Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese all reunited for another based-on-a-true-story gangster movie withCasinoin 1995, and just like inGoodfellas, some of the most shocking moments are pulled straight from history. Inarguably one of thebest gangster movies of the ’90s, as well as one of the best gangster movies ever,Casinocame out to some confusion when it premiered. With the three big names on the poster, and more gangsters, plenty of viewers thoughtCasinowas justGoodfellas Part II. It’s far from that, offering something completely different.
Set in the heyday of Las Vegas,Casinofollows Sam “Ace” Rothstein (De Niro), an associate of the Chicago mob outfit sent to the newly constructed city of Las Vegas to run casinos and skim the top for the mob back home. The mafia sends Nicky Santoro to help protect Ace’s operation. Ace’s childhood friend, Nicky, is a violent, hot-tempered criminal who decides to start doing a little more than just protection in Las Vegas, drawing the eye of the FBI on the whole operation. It’s a sprawling and brutal epic based on a real period of American history.
Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro Was Based On Anthony John Spilotro
Spilotro Was Known As “Tony The Ant”
Nicky Santoro,Ace’s diminutive but powerful Chicago friend, is based on Anthony John Spilotro, also known as “Tony the Ant”. Like Nicky, Spilotro was sent by the Chicago Outfit to help keep everything on an even keel in Las Vegas. However, his activities in the city accelerated the mob’s demise in Las Vegas (viaTheMobMuseum). Spilotro was arrested 13 times by his 21st birthday and Chicago mobsters were happy to bring in the terrifying enforcer. Even by mob standards,Spilotro’s methods were considered particularly cruel.
The “M&M murders” as they came to be known, were performed by Spilotro crushing the victims' heads in vices until their eyes popped.
In a scene dramatized and moved to Las Vegas inCasino, Spilotro and his associates killed a pair of thieves who had robbed Chicago Outfit houses. The “M&M murders” as they came to be known, were performed by Spilotro crushing the victims' heads in vices until their eyes popped. He was sent to Law Vegas in 1971 and quickly found the day-to-day work tedious and began committing crimes on his own, crimes he did not include the rest of the Chicago Outfit in on.
Casino: 10 Fun Facts About Scorsese’s Masterpiece
Though many dismiss Martin Scorsese’s Casino as a copycat of Goodfellas, the film is a wonderful piece of art, and here are some fun facts about it.
He started up the “Hole in the Wall Gang,” a street-level group known for breaking into banksby drilling into the sides of buildings. After six members of the gang were arrested during a robbery, Frank Cullotta was turned informant and told the FBI that Spilotro was responsible for the M&M murders years earlier. Spilotro beat the charges, but the Outfit was growing increasingly wary about their volatile agent in Las Vegas. When it was discovered that Spilotro was also having an affair with Lefty Rosenthal’s wife and possibly rigged his car to explode, Spilotro ran out of friends.
Robert De Niro’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein Was Based On Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal
Lefty Was A Loan Shark And An Illegal Bookie
The other half of theCasinolead pair is Sam “Ace” Rothstein, who is based on the real-life Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, a bookmaker, loan shark, and mob associate who was referred to as a “walking computer,” for his math skills (viaTheMobMuseum).Casinopicks up with Ace when he gets to Las Vegas, but the real Lefty had lived a long, criminal life before that.He’d previously been charged with several crimes while he lived in Miami, where he operated an illegal sports betting operationout of his apartment.
Lefty had even attempted to fix college basketball games by bribing players directly, among many other conspiracies. Eventually, Lefty was barred from gambling and his betting license was revoked in Florida, forcing him to get in deeper with the mob. The Chicago outfit sent Lefty to Las Vegas where he ran four casinos: the Stardust, Hacienda, Marina, and Fremont.Casinosimplifies things and turns them into one fictional casino called The Tangiers.
Lefty allegedly did not like his portrayal inCasino.
While he was there, Lefty fell in love with Geri McGee, a showgirl and escort, whose name is changed to Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) inCasino. Like inCasino, Geri had a daughter with her abusive high school boyfriend and cheated on Lefty with Spilotro. Though he never went to prison,Lefty was put into Nevada’s “Black Book”, which barred him from entering any casinos in the state, effectively ending his career. He helped consult onCasinoand passed away in 2008 at the age of 79.
Both The Character And The Man Ended Up In A Shallow Grave
One of the more disturbing moments inCasinocomes when Nicky and his brother Dominick (Philip Suriano) are ambushed in a cornfield, beaten with bats, stripped, and buried alive in a shallow grave. As Leonardo DiCaprio says inThe Wolf of Wall Street, “Like my pops, Mad Max, had said, The chickens had come home to roost.” So too did the chickens come home to roost on the real Spilotro and his brother. Fed up with Spilotro,the Chicago Outfit put a hit out on their own member.
In 2007, a federal court found James Marcello, an Outfit boss, responsible for the murder of the Spilotro brothers.
He and his brother, Michael in real life, were invited back to the Midwest for a conference. Instead of being driven to an airport, they were taken to a cornfield in the Willow Slough preserve near Enos, Indiana (viaChicagoTribune). After their bodies were found in a shallow grave, the autopsy determined the cause of death as “blunt force trauma”. It’s not known exactly what happened in that cornfield, but Scorsese’s rendition is probably not too far off.
What Casino Gets Right And Wrong About The True Story
Martin Scorsese Mostly Pulls From Real History For Casino
Beyond the names of the characters, Scorsese’sCasinoclosely mirrors the real events. The bombing of Ace’s car, Ginger’s drug overdose, the affair between Nicky and Ginger, Ginger’s boyfriend, Nicky’s death, andmany more tiny details are all based on real events that happened during that hectic period in Las Vegas' history. It makes sense that Scorsese wouldn’t feel the need to change the facts, considering he thinksCasinois all events and no plot. He said in an interview on the Blu-ray release ofCasino,
“…there’s no plot at all… a lot of action, a lot of story, but no plot…”
Without a plot, it’s easy to cram in all the incredible stories and shocking notes about what really happened in Las Vegas. The exact relationship between Spilotro and Lefty isn’t known, but it’s acknowledged that they were friends at one point.
Scorsese’s ability to create real seeming relationships with only a hint of who someone is probably means Ace and Nicky’s relationship was quite similar to the real one between Spilotro and Lefty. Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro reveal a strange dynamic between their characters inCasino, but it’s a dynamic that feels lifted straight from the pages of history, at least in emotion, if not entirely in fact.
Casino
Cast
Casino, directed by Martin Scorsese, follows Sam “Ace” Rothstein as he navigates the challenges of managing the Tangiers Casino in 1970s Las Vegas. As Rothstein contends with complications from his enforcer Nicky Santoro, wife Ginger, and various external pressures, he faces mounting personal and professional risks.
