon Stone plays Ginger, Aces wife, a role
that earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress The bosses soon notice that the amounts of the skim are
in a Motion Picture Drama and a nomination for the getting lighter due to local mobsters taking some of it for
Academy Award for Best Actress.
themselves, so they appoint Kansas City underboss Artie
Piscano to oversee the skim, but he keeps incriminating
ledgers and is caught on an FBI bug discussing the skim.
Ginger tries to le for a divorce, but Ace refuses, stating
1 Plot
that she has severe drug and alcohol problems and that she
will likely spend all of her money within a year and come
In 1973, Sam Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a sports back to him anyway. Ace loses patience with Ginger afhandicapper and Maa associate, is sent to Las Vegas to ter she and Lester are in Los Angeles with plans to run
run the Teamsters-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of away to Europe with Amy. Ace talks Ginger into bringthe Chicago Outt. Taking advantage of lax gaming laws ing Amy back, but he accidentally overhears her talking
allowing him to work at the casino while his gaming li- on the telephone with someone about having him killed,
cense is still pending, Ace becomes the Tangiers de facto and he evicts her from the house. She returns, on Aces
boss and doubles the casinos prots, which are skimmed condition that she carry a beeper on her for him to contact
by the Mob before the records are reported to income tax her whenever he must. Ginger turns to Nicky for help in
agencies. Impressed with Aces work, the bosses send getting her share of her and Aces money from the bank,
Aces friend, enforcer and caporegime Nicholas Nicky and they begin an aair, something which is against mob
Santoro (Joe Pesci) along with his brother Dominick, his rules and could get Ace, Nicky and Ginger killed. Ace
best friend Frankie Marino and their crew to protect Ace reaches his limit with Ginger when she ties Amy to her
and the whole business. Nicky, however, begins to be- bed to have a night with Nicky. Ace confronts Ginger in
come more of a liability than an asset; his violent and the restaurant, learns of her aair with Nicky and disowns
vicious temper quickly gets him banned by the gaming
1

2
her. She turns to Nicky, but Nicky refuses to have Ace
killed and blames Ginger for her rash actions, claiming
that Ace will likely not give her any money now. Ginger
ies into a rage and attacks Nicky, but he throws her out.
The next morning, Ginger goes to the Rothstein house,
creates a disturbance, and uses the distraction to take the
key to their bank deposit box. All of these events are
occurring under FBI surveillance, having been alerted by
Piscanos discussions heard by the bug. Ginger takes the
cash from the safe deposit, and the FBI decides its time
to arrest her, hoping to use her as a witness against the
mobs activity.
It turns out that Ginger says nothing, but it doesn't matter;
the FBI has collected enough evidence to arrest several
casino executives involved with the skim. Philip Green,
the casinos main executive, decides to be cooperate with
the FBI. The FBI raid Piscanos home and nd his ledgers,
detailing every transaction of the skim. Piscano becomes
so upset he suers a heart attack and dies, right in front
of his wife. The casino empire crumbles and the bosses
are all arrested. Nicky, catching wind of the early arrests,
ees Las Vegas and manages to evade capture. The FBI
comes to see Ace with the pictures they took of Ginger.
Refusing to look, he turns them away.

PRODUCTION

2 Cast
Robert De Niro as Sam Ace Rothstein
Joe Pesci as Nicholas Nicky Santoro
Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna
James Woods as Lester Diamond
Frank Vincent as Frankie Marino
Don Rickles as Billy Sherbert
Pasquale Cajano as Remo Gaggi
John Bloom as Donald Don Ward
L. Q. Jones as Clark County Commissioner Pat
Webb
Kevin Pollak as Philip Green
Alan King as Andy Stone
Bill Allison as John Nance
Philip Suriano as Dominick Santoro

During an after trial meeting, the bosses decide to eliminate anyone involved or with knowledge of the skim in
order to keep them from testifying. They kill money
courier John Nance, a few casino executives and Teamsters Union president Andy Stone (though they know he
won't talk, Andy isn't Italian and they decide not to risk
it). Ginger dies nearly penniless in Los Angeles of a drug
overdose (a hot dose, as Ace learns via second autopsy).
Ace, on the other hand, is almost killed in 1983 in a
botched car bombing, which was never authorized by the
bosses, but Ace suspects Nicky was involved. Before Ace
can confront him, however, Nicky and Dominick are savagely beaten with baseball bats and buried alive in an Indiana corneld by Frankie and the rest of their crew. Ace
narrates that the bosses had had enough of Nicky, and
had ordered Nickys crew to get rid of him in exchange
for clemency for covering up Nickys aair with Ginger.

