History Buffs: Casino

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[Music] hello and welcome history buffs my name is Nick Hodges and we're back again with another mobster classic this time we'll be taking a look at casino following the groundbreaking success of Goodfellas Martin Scorsese returned to the gangster genre that we all know and love and as before it is also based on real events that took place during the 1970s and 80s it was a time when the Mafia ruled the city of Las Vegas no other criminal organization and American history had ever risen to such power but not even this was enough for them to survive the changing times greed and recklessness would play key roles in their downfall especially by the actions of the real-life mobster played by Joe Pesci and oh speaking of which just because Joe Pesci's in this movie don't expect me to be making too many jokes in this video like I did with his music career my Goodfellas review there's just so much history to cover here that I feel needs to be prioritized and it's not because I'm worried my jokes have offended anyone well maybe Joe Pesci but I doubt he'll accept my apology anytime soon look I know I'm the last person you want to speak to you right now bye I sincerely am sorry for what I said about your music it was pretty childish for me to say the least so are we how we cool yes anyway it is in this epic drama the director Martin Scorsese explores the reign of a criminal empire and what led to its demise but how much of the story is true what separates between fact and Hollywood fiction well my fellow history buffs let's find out this is Casino [Music] if you look into the history of Las Vegas you'll find it colorful to say the least you could almost say that was a city built from crime even during the days of the Wild West was known as one of the most dangerous settlements in America isolated in the middle of the desert and as lack of law enforcement made it a breeding ground for criminals it had all sorts from cattle rustlers to thieves to bandits all of them look to Las Vegas to seek their fortune the same would be true decades later during the 1950's since gambling was legal in Las Vegas the map has spent millions of dollars building lavish hotels at casinos they threw these amazing musical shows that were headlined by such icons like Frank Sinatra Dean Martin and Elvis Presley and that in turn attracted the Hollywood elite to come down as well which brought in a sense of even more glamour and excitement to the city they even had these crazy wild parties where guests could watch atomic bombs being tested in the desert 50 miles away right from the comfort of their hotels this all helped transform Las Vegas into a thriving tourist industry bringing in 8 million visitors a year and 200 million dollars in legal casino profits but as impressive that this all was the Mafia never intended to go completely legitimate they wanted to use the casinos to launder their illegal money and later came up with a rackets called the skim the way it worked was that they would pockets untaxed casino money by falsifying records through rigged slot machines and weighing scales they were even able to infiltrate the completely out of bounds count rooms and take money right out of the cash boxes now notice how an account where nobody ever seems to see anything somehow somebody's always looking the other way now look at these guys they look busy right they're counting money who wants to bother business as usual oh hello the bike and that's all there is to it just another fat fuck walking out of the casino with a suitcase the Mafia found it so easy stealing money this way that they were able to do it every month which they then distributed amongst the families for whatever their invested ownership was of the casinos who was one of the easiest and most lucrative rackets they ever made now since that pretty much covers how the Mafia came to Las Vegas let's go ahead and look into the film itself the first thing I'd like to do is point out that casino is an entirely different animal - Goodfellas although they are both historical movies Goodfellas is technically the most accurate of the two and that's down to a creative decision made by Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi while Goodfellas openly states that is based on a true story Casino is only adapted from a true story so shouldn't be held to the same standard of accuracy it should really be regarded as historical fiction since none of its characters are named after the real people and some of the events have been either changed or altered entirely that being said the movie is still pretty accurate once you figure out who is who and what is what then everything becomes clear for example let's take a look at casinos leading protagonists ace Rothstein a mob associate who manages their biggest casino the Tangiers his reputation as a highly skilled gambler makes him the perfect man for the job now this character is based on a real person except it wasn't a suave scene but Frank lefty Rosenthal and he didn't manage one casino but for the Hacienda the Fremont the marina and the crown jewel the Stardust the main inspiration behind the Tangiers and just like his film counterparts lefty Rosenthal dedicated his life to gambling particularly in sports betting born in 1929 lefty spent his teenage years reading dozens of copies of newspapers sports magazines and racing forms he followed the progress of jockeys athletes sports teams and catalog past performances and playing patents whether it be in horse racing boxing or football lefty would find the inside scoop crunches numbers until he could accurately predict the odds when we were first hanging out together he'd know if the quarterback was on coke get the wind velocity so he could judge the field goals even figured out the different bounce you got off the different kinds of wood they use my college basketball court