CASINO FILMING LOCATIONS YOU CAN STILL HIT IN VEGAS

Las Vegas is the hub of casinos. The launch of ‘Casino’ the Martin Scorsese’s film marked the life of Las Vegas and the casino culture filled with gambling, stealing, limelight, violence etc. It’s been 20 years since the release and yet the casino featured in the film stands still. Such movies explain the craze of mobile deposit slots in the online casino world today.

There's a scene in Casino (1995) where Joe Pesci's character rebukes a bar patron's boorish behavior by stabbing him repeatedly with a fountain pen. That's got to be bad for the nib, but it wasn't his pen. Looked like a nice one, but again I can't say what it was. One that I did identify with a fair amount of certainty was in The Grey (2011). Casino – Is This Your Pen? In Martin Scorsese’s crime classic, Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is having drinks with his mob guardian, Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci). When he finds a nice pen laying on the bar, he casually turns to the man next to him and asks if the pen belongs to him.

Atomic Liquors is one of the oldest bars in Las Vegas. The iconic scene of Downtown where Joe Pesci stabbed a person with a pen on the neck! This scene wasn’t though a replica of any real-life character but was an inspiration from a prison fight that took behind the bars. The fight was witnessed by Cullotta and thus was recreated.

In lieu of the memory, we bring to you some iconic spots which have been truly defining in the movies and find a mention even today!

Oscar’s Steakhouse

The scene is from Downtown where Robert De Niro’s wife is played by Sharon Stone. In the movie scene, the drugged wife and husband argue about the spending habits of the wife. This is an iconic scene and is shot in Oscar’s steakhouse which had a lovely view of Fremont St. Although Oscar’s steakhouse stands still at the Plaza Hotel the view has been covered by SlotZilla.

Casino Joe Pesci Pen Scene Art

Main Street Station

The scene where Robert De Niro gets into the car slides the key and sees his car burst is shot right in the parking lot of Main Street Station. There is also California hotel and casino into the view in the background. What blows our mind is that it took 3 takes to get the shot right. This meant blowing 3 cars in front of the Main Street Station. That iconic place is a prominent place today!

Tower of Jewels

This scene from East of the Strip is shot with Pesci who was then playing a character that was based on a real-life gangster ‘Tony Spilotro’. In the scene, a gang break in happens at Bertha’s Jewelry shop while the FBI continues to watch the robbery in progress. They all waited for the moment when the gang actually steals something and the burglar alarm goes off. This Bertha’s shop was very beautiful in the scene and today majestically stands by the name of Tower of Jewels.

Atomic Liquors

Atomic Liquors is one of the oldest bars in Las Vegas. The iconic scene of Downtown where Joe Pesci stabbed a person with a pen on the neck! This scene wasn’t though a replica of any real-life character but was an inspiration from a prison fight that took behind the bars. The fight was witnessed by Cullotta and thus was recreated.

Piero’s Italian Cuisine

Piero’s Italian Cuisine is an Italian restaurant where Culotta back in the time of ‘Off the Strip’ chose to film a dinner scene. His first choice was his owned Upper Crust Pizzeria. It was called The Leaning Tower in the movie back then. The scene was so iconic that Culotta actually thought of creating an own pizzeria like such for business. But it was left!

Mob Museum

The Casino film captures a scene of how a mobster secretly steals money over the top from a casino in Midwest. The Mo Museum is the tour that is under question and is one of the immensely beautiful casino tours to take in Las Vegas. An old Federal courthouse was converted into a casino to pictures’ the whole sequence and pretty much created its own standards with the way it appealed to the audience.

Casino Joe Pesci Pen Scene Pictures

Watch the movie or visit the places, you shall feel the connection!

By David Amoruso

Hollywood loves gangsters. Not because film makers condone their crimes, but because their stories make them lots of money. It’s difficult to name any other genre that has so many titles based on a true story. Yet, despite this label, the true story often gets twisted to fit the silver screen. That is why Gangsters Inc. shares its knowledge of the facts and truth behind these blockbuster gangster flicks.

When it comes to epic mob movies director Martin Scorsese outdid himself with Casino. It tells the true story of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro and how the Chicago Outfit dominated gambling in Las Vegas and is based on the research and eventual book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi.

In the movie the names have been changed. Lefty Rosenthal turned into Sam “Ace” Rothstein while Spilotro was now named Nicky Santoro. Thankfully their actions remained the same and the acting of Robert De Niro as Rothstein and Joe Pesci as Santoro is, as you can expect from these two stars, top notch.

Where Scorsese had shown the gritty streets of New York City mob life in Goodfellas, in Casino he upped the ante and showed us the glamorous lives of the men who controlled a billion dollar industry. And, “how [they] messed it all up.”

The true story of Casino was featured in several Gangsters Inc. stories. Most dealing with the individual players or certain incidents more than with the exact plot of the movie. The men responsible for the Las Vegas skim and the money from the Teamsters were bosses Antonino “Joe Batters” Accardo and Joseph Aiuppa, while capo Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo saw to it their orders were carried out as commanded. We have profiled them all.

Spilotro was sent to Vegas to oversee the skim at the casino. He had made a name for himself back in Chicago after learning the ropes from “Mad Sam” DeStefano, one of the most evil mobsters ever to walk the streets of Chi Town.

All in all the violence portrayed in Casino did a good job at showing the capabilities of the group of stone cold killers the real Chicago Outfit had at its disposal. Like when Chicago boss Antonino Accardo needed to send a message to some guys wo burglarized his home.

In the movie Scorsese even cast real mob killer Frank Cullotta to play, essentially, himself as he shoots his way through the final scenes of the movie.

More on Casino:

• Mafia hitman Frank Cullotta on movie 'Casino', Tony Spilotro, Killing Informants, Cooperating with FBI
• The lucrative and violent years of Las Vegas mobster Tony Spilotro’s infamous Hole in the Wall gang
• The story behind the documentary: Back Home, Years Ago: The Real Casino

Casino Joe Pesci Pen Scene Gif

Get the latest on organized crime and the Mafia at Gangsters Inc.'s news section.

Follow Gangsters Inc. on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram and like us on Facebook

Casino Joe Pesci Pen Scene Photos

Copyright © Gangsters Inc.