No more shines, Billy

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

On 8/6/2024 at 11:06 AM, Texzilla588 said:

The scene of Nicky and his brother being beaten and buried alive in a hole really creeps me out. That is a fear of mine. It is supposedly very close to how they killed and buried Spilotro.

Spilotro Bros were beaten to death in a basement. They pissed a lot of people off. The Outfit’s Administration were allegedly present a because they wanted to watch. Aiuppa (Remo in the film) was pretty blood thirsty so I’ll buy it. The cornfield was a botched burial. I believe the crew assigned to dispose of the bodies all got clipped. Chicago didn’t fuck around back then. I think Chicago was willing to put up with a lot of shit because Tony’s West Coast Crew was large and pretty fearsome, but when he wanted to start a war back home, that was the final straw. 
 

Dorfman got whacked in 1983. Spilotro in 1986. Scorsese is making a film, so he can do what he wants to tell his story. 
 

I’d love to see an Ant West Coast film. He basically ran Phoenix, LA, San Diego, and Vegas from the early 1970’s to his death in the mid 1980’s. 

[Sawbonz 27523]

On 1/10/2023 at 8:01 AM, Bateshorn said:

It’s weird, I’ve seen this movie exactly once. Probably at a dollar theater, 30 years ago.  And never seen it again except the shoe shine scene a million times (kind of hard to avoid)

But I’ve probably seen Casino at least 4-5 times, out of order, on cable.

The fuck is wrong with you?

[Sawbonz 27523]

On 1/12/2023 at 7:43 PM, Deej said:

One of the greatest, if not the greatest, Steadicam shots ever.

 

 

 

 

 

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

I love Casino. Great movie. One of the best of the 1990’s.

But as we saw in The Irishman, Scorsese doesn’t give a shit about the truth. He just wants to make art.

By many, many first hand accounts The Ant (Nicky in the film) was a gentleman and never cursed, drank, or did drugs, at least in public. This comes straight from waiters, bartender, and casino employees that regularly interacted with him. Rosenthal (Ace in the film) was an abrasive, chain smoking asshole. Many of the same first hand sources. There’s also widespread speculation that Rosenthal was a FBI informant. The files released after his death, well they don’t make him look good. 

But Rosenthal survived and sold his story to Nicholas Pileggi. The Henry Hill car wash treatment. The book is terrific, more honest, and focuses on the skim/ FBI investigations instead of the Sam-Ginger- Nicky love triangle. One thing that was true, Geri (Ginger in the movie) was a piece of ass.

Edited August 9 by billfromlaketravis

[Texzilla588 769]

Scorsese isn’t a documentarian. He’s a storyteller. Takes pieces of truth and weaves a bit of entertainment.

I don’t think he presents Ace as a super wonderful dude. The muffins, Joe Bob Briggs, obsession with the gaming commission, reveal him to be obsessive. I don’t see chain smoking as a character flaw; in that time it was common.

[Frank Drebin 5654]

On 8/6/2024 at 11:06 AM, Texzilla588 said:

The scene of Nicky and his brother being beaten and buried alive in a hole really creeps me out. That is a fear of mine. It is supposedly very close to how they killed and buried Spilotro.

No it is not.  They were beaten to death with hands and feet in a basement somewhere.  They were not buried alive.

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

20 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

No it is not.  They were beaten to death with hands and feet in a basement somewhere.  They were not buried alive.

Per the Family Secrets Trial, it was a house in Bensenville.

I believe the Ant thought he would become a capo and his brother would get made. So the movie got that right. 

The Ant’s direct report and capo was Joey The Clown Lombardo. Joey was in jail at the time of murder, so Ant thinking he’d get promoted to run the Grand Avenue Crew seemed plausible. 

Edited August 12 by billfromlaketravis

[Texzilla588 769]

I could have sworn I read that it was close to the actual whacks but at my age the synapses pull different shit from different files. Checked it out. Yep, beaten to death in a house. Buried in a cornfield.

[66BUFF 2562]

19 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Per the Family Secrets Trial, it was a house in Bensenville.

I believe the Ant thought he would become a capo and his brother would get made. So the movie got that right. 

The Ant’s direct report and capo was Joey The Clown Lombardo. Joey was in jail at the time of murder, so Ant thinking he’d get promoted to run the Grand Avenue Crew seemed plausible. 