you know [Music] although lefty religiously followed the world of sports he was never a true fan of it it was just a way to make money now in the movie they never outright say where the character ace Rothstein is from or anyone else for that matter all they ever say is back home back home I'm not exactly sure why they do this but almost everybody came from Chicago including Lefty and it was in Chicago during the 1950's where he would meet his future employers starting out as a Clark and then later as a bookie he and his colleagues were allowed to operate by paying protection to crooked cops these cops in turn would kick a percentage of the tribute to the Chicago mafia also known as the outfit when they spotted left his talent they offered him a bigger role and their profit skyrocketed earning lefty a great deal of respect and eventually was put in charge of the entire legal bookmaking rackets this decision while lucrative for the mob wouldn't go unnoticed for very long throughout the 1960s lefty would have freaking run-ins with the law over charges of bribery and match-fixing although never formally convicted the authorities did make things easy for him such as getting him bans from the horse and dog tracks in Florida this kind of heat definitely hindered his ability to earn but fortunately for Lefty a golden opportunity came as way the Alpha decided that the best solution for Lefty was a fresh start in Las Vegas and offered him the job of running their casinos Gaming Commission would never doesn't gambling and bookmaking bitches I have a license to work in a casino all you gotta do is apply for one the state law says that you can work in a casino while they're processing your application they got a ten-year backlog but what happens when they do fine they'll never find out all you gotta do is keep changing your job title like fuck a senior executive to food and beverage and so in 1968 Frank Rosenthal came out to Las Vegas but UTA's criminal record he couldn't be officially recognized on paper as the casinos owner that job title had to go to a squeaky-clean frontman in the movie his name is Philip Green but the real guy was Alan Glick a real estate mogul like his character however he was for San Diego and not Arizona but a big thing left out in casino was his rivalry with lefty Alan Glick naively believed that since he was the official owner Rosenthal had to answer to him he was only a casino manager after all but Glick quickly realized that wasn't to be the case any decisions about running the casino was made by lefty whilst Glick was either kept out of the loop or ignored entirely not even the staff recognized clicks Authority it was clear to everyone that Frank Rosenthal was the real man in charge from his very first day lefty micromanaged every little thing that went on in his casinos like disciplining the dealers with how they placed their chips criticizing the showgirls over their weights and yes even obsessing about the quantity of blueberries sold in his muffins how many blueberries your muffin has and how many mine has you're just falling apart I'd not are you talking about it's like everything else is you know this never gets done this might seem a bit eccentric but it's absolutely true lefty made sure that every blueberry muffin had at least ten blueberries in them as you could see Rosenthal was extremely strict and was probably seen as a bit of a dick by a staff but he can't deny that he was damn good at his job he even had the foresight to introduce a sports betting parlor inside a casino something that no other casino thought of doing before he came along but as much as lefty prided himself by doing things by the book he wasn't above using violence another scene in the movie that turn out to be true is when the security catch a card cheat and bring him into a storage room and just like what we see ace Rothstein do here Rosenthal let that shooter go with a warning by breaking his hand with a hammer under lefty strict oversight casino profits more than doubled earning the outfit millions of dollars to protect their investment and the profitable skimming scam the bosses decided in 1971 to send one of their top it forces to Las Vegas and make sure everything ran smoothly in the film this enforcer is Nicky Santoro but his real name was Tony Spilotro now an interesting thing I'd like to mention was the brilliant decision to cast your Pesci for this role you might think it was a no-brainer given this incredible performance in Goodfellas but it should be noted that Joe Pesci didn't look anything like the real Tommy DeSimone who was six for two whilst he was only five foot four but what's cool in casino is the cast who worked out to be much more authentic since Tony Spilotro was short as well the five foot two mobster was nicknamed the ant and like a scene as Nicky Santoro Tony Spilotro also had a bit of a Napoleon complex and compensated for it by using excessive violence known as one of the most feared gangsters in Chicago Tony had dreams of becoming boss of his own family someday an opportunity to prove himself came on the 15th of May 1962 when two mob-connected men were found dead in the car it was the Scavo brothers and the murders raised quite a stir in Chicago as they had been on sank the rules of the Mafia was that she could not kill anyone under their protection but that first been given the okay otherwise you would be killed and the guys responsible were Billy McCarthy and Jimmy miraculous Tony Spilotro was given the task of finding them and killing them and the way he went about it inspired the most graphic scene and Casino you know the one that really sticks in your head it's that bit in the movie where an Irish crew shoots up a bar and kills two mobsters and a waitress which isn't true what happened to Billy McCarthy when Tony found him is two days into fucking nights we beat the shit out of this guy I mean we even stuck ice picks in his boss you better