12 High Stakes Facts About “Casino”

Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 High Stakes Facts About Casino.  Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

1. IT ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE THE REAL GUY IT’S BASED ON WAS A BIG DE NIRO FAN.
The main character, Sam “Ace” Rothstein, is based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who was retired and living in Florida when writer Nicholas Pileggi came around wanting to write a book about his career. Rosenthal didn’t actively oppose the project, but he had no interest in helping, either—until he found out that Martin Scorsese planned to make Pileggi’s eventual book into a movie, and that Robert De Niro would probably be the star. Then he perked up, asking Pileggi (who also wrote GoodFellas) if he could arrange a meeting with De Niro. Next thing Pileggi knew, formerly reticent associates of Rosenthal’s were coming out of the woodwork, offering their cooperation.

5. JOE PESCI LOOKED SO MUCH LIKE THE REAL GUY THAT SOME CASINO PIT BOSSES DID DOUBLE-TAKES.
Pesci bore some natural resemblance to Tony “The Ant” Spilotro, the violent psychopath who busted heads for Rosenthal, and upon whom his character—Nicky Santoro—was based. In makeup, he looked even more like Spilotro—so much so that, according to Pileggi, when Pesci entered the casino where the movie was being shot, some pit bosses who’d had personal dealings with Spilotro “almost fainted.”

6. ACCORDING TO SCORSESE, THE FILM HAS “NO PLOT AT ALL.”
“There’s no plot at all,” Scorsese said in an interview included on the Blu-ray. “It’s three hours, no plot. So you know this going in. There’s a lot of action, a lot of story, but no plot.”