Casinos and the movies that made them famous

Casinos have throughout history always been associated with glamor, excitement and romance. It is where you go to make your fortune, sometimes also to loose everything. It is where the guy gets the girl and the girl gets the diamonds and pearls. Lets briefly examine the relationship between casinos and the movies that made them famous.

This romantic image has been helped along quite considerably by Hollywood and European cinema alike. In fact many people have never even been inside a real casino yet they know exactly what the inside of the most famous casinos in the world are exactly like, all thanks to big budget Hollywood blockbuster movies.

Gangster Movies And Heist Movies Involving Casinos

Two of the most popular movie genres of all time has to be the gangster or so called ‘mob’ movies and the ever popular and classic heist movies. Gangster movies are especially associated with casinos, particularly the mob or organized crime family theme and casinos in Las Vegas. Countless movies, many of them now classics, have been produced with the Las Vegas casino strip as the central theme.

In actual fact this central theme is so powerful within the gangster or mob crime genre that Las Vegas is to this day still associated with the danger and excitement that those classic movies portrayed. Some great examples of mob movies based in and around Las Vegas or ‘Vegas’ as it is usually referred to in these films are Casino and Goodfellas, both considered to be classic exponents of the crime genre.

Another classic and timeless crime genre is the heist theme. A heist usually involves a group of guys who plot to rob a singular and powerful organization using charm, bravado and cunning to pull off the seemingly impossible. These types of films were especially popular in the nineteen sixties and seventies when casino popularity was in its ‘golden age’. A great example of this type of film is Oceans Eleven, which is available as an original made in the seventies starring Dean Martin or as a remake, made in the last decade and starring a stellar cast including George Clooney.