The Las Vegas Story

Here is a film that tantalizingly suggests what it might have been, if only it had trusted its own best instincts. RKO’s The Las Vegas Story opens with all the promise of a good noir—Hoagy Carmichael’s knowing narration, genuine casino footage that serves as an invaluable time capsule of 1952 Las Vegas, and Jane Russell and Vincent Price conveying reams about their tense relationship through subtext and body language. Yet by its conclusion, we’re watching helicopter stunts in a desert hangar, wondering how we strayed so far from the neon-lit promise of those opening reels.

The story sees Russell play a former lounge singer married to wealthy Price, who encounters old flame Victor Mature (now a cop) during a Las Vegas stopover. Murder intervenes, as it must, and complications ensue. The film’s great strength lies in its authentic Vegas atmosphere. The scenes inside the Flamingo (standing in for the fictional “Fabulous” casino) crackle with genuine energy and period detail. Here is Hollywood actually using real locations to serve the story, rather than merely as exotic backdrop.

But the film stumbles whenever it moves away from this authentic milieu. The scenes in Russell’s former workplace, “The Last Chance,” feel stagey and unconvincing—more soundstage than saloon. Worse still is the film’s abandonment of Las Vegas entirely for a climactic chase sequence that belongs in a different picture altogether.

The film’s other misstep is casting Mature. Where Robert Mitchum (who starred with Russell and Price in the previous year’s superior His Kind of Woman) would have brought smoldering intensity, Mature delivers emotional vacancy. His face remains bizarrely immobile throughout, most egregiously in what should be a pivotal moment when he first glimpses Russell—only his ears seem capable of registering surprise.

The script, credited to Earl Felton and Harry Essex, contains flashes of genuine wit. When Price discovers Russell lost in thought, he observes, “I’ve got the feeling I interrupted a conversation between you and the desert”—a line that captures both the character’s perceptiveness and the film’s occasional poetic sensibility. Price’s last line is equally well-crafted, as is Russell’s. These moments hint at the sharper, more character-driven film this might have been.

Indeed, The Las Vegas Story works best when it functions as a “hangout picture,” allowing us to spend time with these characters in this specific place and time. Hoagy Carmichael, in particular, seems completely at ease, stealing every scene with his natural charisma and musical interludes. Price, still a decade away from his horror icon transformation, displays the easy charm his later career would rarely accommodate. There’s a film to be made simply watching these people navigate the gambling halls and hotel lounges of early Vegas.

But the picture gets bogged down in plot mechanics that don’t serve its strengths, leading to an absurd finale that abandons Vegas entirely for a deserted army base, where helicopter stunts substitute for meaningful resolution. The sequence plays like it was spliced in from another movie entirely, and strains credibility on multiple levels—how does a leg wound prevent flying? How do our protagonists return from that army base?

Disappointing given there’s also a darker film noir lurking beneath the surface. Price’s embezzlement seems motivated by his desire to maintain Russell in the lifestyle she expects, despite sensing that she remains with him for security rather than love. This reading would complicate our sympathies and deepen the moral landscape, but the film treats Price as a conventional villain rather than a tragic figure undone by his awareness of an unbalanced relationship.

Indeed, The Las Vegas Story ultimately feels like a missed opportunity—a film with authentic atmosphere, capable performances (from most of the cast), and genuine location appeal that gets derailed by conventional plot obligations. In its best moments, it suggests the kind of character-driven noir that might have emerged if Hollywood had trusted audiences to enjoy spending time with interesting people in an interesting place, without the need for helicopter chases and desert showdowns.

The film is worth seeing for its glimpse of early Las Vegas and for Price’s engaging performance, but it ultimately resembles its setting: flashy and promising on the outside, but rigged against satisfaction. Like a gambler who occasionally hits small payouts but leaves broke, viewers will find momentary pleasures that only heighten the disappointment of what might have been.