 

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

I finally revisited Casino the novel by Nicholas Pileggi. Goodfellas is next.

- Interviews with Cullotta (portrayed by the great Frank Vincent) and Rosenthal (De Niro) were the author’s primary source material. Spilotro (Pesci) can’t say shit because he was dead. 
 

- Some Cullotta bullshit that the author never bothered to verify: 1) He claims his next door neighbor was killed by accident by Spilotro’s goons. He then waits 3 days before he turns himself into the feds. 2) He thinks the Rosenthal car bombing was carried out by the group of low life’s that Geri Rosenthal (Sharon Stone) was running with. Pretty sophisticated attack for drug addicts, hustlers, and pimps. I think it was either Milwaukee or Cleveland. Some recent stuff has come out that Rosenthal was a rat, and the boss of Milwaukee knew about it. 3) He’s never mentioned the name, but Cullotta liked to tell the story of a botched hit where he didn’t use enough powder in the cartridge. It was almost certainly Ken Eto. He ran Asian gambling houses in Chinatown for the Outfit. He later became a government witness.

- Reading between the lines, Joey Lombardo and his guys in the Grand Avenue Crew backed or didn’t have a problem with Spilotro, but the boss Joey Aiuppa backed Rosenthal. As portrayed in the movie, Rosenthal made a lot of money handicapping for Aiuppa. Lombardo was present at the Spilotro murders. I believe Aiuppa was already in the can for the skim. 
 

- I think Spilotro had a decent chance of skating. He had a very good attorney in Oscar Goodman (later became mayor of Vegas), and they couldn’t pen a murder on him. He had 3 pending trials. 1) One was a basically a civil trial. 2) The second was for an additional skim operation at the Stardust. 3) The third case ended previously in a mistrial. He was murdered for other stuff.

- Based on the novel, they never really had control of Allen Glick (portrayed by Kevin Pollak). The boss of Milwaukee scared him, coerced him, but he wasn’t their subordinate. He cooperated of course and put everybody away. Weird choice to keep him alive. I think the mob was courting him based on the Tamara Rand murder. Maybe they thought if they made the Rand problem go away, he’d be beholden to them. 
 

- I think Casino is more interesting subject matter than Goodfellas. Henry Hill embellished a lot of shit. I will acknowledge fact checking is difficult when retelling criminals’ stories, but Pileggi could have double checked Hill’s statements with police and FBI reports. 

Edited October 22 by billfromlaketravis

[Frank Drebin 5654]

13 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I finally revisited Casino the novel by Nicholas Pileggi. Goodfellas is next.

- Interviews with Cullotta (portrayed by the great Frank Vincent) and Rosenthal (De Niro) were the author’s primary source material. Spilotro (Pesci) can’t say shit because he was dead. 
 

- Some Cullotta bullshit that the author never bothered to verify: 1) He claims his next door neighbor was killed by accident by Spilotro’s goons. He then waits 3 days before he turns himself into the feds. 2) He thinks the Rosenthal car bombing was carried out by the group of low life’s that Geri Rosenthal (Sharon Stone) was running with. Pretty sophisticated attack for drug addicts, hustlers, and pimps. I think it was either Milwaukee or Cleveland. Some recent stuff has come out that Rosenthal was a rat, and the boss of Milwaukee knew about it. 3) He’s never mentioned the name, but Cullotta liked to tell the story of a botched hit where he didn’t use enough powder in the cartridge. It was almost certainly Ken Eto. He ran Asian gambling houses in Chinatown for the Outfit. He later became a government witness.

- Reading between the lines, Joey Lombardo and his guys in the Grand Avenue Crew backed or didn’t have a problem with Spilotro, but the boss Joey Aiuppa backed Rosenthal. As portrayed in the movie, Rosenthal made a lot of money handicapping for Aiuppa. Lombardo was present at the Spilotro murders. I believe Aiuppa was already in the can for the skim. 
 

- I think Spilotro had a decent chance of skating. He had a very good attorney in Oscar Goodman (later became mayor of Vegas), and they couldn’t pen a murder on him. He had 3 pending trials. 1) One was a basically a civil trial. 2) The second was for an additional skim operation at the Stardust. 3) The third case ended previously in a mistrial. He was murdered for other stuff.