hope he gives me a fucking name soon I'm gonna give him yours Frank yes why do you never talk in a last-ditch effort to make Billy talk Tony stuck his head in a vise and it was only when it cranked it up popped out his eyeball did Billy finally give up his accomplice Jimmy by killing Billy and Jimmy Tony Spilotro is promoted into a made man he continued rising through the ranks in Chicago until 1971 when he was rewarded a job in Las Vegas the reason why was that the Alfred had learned that some of their counters were stealing money from the skim the bosses were naturally furious about this and felt the splotches presence alone would be enough to deter any more would-be thieves he was also expected to protect Frank Rosenthal an old friend of his from back in the day for the same reasons that I am and it'd make a lot of money for us once pilâtre was in las vegas that's exactly what he did he got everyone in line stopped the leaks and protected lefty this is pretty much all he was expected to do but Tony soon grew Restless with his assignment and wanted to take things to the next level now although the Mafia had a stake in running the casinos none of them were involved in any street-level crime this is because they wanted to make Las Vegas safe for tourists which made it untouched by organized crime Tony Spilotro got started by running a loan sharking racket extorting bookies and dealers alike he also intimidated the local criminals into paying him a street tax with Spilotro muscling in the city experienced a huge crime wave now you might be wondering why this didn't alarm the Mafia well it's simply due to greed spell atre was a good owner and as long as he kept them happy with money they were willing to look the other way and that's how lefty and spilatro the two biggest players in Las Vegas made their fortune for the next few years but it couldn't last forever [Music] it was 1975 when things first started going wrong for the mob in Vegas it turned out that the squeaky-clean frontman Allen Glick had a few secrets of his own a silent partner by the name of tomorrow rant had loaned clique half a million dollars a few years before and believed she was entitled to a 5% share the casinos when Glick refused to negotiate tomorrow rant filed a lawsuit against him one that would require opening Allen glicks books in court by pursuing legal action Tamara had unknowingly sealed her fate this was because opening the books threatened to expose the outfit leaving the with little choice but a sanction a hit and it happened almost exactly like we see in casino on November 9th 1975 a gunman broke into Tamara's home grabbed her by the jaw and shot her five times in the head the only difference is as unlikely that spilatro pulled the trigger himself in any case tomorrow rands murder made headline news and cost a lot of suspicion on Allen Glick harassed by hordes of journalists he denies having anything to do with her death or being affiliated with organized crime it didn't help though the suspicion alone was enough to convince authorities to take a closer look with a little digging they found out how Rosenthal had been secretly running the casinos without a gaming license and if he wanted to continue he'd have to apply for one before the Nevada Gaming Control Board which was an awkward position for lefty due to his criminal record nevertheless Rosenthal prepared his case as best he could and hoped his contributions to Las Vegas would see him through the hearing took place in January 1976 and left he felt fairly optimistic about his chances but before he was even given a chance to speak the board voted unanimously to reject his license barring him from working in any casino Rosenthal was completely outraged and vowed to fight the Gaming Control Board in court it wasn't until the following year in early 1977 to Rosenthal win his case with the Nevada Supreme Court overruling the Gaming Control board's decision and lifting the casino ban he could once again work in a casino but not in anything tied to gaming now although this was a big win for left he continues making a public spectacle in court in his fight for a gaming license something that the Mafia were adamantly against so they told Alan Glick to rehire Rosenthal as the food and beverage chairman so he could secretly go back to running the casinos but because left he wanted the clears public image he later chose another job in April 1977 he became the Stardust Entertainment director and hosted a late-night talk show called the Frank Rosenthal show where he interviewed celebrities like Frank Sinatra Don Rickles and even OJ Simpson he also showed musical acts and held discussions about the disco scene it wasn't very good to be honest but that didn't matter to Lefty he really just wanted to use his show as a platform to attack the Nevada Gaming Commission let's not take County Commissioner Pat Webb too seriously I recently challenged him to a debate on this program and he declined what are you worried about Pat you don't have to send me any questions you can ask me anything you want by parading himself on TV lefty was seriously testing the outfits patience instead of laying low he was bringing in all sorts of unwanted attention a problem that the bosses were already trying to deal with elsewhere while Rosenthal was fighting his legal battles in 1976 Tony Spilotro had been busy making moves of his own he opened a jewelry shop called the gold rush and used it as a base for a burglary crew he had recruited from Chicago from wealthy homes hotel rooms to jewelry stores they hit every target they possibly could the crew had figured out that many alarms were only tripped when a door was breached so what they did instead was to break you through the walls and ceilings this simple tactic earned them the nickname the hole in the wall gang and the media covered their every exploits Las Vegas had been relatively peaceful before splutter came along