Dull crime film is greatly elevated by glamorous the Jane Russell as a former torch singer returning to Las Vegas with her rich husband, a charming Vincent Price, only to encounter her old flame, police detective Victor Mature, who both run afoul Vegas thug Brad Dexter. The film's plot mostly hinges on a murder mystery that's barely interesting. Some of the best scenes are between Russell and her old piano player, Hoagy Carmichael. "The Las Vegas Story" was produced by Howard Hughes at RKO (who famously produced Russell's scandalous western "The Outlaw") and was directed by journeyman director Robert Stevenson, who later directed a number of pictures at Disney including classics like "Mary Poppins" and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" to lesser Disney fare like "The Gnome-Mobile" and "In Search of the Castaways," so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that this film lacked any real creative spark. I was hoping to see lots of period footage of 1950s Vegas, but it's all sets and stock footage, so this film doesn't even offer a vintage travelogue appeal. Besides Russell, Dexter is quite good as the steely eyed villain. I've never understood the appeal of Victor Mature as a lead actor, but he's serviceable in his part. Overall, "The Last Vegas Story" does offer an exciting climax involving a helicopter chasing a car and a shootout at an airport hanger, but other than that, it's all quite bland (outside of the never bland Ms. Russell).

Was pleasantly surprised at this film.Played last night in a tribute to Brad Dexter,an underappreciated actor,who was apparently once married to Ms Peggy Lee.He was good in anything he did.Here,he's an "insurance" muscle man,sent to keep an "eye" on both Vincent Price and a $100,000 dollar insured diamond necklace worn by Ms Russell.She meets up with former boyfriend and cop Victor Mature while hubby Price decides to gamble to recover money to pay up his financial debts.Ms Russell also meets up with former co-workers at a lounge in which she used to sing.In spite of it being a Howard Hughes Production,I liked the film.Some really quality actors,and Price a great semi-villain,Dexter a great pure villain,and sparks from Russell/Mature,a young lovers trying to marry before he's drafted all make for a good story.

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.

The title suggests something nearly epic in its scope; a history of the gambling capital of the world, an iconic mix of organised crime and flaking glamour, bright lights and corruption - the 'Casino' of its day. The subsequent film is much more modest - a tale of petty opportunism and every day failure that, frankly, could be set almost anywhere in the world. Whatever Happy's opening voice-over tries to convince us of, this isn't the Las Vegas Story, or the Clark County one. Never mind - 'The Philadelphia Story' and 'The Palm Beach Story' had similarly grandiose titles with almost as little to back them up, although even their stories of marital strife weren't quite as modest as this one.It's a trifle about a woman with a past, caught between a seemingly solid husband beginning to crack under financial difficulties and a bitter ex who refuses to forgive her for walking out on him. The catalyst for the plot is her diamond necklace, under observation by an insurance agent and desired by the new owner of the bar she used to work in - subtly named 'The Last Chance'. A later Russell film, 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', would inform us that 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' - here, they're her worst enemy, coming between her and all the men in her life. Jewellery was often used as a symbol of women's superficial allure and grasping nature in good old misogynistic Hollywood, but here it's the men who care about the ice. Russell suffers their loss with no great complaint.For the most part, 'The Las Vegas Story' is no great shakes. Victor Mature gives a real teak-and-leather performance as the male lead; he looks a little like Jerry Orbach, but he has all the charisma of a side of sweaty beef, and hangs like a dead weight in all the scenes he's in, particularly those with Jane Russell. We can understand why she left him - he's an unappealing prospect. There's no real Vegas atmosphere to the film - although the hotel bathroom set is wonderful in its tacky opulence. Most of the direction is perfunctory, and the script isn't sharp enough - it clearly aspires to hard-boiled banter but doesn't give the actors anything to work with, and a subplot about underage newlyweds is truly trite, an example of Old Hollywood storytelling at its worst. Despite the script, Vincent Price is pretty good, segueing from cheerful husband to cold, desperate gambler effortlessly, but he seems to get lost halfway through the film.Shining out amongst all this mediocrity is Jane Russell, probably the most wasted film actress of her time. She displayed natural charisma in front of the camera in her very first film, 'The Outlaw', and she visibly grew in confidence as an actress over her next few films, but she never really got to work in great films - with the arguable exception of 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'. Here, she's sublime, despite working with third-rate material. Whilst the script leaves Mature somewhat stranded, unable to connect up the various lurches in disposition his character is required to make (he suddenly warms up to Russell again for no explicable reason), Russell handles these unlikely transitions much better, making them seem all of a piece. It's an effortless performance, a demonstration of pure film-star class, but just as in 'His Kind of Woman' she's neglected at the climax, left standing by as the men slug it out.Fortunately, that climax is the salvation of the film. The preceding hour and ten minutes lack either suspense or the kind of brooding menace the Noirish plot seems to require. Once the fleeing villain drives his car into an abandoned Airforce base, however, the direction picks up considerably. The helicopter/car chase is really well done, with impressive stunt flying as the helicopter flies through an open hangar, Bond-style (it's so good they repeat the trick a minute later). Even better is the final foot chase around the deserted buildings, with brilliantly atmospheric use of the howling wind. Tellingly, this is all achieved wordlessly, and seems to come from some infinitely superior thriller (the purely visual storytelling is reminiscent of Hitchcock). Here, the film actually touches greatness, if only for a few minutes.The other pleasures are incidental. Like many films of the period, it includes a couple of musical numbers, totally unnecessary but here rather well done (the first, as a piano tune triggers a memory in Russell of her time as a singer, actually has more emotional impact than any of the dialogue scenes). The murder mystery isn't that mysterious, but the solution is pleasingly unconventional (it's the opportunistic robbery that is always disproved early on in other whodunits), and the film wrong-foots the audience by not discounting Russell as a suspect.Even among the relatively few films that Russell made, this is minor; nevertheless, it does confirm that she was a capable actress, not the inflatable doll some critics would like us to remember her as - and is worth seeing for that reason.