Las Vegas Shakedown (1955)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Sidney Salkow

Writer:

Steve Fisher (written by)

Release Date:

15 May 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

PUSHOVERS...They tried to escape their destiny, but the odds were against them! - GUNSELS...Trigger-happy, they believed in making every bullet count...it might be their last!

Plot Keywords:

Hotel Bar | Roadblock | B Movie | Cigarette Girl | Neon

Cast

Dennis O'Keefe	...	Joe Barnes
Coleen Gray	...	Julie Rae
Charles Winninger	...	Ernest 'Ernie' Raff
Thomas Gomez	...	Al 'Gimpy' Sirago
Mary Beth Hughes	...	Mrs. Mabel Dooley
Elizabeth Patterson	...	Mrs. Mary Raff
Dorothy Patrick	...	Dorothy Reid
James Millican	...	Wheeler Reid
Robert Armstrong	...	Doc (henchman)
Joe Downing	...	Henchman Matty
Herb Vigran	...	Milton Dooley (as Herbert Vigran)
James Alexander	...	Sam Costar, desk manager
Charles E. Fredericks	...	Sheriff Charlie Woods (as Charles Fredericks)
Murray Alper	...	House Manager Murray
Lewis Martin	...	Frank Collins, Henchman

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Company:

William F. Broidy Pictures Corporation

Movie Connections:

Edited into Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 10 (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

Miss You So

Low-rent 'Grand Motel' set in glorified cowtown of Vegas

Going by its title, its year of release, and its cast - Dennis O'Keefe, Colleen Gray, Thomas Gomez, Mary Beth Hughes - you might think Las Vegas Shakedown was a late film noir, but you'd be wrong. It's a sort of Grand Motel set in the early days of the Nevada gambling oasis when it really was The Pastures - a glorified cowtown.

O'Keefe runs the Rancho Something-Or-Other casino, and we know he's on the up-and-up because he testified before the Kefauver Committee on organized crime and sent mobster Gomez to Alcatraz. Gomez, now deranged, is barreling back into town, a couple of aging torpedoes in tow, to kill O'Keefe. Also into O'Keefe's establishment drift Hughes, who gambles away the three grand her husband was planning to open a lunch wagon in Salt Lake City with (she pleads with O'Keefe to give it back to her, but no dice); a straight-laced elderly couple from Nebraska, bank president Charles Winninger and his wife Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull on I Love Lucy); James Millican and Dorothy Patrick, a couple on the cusp of divorce; and a schoolmarmish author (Gray) who wants to research an exposé of Vegas - her last book was called `The Psychology of Science' - but ends up falling for O'Keefe instead. She should have stuck to her writing.

Their various stories are told as stand-alone, unconnected vignettes, and the movie is directed in a flat, uninteresting style by Sidney Salkow. Maybe the most arresting thing about Las Vegas Shakedown is its musical score by Edward J. Kay, mainly because its Big Theme seems strangely familiar - it's the same one he wrote for Decoy, 10 years earlier.