but had never seen anything quite like this the public quickly grew angry with how little was being done to stop these break-ins and this was due to investigations being hindered by corrupt cops and politicians who believe that the mobs casinos were too important to risk for Las Vegas economy especially over just a few burglaries seeing the corruption what it was it was down to the FBI to solve this mess by 1977 they placed Tony Spilotro and all his associates under constant surveillance which wasn't easy since pilâtre knew he was being watched thanks to a tip-off from the Metro Police picker bull you'll watch you and just like we see in casino Tony took precautions like buying anti surveillance equipment switching cars to throw off tails speaking in code of his taps phones and covering his mouth so his lips can be read the only thing you didn't do which we see in the movie was personally take part in these burglaries eventually splutter became so good eluding the FBI that they were willing to commit enormous resources on him I mean for example let's take a look at the scene when Niki santora's playing golf now you think that this bit might be too ridiculous to be true but surprisingly no on October 12th 1981 the FBI were flying a surveillance plane over the Las Vegas Country Club when it was abruptly forced to make an emergency landing much to the amusement of everyone watching the feds were watching Niki played golf for so long they ran out of gas okay that part isn't exactly true the plane didn't run out of fuel it just had mechanical problems but it doesn't really matter this was still a huge embarrassment to the FBI especially when they made the news I was playing tennis and I saw a plane just come down didn't hear any sounds cuz the engine must have been dead but despite his best efforts Spilotro couldn't throw off the feds forever by that point they already had a good idea of what the mob was doing in Vegas this was thanks to the Kansas City wiretap back in November 1978 which recorded some mobsters talking about the skin and what they discussed it's pretty close to what we see in casino the only big difference was that this happened in a pizzeria and not a grocery store by early 1979 spolanos ego was out of control thinking he was untouchable he began to grow reckless to the points whisper lotterer even stopped following mafia conduct a decision that ultimately led to his affair with Lefty's wife Jerry now sleeping with another man's wife in the Mafia is punishable by death something that's pilâtre didn't appreciate until much later I fucked up Frankie I fucked up Lou at this time I never started with this fucking broad and what's more is if you saw anyone else having an affair then you had to tell the boss a situation that's blotters best friend Frank Cullotta found himself in when rumors of the affair reach Chicago there's one thing about these old-timers they don't like any fucking around with the other guys wives it's bad for business so I lied even though I knew that by lying the gahjii I could wind up getting killed too no I ain't seen anything like that this didn't really convince the bosses as they heard rumors of Spilotro flaunting his affair with Jerry out in public but without any confirmation then all they had was their suspicions that same yes pilâtre found out that an associate of is called Jerry Lisner had been arrested and wanted to cut a deal with the FBI so on October 10th 1979 Spilotro sent Frank Cullotta to kill him but what Frank didn't realize until after the murder was that Tony Spilotro had lied about getting the OK from Chicago which is another grave offense of the Mafia also punishable by death but spilatro didn't seem too concerned he probably felt that as long as he continued to be a good earner the outfit would always look the other way but just a few months later in December 1979 Tony Spilotro is blacklisted by the Nevada Gaming Commission and was banned from every casino in the state and the casinos can be fined as much as a hundred thousand every time he shows up in this shit yes I certainly can the only thing I can't believe is how many people you said are in the black book my work is a bunch of bullshit they get to named an airport country throughout I honestly don't know why this is in the movie because it doesn't make any sense Al Capone could have been in the black book because he died in 1947 and the book didn't exist until 1960 and it didn't just have two people in it by 1979 for something closer to 14 anyway by not being allowed in the casino men that Spilotro couldn't oversee the skim the very job he was assigned to do so you could probably guess just how fed up the Chicago Outfit was with them but worse was still yet to come by early 1981 the FBI made a major breakthrough their case by flipping a member from the hole-in-the-wall gang the alarms expert Sal Romano who spent several months secretly recording their meetings the crew were getting ready for their biggest score yet to rob a jewelry store called Bertha's gifts and home furnishings with a potential 1 million dollar payout the plan was to break into the store roof on the 4th of July 1981 so the Independence Day fireworks could muffle their drilling under the cover of darkness the crew crept onto the roof and began their work only to be surrounded moments later by dozens of cops and FBI agents almost the entire crew was arrested and charged with multiple counts of burglary including spolanos right-hand man and best friend Frank Cullotta whose characters renamed Frank Marino and Casino now we don't see any of this in the movie but this was a crucial moment to tony spilotro's downfall while Frank Cullotta was in jail the FBI repeatedly offered to reduce his sentence if he became a government witness but since Frank was loyal he refused to rat that was until a few months later when a federal agent played for him one of their wiretaps and on the tape was a recorded