Vinny Vella as Artie Piscano

With the Mob now out of power, the old casinos are purchased by big corporations and demolished to make way
for gaudier gambling attractions nanced by junk bonds.
Ace laments that this new family friendly Las Vegas
lacks the same kind of catering to the players as the older,
stating Back then dealers knew your name, what you
drank, what you played, today its like checking into an
airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if
you get it by Thursday. In the nal scene, an older Ace
is shown living in San Diego, once again as a sports handicapper for the Mob, or in his words, "...right back where
I started. Ace closes the lm with the words, "...and why
mess up a good thing? And thats that.

Cole Dragone as Vincents Kid Brother

Joseph Rigano as Vincent Borelli

Nobu Matsuhisa as K. K. Ichikawa
Richard Riehle as Charlie Clean Face Clark
Dick Smothers as Nevada State Senator Harrison
Roberts (character said to be based on Harry Reid)
Grin Dunne as Barney Greenstein (scene deleted)
Oscar Goodman as Himself
Frankie Avalon as Himself
Steve Allen as Himself
Jayne Meadows as Herself

Frank Cullotta as Hitmen

3 Production
3.1 Development
The research for Casino began when screenwriter
Nicholas Pileggi read a 1980 report from the Las Vegas
Sun about a domestic argument between Frank Lefty
Rosenthal, a casino gure and his wife, Geri McGee, a
former topless dancer.[4] This gave him an idea to focus on a new book about the true story of mob infringement in Las Vegas during the 1970s, when lming of

3
Goodfellas (the screenplay which he co-wrote with Scorsese) was coming to an end.[5] The ctional Tangiers resort reected the story of the Stardust Resort and Casino,
which had been bought by Argent Corporation in 1974
using loans from the Teamsters Central States Pension
Fund. Argent was owned by Allen Glick, but the casino
was believed to be controlled by various organized crime
families from the Midwest. Over the next six years, Argent Corporation siphoned o between $7 and $15 million using rigged scales. When exposed by the FBI, this
skimming operation was the largest ever exposed.[6] A
number of organized crime gures were convicted as a
result of the skimming.

4 Reception
The lm was a box-oce success, making $116 million
worldwide[2] on a $4050 million budget.[1]
While the lm was heavily criticized for its excessive violence, it garnered a mostly positive critical response.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the lm an 80% fresh rating,
based on 61 reviews.[11] On Metacritic, the rating is 73
(generally favorable reviews) out of 100 based on 17
reviews.[12]

Sharon Stone received critical acclaim for her performance and was nominated for the Academy Award for
Pileggi decided to contact Scorsese about taking the helm Best Actress in a Leading Role and won a Golden Globe
of the project, which would become known as Casino.[4] Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion
Scorsese expressed interest in the project, calling this an Picture Drama. Martin Scorsese was nominated for the
idea of success, no limits.[7] Although Pileggi was keen Golden Globe Award for Best Director.
to release the book and then concentrate on a lm adap- American Film Institute lists
tation, Scorsese encouraged him to reverse the order.[8]
AFIs 100 Years...100 Movies Nominated[13]
Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the script for ve
[5]
months, towards the end of 1994. Real-life characters
AFIs 10 Top 10 Nominated Gangster Film[14]
such as Frank Lefty Rosenthal, Geri, Anthony Spilotro
and his brother were reshaped. Some characters were
combined, and parts of the story were set in Las Vegas
instead of Chicago. A problem emerged when they were 5 Soundtrack
forced to refer to Chicago as back home and use the
words adapted from a true story instead of based on a Disc 1
true story.[7] They also decided to simplify the script, so
that the character of Sam Ace Rothstein only worked at
1. Contempt Theme De Camille by Georges
the Tangiers Casino, in order to show a glimpse of the triDelerue
als involved in operating a Maa-run casino hotel without
overwhelming the audience.[7] According to Scorsese, the
2. Angelina/Zooma, Zooma Medley by Louis Prima
initial opening sequence was to feature the main charac3. "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters
ter, Sam Rothstein, ghting with his estranged wife, Ginger, on the lawn of their house. Since the scene was too
4. "I'll Take You There" by The Staple Singers
detailed, they changed the sequence to show the explosion of Sams car and his ying into the air before hover5. "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues
ing over the ames in slow motionlike a soul about to
6. How High The Moon by Les Paul & Mary Ford
go straight down to hell.[7]
7. Hurt by Timi Yuro
8. Ain't Got No Home by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry
9. "Without You" by Nilsson

