Vegas: The City the Mob Made

3 thoughts on “Vegas: The City the Mob Made”

1. 27 of 27 people found the following review helpful

   
   THE Documentary about Vegas !, June 27, 2011

   By 

   Jonathan Turbide (Quebec, Canada) –

   Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Vegas: The City the Mob Made (DVD)

   I bought this DVD 5 days ago and this is already one of my favorite documentary. I have over 40 Documentaries on DVD, from Unsolved Mysteries to Cities of the Underworld, and this documentary about The Mob/Vegas is by far one of the best I have ever seen. This great Documentary is a mix of so many things I find interesting: History, The Mob, The 30’s-40’s…I am a sucker for everything about History and everything about The Mafia, so buying this DVD was a no brainer. Everything about this DVD is great; The narrator, The music, The people interviewed, The Footage….And just to make this DVD even better is the fact that you can buy it for less than 10$ !! I actually bought it for 3.99$ here on Amazon !! Can you believe that, 4$ for a great Doc. like that one ?! Trust me, add this great documentary in your collection, you won’t be disappointed.

   The documentary is in 10 parts, each part is around 45 minutes long, the documentary is 7 Hours+ long. The listing is:
   Episode 1: The Mob Before Las Vegas
   Episode 2: Las Vegas Before the Mob
   Episode 3: The Mob Comes to Las Vegas
   Episode 4: Las Vegas’ Golden Age
   Episode 5: On Top of the World
   Episode 6: Las Vegas Becomes a Modern City
   Episode 7: Vegas Reinvents Itself
   Episode 8: The end of Mob Rule in Las Vegas
   Episode 9: Corporate Vegas
   Episode 10: Las Vegas – America’s Third City

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2. 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

   
   Informative and Entertaining, November 23, 2009

   By 

   J. Green –
   
     

   This review is from: Vegas: The City the Mob Made (DVD)

   I really learned a lot watching this documentary. The historians and locals interviewed are really well-informed and have a real sense of the city’s history in the context of the much larger US history narrative. Some of the information in later episodes is repetitive, but the series does a good job of explaining the role of the mob in developing the city; the historical importance of Las Vegas dating from the 19th century (did you know the Mormons were important in the settlement of this oasis town?); and the changing times and attitudes in the US with regard to gambling, prostitution, drinking/prohibition; and most importantly, perhaps, corporate economic power.
   Though I’ve driven through the city several times, I’ve never been intrigued by it. Now I am, thanks to this series.

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3. 16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

   
   Vegas: The DVD the Rotary Club Made, June 17, 2012

   By 

   Scott Hammond (Atlanta, GA) –

   Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Vegas: The City the Mob Made (DVD)

   I can’t say with any certainty, but evidently these episodes were made for some sort of PR campaign by either the city of Las Vegas, Clark County, or the state of Nevada. There’s very little about any gangsters. I’ve watched six episodes so far, and they’re repetitive and full of the sort of information you’d expect to hear on your local city council’s cable channel. You know, the one that’s so boring you’d rather watch The Weather Channel and see a tornado warning from three states away rather than another repetition of last month’s council discussion concerning concrete vendors and the delays plaguing the new Wal-Mart parking lot?

   In the episodes I’ve seen, the name of Bugsy Siegel is dropped a few times, mentioning as an aside his association with Meyer Lansky; then (in what would surely make an excellent pilot episode for a new TV series called EXTREME ACCOUNTANTS) we’re informed, with little detail or explanation, that Bugsy got whacked for blowing too much money on his hotel; and finally we hear some guys who claim to be experts briefly explain “the skim”; that’s about all the “Mob” you get.

   Most of the program time is taken up with city booster stuff, like why the Strip is located where it is, how water enabled the city to grow dramatically, how tax breaks were exploited by the casinos, and how regular folks moving into the area after the war took away the city’s Western flavor. Really? No doubt future episodes, which I’ll skip as I sell this set on a well-known auction site, will mention such riveting topics as the number of high schools in Clark County or who designed the city’s trash management system.

   There is one interesting scene. We’re shown footage in which we see 1950’s tourists troop out onto a hotel’s grounds after sunset, at the behest of the management, to watch a nuclear blast out in the desert. The narrator tells us this was a normal occurance during the era of above-ground testing. “Honey, did I leave my lead-lined Fruit-of-the-Looms back in Buffalo?”

   Want to know about the Mob in Vegas? Rent CASINO on DVD, or watch one of several excellent documentaries about Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Leave this DVD series to the folks who live in Vegas and who really, REALLY love their town.

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