Vegas: The City the Mob Made

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.

This documentary goes into a lot more depth than other videos about Las Vegas. The others say that Ben Siegel built the Flamingo, went over budget, stole the mob's money and got whacked. This video shows that there is a lot more to the story. There is a lot of archival still photos and film footage. The modern interviews are interesting, but filmed in an amateur manner. For example Anthony Curtis is viewed in profile during his commentary, which is a little weird. Can't beat the price for this amount of video. A typical "generation-X nanosecond attention span" would not allow many of them to survive watching all of this, but as person born in the 1950's I thought this was excellent! It was fascinating to hear the consensus from almost everyone interviewed that for the retail customer (gambler) things were better during the "mob years" as opposed to the "corporate-run" era. One of the guys interviewed stated that in the 50's if somebody gambled away all their money, the casino would give them a bus ticket home. Sadly, that wouldn't happen today. I recall hearing Debbie Reynolds saying on another documentary something to the effect that, during the mob-years "the only people who got killed were people that deserved to be killed."

Thanks

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 VegasEpisode 2: Las Vegas Before the MobEpisode 3: The Mob Comes to Las VegasEpisode 4: Las Vegas' Golden AgeEpisode 5: On Top of the WorldEpisode 6: Las Vegas Becomes a Modern CityEpisode 7: Vegas Reinvents ItselfEpisode 8: The end of Mob Rule in Las VegasEpisode 9: Corporate VegasEpisode 10: Las Vegas - America's Third City

Having recently visited Las Vegas for the first time I was interested to learn about the origins of this city in the middle of the desert. Vegas...The City The Mob Made answered all my questions on the subject....a well researched documentary broken into various chapters which covers the whole history of the origins of Las Vegas......The documentary is done in a style which is easy to understand without getting bogged down in politics too much....I would highly recommend this 2 Disc DVD set to anyone who has an interest in the history of Las Vegas.....A great edition to my DVD collection..

Great Documentary! If you're old enough to remember the Vegas of the 50's & 60's this is a must have for the video collection. Having older family in the entertainment industry in both Hollywood and Vegas that spanned the 40's, 50's & 60"s this documentary is right on with it's facts...LOL! Growing up in those times as a kid and staying at the "Thunderbird" and the "El Rancho" with my parents was very unique! Seeing this documentary even helped me remember some of those fun times going back stage and meeting my folks show biz friends. An era lost to today's Vegas goer's (our kids). Great Show!

Although there is quite a lot of repetition between episodes, the series as a whole is really quite interesting. No doubt there could have been a few more taking heads to go round, but the subject is pretty well covered and never boring. The editing on the DVDs is a bit sloppy, in the sense that being DVDs there is no need to include all the same intros. to each episode, which wastes quite a lot of time, not to mention the endless repetition. Maybe it was a good idea when originally broadcast, but clearly stupid for a DVD.Never mind, if you are interested in the development of this unique town in all its candy floss glory you could do a lot worse than watch this version. I have never actually been there but managed to get a pretty good taste of the place within its own special context. Had the editing been much tighter I might even have given it a 5 star rating. As it is, I think 3 1/2 stars would be my real rating - so I have rounded up to 4.

Very enjoyable story of Vegas . Mediocre narrator , could be better but overall a good purchase .

Good documentary about Las Vegas, origin and historical rise through the years. Too many repetitive scenes and narrations are drawn out on the same aspect. OK for limited viewingSita

I really enjoyed this. Great value for money and the seller delivered it well before the "due date"

Excellent documentary. If Vegas is of interest to you, this is a must see.