3.2

Principal photography

10. "Love Is the Drug" by Roxy Music

11. "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee

Filming took place at night in the Riviera casino in Las 12. "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac
Vegas to replicate the ctional Tangiers with the nearby
defunct Landmark Hotel as the entrance. According to 13. "The Thrill Is Gone" by B.B. King
the producer Barbara De Fina, there was no point in 14. "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia
building a set if the cost was the same to use a real-life
one.[7] The opening scene, with Sams car exploding, was 15. "The 'In' Crowd" by Ramsey Lewis
shot three times with the third used for the lm.[7] When
rst submitted to the MPAA, the lm received an NC-17 16. "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael
rating due to its depictions of violence. Several edits were
Disc 2
made in order to reduce the rating to R.[9][10]

7
1. "Walk on the Wild Side" by Jimmy Smith
2. Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" by Otis Redding
3. "I Ain't Superstitious" by Je Beck Group

EXTERNAL LINKS

[11] Casino (1995)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December

23, 2014.
[12] Casino reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved July 10, 2010.

4. The Glory of Love by The Velvetones

[13] AFIs 100 Years...100 Movies Nominees (PDF). Retrieved 2013-04-12.

5. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by Devo

[14] AFIs 10 Top 10 Ballot (PDF). Retrieved 2013-04-12.

6. "What a Di'rence a Day Made" by Dinah WashBibliography

ington
7. "Working in the Coal Mine" by Lee Dorsey
8. "The House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals
9. Those Were the Days by Cream

Thompson, David; Chrstie, Ian (1996). Scorsese

on Scorsese. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-57122002-1.
Evans, David (2006). De Niro: A Biography.

10. "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)"

by Tony Bennett
11. "Slippin' and Slidin'" by Little Richard

7 External links

12. "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" by

Dean Martin

Casino at the Internet Movie Database

13. "Compared to What" (Live) by Les McCann &

Eddie Harris

Casino at AllMovie

14. "Basin Street Blues/When Its Sleepy Time Down

South" by Louis Prima
15. "St. Matthew Passion (Wir setzen uns mit Trnen
nieder)" by Johann Sebastian Bach (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti)

References

[1] Army Archerd (1995-11-13). Scorsese puts faith in preview auds. Variety. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
[2] Scott Foundas Chief Film Critic @foundasonlm (201305-07). Andrew Gareld to Star in Martin Scorseses Silence (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
[3] Casino (1995)". Box Oce Mojo. 1996-01-19. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
[4] Baxter, John De Niro: A Biography p.336.
[5] Thompson, David and Christie, Ian Scorsese on Scorsese
p.198.
[6] Levitan, Corey (2008-03-02). Top 10 scandals: gritty
city. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2008-03-03.
[7] Thompson, David and Christie, Ian Scorsese on Scorsese
pp.200204.
[8] Baxter, John De Niro: A Biography p.337.
[9] Bona, Damien Inside Oscar 2
[10] Dretzka, Gary (November 9, 1995). Casino Wins Appeal For R Film Rating. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved
August 21, 2011.

Casino at the TCM Movie Database

Casino at Box Oce Mojo

Casino at Rotten Tomatoes
Casino at Metacritic

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Casino (lm) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino%20(film)?oldid=647260760 Contributors: Axlrosen, Shoaler, JamesReyes, Revolver, Maximus Rex, Branddobbe, Robbot, Misterrick, TMC1221, Dancon7, RedWolf, Postdlf, Sverdrup, Hemanshu, JamesMLane,
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RobNS, NetBot, Nk, Polylerus, Cammoore, AarHan3, Erik, Cburnett, Sciurin, Drbreznjev, The JPS, Reinoutr, Woohookitty, Oskart,
Clemmy, Kmg90, GregorB, RicJac, Stefanomione, Palica, BD2412, Noirish, Rjwilmsi, Koavf, Rogerd, SpNeo, Vegaswikian, TPIRman,
The wub, MarnetteD, Remurmur, JeStickney, Latka, JdforresterBot, Javi404, KFP, Gareth E Kegg, Stephen Compall, Seuj, YurikBot,
SpikeJones, Misterwindupbird, Tommyt, Kollision, RobbieNomi, Carolynparrishfan, ChrisP2K5, Crumbsucker, B. Phillips, Sjb90, Equilibrial, Irishguy, Retired username, Bobak, Misza13, Semperf, Dissolve, BOT-Superzerocool, NWill, Bantosh, Pegship, Marketdiamond,
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8.2

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8.3

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