- Based on the novel, they never really had control of Allen Glick (portrayed by Kevin Pollak). The boss of Milwaukee scared him, coerced him, but he wasn’t their subordinate. He cooperated of course and put everybody away. Weird choice to keep him alive. I think the mob was courting him based on the Tamara Rand murder. Maybe they thought if they made the Rand problem go away, he’d be beholden to them. 
 

- I think Casino is more interesting subject matter than Goodfellas. Henry Hill embellished a lot of shit. I will acknowledge fact checking is difficult when retelling criminals’ stories, but Pileggi could have double checked Hill’s statements with police and FBI reports. 

Good post.  But I am pretty sure Cullota killed Jerry Lisner with the half loads.  And then dumped him in the pool.  This was revealed in one of Cullota's books and on his podcast.

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

6 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

Good post.  But I am pretty sure Cullota killed Jerry Lisner with the half loads.  And then dumped him in the pool.  This was revealed in one of Cullota's books and on his podcast.

Another sweetheart government deal with a murderer. Collotta admitted to 4 murders and did 2 years. 

The guy was a thief, and had no interest in being in the Outfit. He would probably stayed a thief if he wasn’t associated with Spilotro. 

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

I reread Wise Guy. 

- Hill claims that Jimmy was such a money maker that Lucchese and Colombo split him. I think he misspoke. There’s nothing that links Burke to the Colombos. He worked for Paul Vario. Vario got $60k and a Colombo captain also received $60k for Air France. And that’s it. 
 

- Hill says the Luccheses split JFK with Bonannos by the Lufthansa heist in 1978. Vincent Asaro got a 6 figure tribute after the heist. I honestly think Jimmy paid tribute to Vario and Asaro and that was it. He might have pocketed somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million dollars. 
 

- Hill couldn’t give the government shit on Lufthansa because he wasn’t involved. If he did anything, he brought Krugman’s tip to Jimmy. That’s it.

- I’ll buy Hill didn’t directly participate in any murders. He worked pretty hard to keep the Air France security guard alive. 
 

- I believe Hill put Vario and Burke away on the Boston College point shaving scheme. Other cases put them away for life. The book definitely glosses over this in the prologue. While I think Vario and Hill might have been personally close, Hill wasn’t intimately involved in Vario’s criminal life. Hill snitched on a bunch of two bit crooks in his drug ring. 
 

- Famous labor racketeer and Lucchese capo Johhny Dio knew Hill was dealing drugs in prison and wanted to clip Hill in the can. Vario made a big mistake intervening. 
 

- Hill blames every pinch and mess up on his crew. Never takes responsibility. The guy was a drunk and an addict, but the book and the movie just gloss over it and turn Henry into some super functional criminal. He was a hanger on that made most his money on bootleg cigarettes, credit card fraud, working in Burke’s bookie rooms, and later drugs. 

Edited October 30 by billfromlaketravis

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

Gun to my head, pun intended, I think Goodfellas is a better film than a book, and Casino is a better book than a film.

Pesci is great as Tommy. Tommy in the book is a just lunatic with no sense of humor. I think they basically combined Lenny Vario, Hill’s long time running mate, with Tommy in the film. The film character is much more interesting. 

Edited October 30 by billfromlaketravis

[billfromlaketravis 11444]

Not discussed in the book or film: 

- Paul Vario had an affair with Karen Hill while Henry was away. Tommy attempted to rape Karen. This was likely the catalyst for Paul to give Tommy up to the Gambinos/Gotti. Movie morality car wash. They were scum bags. 

- Billy Batts probably purchased his button for $50k from Albert Anastasia back in the 50s. Likely 1 of the reasons Anastasia was murdered. 

- Tommy also killed Foxy Jerothe in late 1974. Jerothe was a mentee of Gotti’s. I doubt he cared about Batts, but Jerothe would have been a bridge too far. Most of the speculation on Tommy’s shooter centers around Tommy Agro in the Gambinos. Gotti was probably there, as well as Tuddy Vario or Peter Vario. 

Edited October 30 by billfromlaketravis

[threesheets 1672]

Unbelievable.  You could see how a white girl could fall for him. 

What??

[Deej 76748]

16 minutes ago, threesheets said:

Unbelievable.  You could see how a white girl could fall for him. 

What??

Well, a sport coat with the tags still on it and an 80s Corvette is irresistible.