phone call between Tony Spilotro and the Chicago Outfit receiving the green light to kill Frank this was devastating to Frank as he had kept his honor but faced with certain death Frank decided to accept the deal and was placed into witness protection in early 1982 things escalated even further that year on October 4th lefty Rosenthal was leaving a restaurant and got into his car but when he turned the key in the ignition the car suddenly burst into flames the bomb had been made for him but it failed to go off properly leaving a badly burns lefty to escape with his life it still isn't known who was responsible but there may have been Tony Spilotro trying to cover up his affair with Jerry it could also have been a sanction hit by the Mafia for all of lefties legal problems in any case the failed car bombing had sent a clear message and convinced lefty to leave Las Vegas for good in 1983 the knocked over 24th 1983 spinatra was indicted and stood trial in Chicago for the murders of billy mccarthy and timmy miraculous back in 1962 however he was acquitted because the judge Thomas J Maloney decided that Frank Cullotta testimony wasn't quite good enough now if you're thinking that's a bit shady and he should probably know that same judge was later convicted for bribery in 1992 anyway all those pilâtre got away this time he wasn't done yet within a month he was hit by three different indictments based on further evidence by Frank Cullotta they ranged from armed robbery the murder of Jerry Lisner and his involvement with the skin the FBI had also collected enough evidence to indict 15 mob bosses from Chicago Milwaukee Cleveland and Kansas City to top it all off the Nevada Gaming Commission then shut down all of their casinos costing the outfit a fortune in lost revenue the next few years were spent with everyone going in and out of court and by 1986 five of the bosses were sent to prison that was the last straw as fast Tony Spilotro was concerned and a decision was made to kill him now the way it happens in the movie is kind of close to the truth but not exactly we see Niki and his brother Dominic meets up with a bunch of mobsters in a cornfield when they suddenly start getting beaten with baseball bats and his Nicki Centaurus best friend Frank Marino who lands the first blow now as I mentioned before Frank marinas character is heavily based on Frank Cullotta who obviously couldn't have killed Tony and his real brother Michael since he was in witness protection the two brothers were also not killed with baseball bats or buried alive in my opinion it was much more brutal than that I actually think that the reason the used baseball bats is because it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek reference to Goodfellas I'm sure you can all remember that the act of Frank Vincent also play Billy batts and since he gets killed by Joe Pesci in that movie they figured that Frank Vincent should kill him in this movie with a baseball bat no less anyway so what really happened was on the 14th of June 1986 Tony was invited to Chicago to see his brother Michael become a made man the ceremony was to take place in the basement of an isolated house but once Tony and Michael were downstairs they realized that everyone else in the room was wearing gloves the two brothers were then violently punched and kicked to death from all directions this execution was as personal as it could get everyone wanted a piece of Tony for all the damage he caused by the time they were finished the two brothers were unrecognizable from their wounds the bodies were then driven out to a cornfield and buried in an unmarked grave before being discovered by a farmer just over a week later on the 23rd of June 1986 so the last thing I want to talk about in this review is the betrayal Frank lefty Rosenthal for the most part casino does a pretty good job of representing the real man through his clothing his mannerisms his obsession to detail and acknowledging that the man was an egotistical prick but because he's the main protagonist the movie does take a few liberties in making him more sympathetic not a lot but just enough for the audience to get the wrong impression of him the most obvious way they do this is through his on-screen relationship with his wife Jerry who has renamed ginger in the movie now I think we can all agree that this is a marriage made in hell and his biggest reason seems to be ginger she's a character hated by many for being a manipulative volatile woman who only marries ace for his money and obsessing of a materialistic wealth are hardly romantic qualities that people look up to in a relationship [Music] we may have been banned from Twitter but the movies keep on Rome and this month we're better Aces High as we become moving matchmaker casino we dip reloj Bennifer in this romantic comedy ginger Gamble's for love a sweet-talking go-getter who knows what she wants and how to get it somebody get me some ginger coz this girl's given me butterflies Sam a man who's not afraid to wear pink and respects women as long as there's a mutual respect that kind of thing Nikki the party animal who still finds time to be a family man and Lester Sam may have put a ring on it but diamonds are a girl's best friend the season of giving continues and so can you by voting in your favorites endless smashing that like button anyway I'm not trying to say that the real woman was something of a saint just that some of the details in a story have been tweaked to make her on-screen character look much worse in the movie the real Jerry was Geraldine McGee from Los Angeles California she originally started out as an aspiring dancer and swimsuit model her agent and also her lover was a man called Lenny mom or and he's the basis for the character lester diamond but sound like in the movie lenny mom or wasn't a pimp and jerry wasn't his former prostitute nor was he any of the other things claims by ace Rothstein but