Popular reviews

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★½

  Robert Stevenson directed this a decade before Mary Poppins. Instead of a lighthearted musical, it’s a noir. 

  The storyline is a bit tedious, but thankfully it features Jane Russell as the leading lady. She sings some songs including a great rendition of "I Get Along Without You Very Well". 

  
  Toward the end, a character jumps off the roof onto another man. It’s one of the greatest sequences I’ve seen lately. I had to rewatch it another couple of times, as the action was fast and the camera made it look as is the fall was quite great. 

  Vegan alert:
  The sheriff doesn’t know whether to eat the trout he caught or mount it to the wall.

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★½

  Linda (Jane Russell) reluctantly returns to Las Vegas after some time away at the behest of her new husband, degenerate gambler Lloyd Rollins (Vincent Price). Lloyd immediately proceeds to get into trouble due to his gambling addiction and begins digging a progressively deeper hole. Linda renews old acquaintances at the casino where she used to work as a singer, including old flame Lt. Dave Andrews (Victor Mature). 

  The movie is a little uneven. It can't quite decide if it wants to focus on Linda and Dave's relationship or lean into the noir crime elements. As a result it is a little at odds with itself tonally and winds up kind of exploding into the crime side of things in a…

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  Review by Farran Nehme

  The thing about having Howard Hughes produce a movie is that the man never seemed to know what kind of a movie he wanted to make. He wanted a musical, no he wanted a noir, no he wanted an adventure, or maybe a comedy, no no he wanted a murder mystery. It must have been like being supervised by a hyperactive Pekingese. This worked well at least once, with the lovably strange HIS KIND OF WOMAN. With THE LAS VEGAS STORY, despite Hughes’ purported desire to showcase the gambling mecca he was heavily invested in, what you get is a film about how great Jane Russell looks in 1952 dress bodices, occasionally accessorized with the plot’s MacGuffin, a Cartier diamond…

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  Review by Kevin Chan ★★★½ 2

  Before helming the classic Old Yeller, Mary Poppins, The Love Bug, and some episodes of Disney’s Zorro (the best!), Robert Stevenson directs a sultry Jane Russell in a film noir. Or is it a suspense thriller? A romantic flick? Stevenson’s a little all over the place with the tone, but how could one not be when directing Jane who is undeniably one of the hottest, sexiest actresses in the history of moving pictures? They say Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (and I do), but put Jane into the picture and she makes me unsure. Not forgetting Babs and Eva, though.

  Happy (the great Hoagy Carmichael) works as a piano player at “The Last Chance” casino in Las Vegas. Back in the day, he played…

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  Review by vincent price was 6′4″

  howard hughes (derogatory)

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★

  The first half of this is very slow and I’m not sure I’d recommend it in a vacuum, but it has a variety of things going for it that add up to a pretty fun 90 minutes. Among those things are:

  •Jane Russell in 1952 was a goddamn force of nature. She’s got this magnetism that can’t be learned — either it’s there or it’s not and, hoo boy is it there in her. Her charisma gives her characters immense power: her flirting is terrifyingly alluring and her smiles make men melt, whether not they’re sincere, but when she’s cold she’s very cold indeed. And that’s not even mentioning what happens when she sings with that incredible, irresistible warmth ...

  •Related…

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  Review by Parker ★★★

  Vincent Price is cool when he's fighting monsters, when he is a monster and apparently he's also cool when he's establishing lines of credit and gambling.

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  Review by Todd! ★★★

  Watch this for “I Get Along Without Very Well (Except Sometimes)” if nothing else.

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  Review by Caroline ★★★

  Movies from the 50s are crazy bc they’ll star a woman and everyone is like “this is the hottest woman in the world” and her name is like Linda or something

  Helicopter chase is cool. Anything goes in Vegas.

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  Review by Neill Shaughness ★★★

  Hoagy Carmichael should be in every late night establishment.

  Ok screenplay with ok photography, but a terrific cast that give every scene a constant buzzing tension that isn't always earned by the script.

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  Review by Danny Reid ★★★½

  Russell and Mature both have the same sort of blunt-faced sexual heat, giving the movie a craggy charm. This is perfectly paired with the film's mid-century look (stone walls everywhere!), stiff suits (does Mature change his even once during this picture?) and how neon engulfs everyone throughout.

  The film itself is surprisingly laconic and clean considering the environs, feeling very studio-bound despite its many locations. The black and white also detracts-- this would be something to see in color. A surprisingly startling climax among the wind-swept ruins of an old navy air base give the film a pulse at long last.

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  Review by Paul D ★★½

  Not so much The Las Vegas Story as A Las Vegas Story and another attempt by Howard Hughes to foist the ample bosom of Jane Russell on an unsuspecting movie going public.

  If I was going to pick two people to head up my noirish thriller I wouldn't be choosing Jane Russell and Victor Mature neither of whose charms have ever been obvious to me.

  Vincent Price on the other hand is a different matter, but he doesn't get much of a role as Russell's newly acquired husband, who turns out to be all flash and no cash, and is sidelined halfway through.

  The only two points of interest here (no, I'm not talking about Russell's obvious assets) are Hoagy Carmichael and his songs, although he is rather awkwardly jammed into the movie, and a buttock-clenching stunt involving a helicopter flying through an open hangar.