one thing that just could never understand was that she could have everything under control except for her old pimp boyfriend Lester diamond he was a moocher a card sheik a country club golf hustler scumbag chasing dentists for a few bucks by making lester a pimp movie not only turns the audience against him but also changes his relationship with ginger we see ginger as a victim of Lester not his romantic partner but in real life Jerry and Leni were highschool sweethearts and they even had a daughter together a fact completely left town casino in 1960 Lenny convinced Jerry to move to Las Vegas to find work while si stayed behind in Los Angeles she spent the next several years working as a cocktail waitress a showgirl and as a socialite before finally meeting lefty Rosenthal in 1968 lefty completely fell in love with Jerry and he started a relationship together but when he proposed just a year later Jerry had to explain that she didn't share the same feelings as he did so what left he did instead was pidge's proposal like a job opportunity promising financial security for Jerry and her daughter and an assurance that she could keep her independence whether she loved him or not under those conditions jerry agreed and they got married in 1969 by 1973 the couple had a son together but already their marriage had begun falling apart left he expected jerry to commit to being a mother and a housewife but jerry resented Lefty's efforts to control her so she go out every night drinking and passing on the strip eventually it got so bad the lefty threatened a divorce and had take custody of their son and she cut back on her drinking and agreed to have a second child Jerry reluctantly accepted as she gave birth to a baby girl not that it solved anything now while we do see casino just how toxic their married life was it does make ginger look like she was most at fault through our drug and alcohol addiction and the time she's tied up her daughter to the bed what we don't see is ace Rothstein cheat on her or viciously beat her like the real left he did throwing ginger out of the house or threatening to kill her for tying up his daughter is about as physical as ace ever gets you ever fucking touch her again you ever do anything like that again I'll fuckin kill you pure and simple all lace really does is force ginger to carry a beeper so you can know where she is at all times but he get the impression that ace reluctantly feels that he has to do to her self-destructive behavior whereas the real Lefty had always been controlling he micromanaged their marriage like he was one of his casinos he taped a daily schedule to the fridge and made a check-in with him every day and when he take this into consideration you can begin to kind of understand why Jerry acted the way she did like the time she tried to run off with her kids with Al anymore more or even her affair with Tony Spilotro she was basically looking for a way out so like I said before casino does take a few liberties but there are enough to make lefty Rosenthal look pretty good by the end of it but there's one thing I found out about this guy that not even the filmmakers were aware of there's a very strong case that Frank lefty Rosenthal was a rat I know this might be hard to believe it isn't mentioned in the film or in many books or documentaries and the reason why is because this didn't become public knowledge until after Lefty's death on October 30th 2008 when a journalist called Jane and Morrison published an article that very day she stated that left he was given the codename Achilles was described as a top echelon informant to the FBI and provided first-hand knowledge of the Chicago Outfit and their casino scheme operation now there's a couple of reasons why I think this might be true one is that Jane and Morrison has been following this story since the very beginning if you look at this pic for example you could see a interview in Tony Spilotro in 1933 and I was also intrigued when I found the Declassified FBI files they're released only as recently as 2017 and they do mention an informant called Achilles confirming or Jana and Morrison wrote an article back in 2008 there's also this great panel you should check out by the mob museum discussing the real history behind casino and they not only reveal that lefty was an informant but also that his wife Jerry was an FBI source I was told by Al they he had him lefty as an informant and that Jerry Rosenthal was a source they didn't know the other one was talking to the same agent now with lefty Rosenthal I can go so far as saying that I know I knew there was something something odd with him because I know on numerous occasions morning morning - and probably up to maybe the fire there's no I I was always test it was given the subpoena by my supervisor go serve it on lefty Rosenthal but I did service subpoena on a minute but I know the subpoenas never did anything not just to be clear this is not a hundred percent confirmed but the information I was able to find was enough to convince me that this is true because when you stop to think about it it does make sense lefty never made a bet in his life that first calculating the odds and seeing them stacked so high up against him years before anyone else did he somehow figured out a way to avoid prison without having to testify in open court and still keep all his money the only thing he didn't do was go back to working for the Mafia as we are told in casino [Music] well that about wraps it up my name is Nick Hodges and thanks for watching history buffs and remember if you like the show help the channel grow if you wish to support history buffs that he can outdo so add patreon and as always let me know in the comment section what you thought about casino and of course what historical movie show I review next in the meantime check out the history buffs Twitter and Facebook page for new updates until then I'll see you next time [Music]

Info

Channel: History Buffs

Views: 1,974,768

Rating: 4.907155 out of 5

Keywords: history buffs, historically accurate, historically inaccurate, historical accuracy, martin scorsese (film director), historically accurate movies, Joe Pesci, robert de niro, Mafia, Cosa Nostra, Las Vegas, Gambling, Sharon Stone, frank cullotta, Tony Spilotro, frank lefty rosenthal, geri mcghee, Chicago Outfit, Mob, Nicholas Pileggi, FBI, Movie Monsters

Id: WINbMo5poQ4

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 38min 24sec (2304 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2019

Reddit Comments

One of my all time favourite movies. James Woods’ performance as the skeezy friend/pimp has always stuck out as one of the best I’ve ever seen him do. Not to mention Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and Sharon Stone killed it in their roles.

I can’t believe this is what Las Vegas used to be like back when. They really nailed the look and feel of what I would have thought Las Vegas would have been like, after seeing all the photos and videos. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch this movie whenever the opportunity comes up!

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Feb 12 2019 🗫︎ replies

Great movies, based on the book "Casino" by Nicholas Pileggi. Oddly enough I read the book while working in the old Stardust in some of the locations mentioned in the book.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/sfvbritguy 📅︎︎ Feb 12 2019 🗫︎ replies

Ginger wasn’t that kind of girl ! Why’d he marry her ! Great movie

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/LadyAmazon333 📅︎︎ Feb 13 2019 🗫︎ replies