I was doing my WalMart thing the other day, spied a DVD of Casino and
threw it in the cart. I was curious as to whether my good friend Joe
Sobchick's bar, the Atomic, had made the movie. It turns out that it
did twice. Not the inside but the outside. But it can be easily
missed unless one knows what the area looks like. And it was not used
as a Las Vegas scene.
Next to Atomic Liquor, on the east corner, is Joe's old gas station
that he ran for several years but eventually closed due to lack of
business. It has been closed for eons.
At 1:06:44 of the movie, a scene is shown showing a gas station/garage
with a bar in the background. It was used to depict a gas
station/garage in Chicago that the mob used as a drop point for skimmed
money. They used Joe's old gas station with the bar in the background,
but used special effects to make it appear it was in Chicago in the
winter time. There is snow on the ground and sidewalks, dense thick
clouds in the sky that rarely appear in Las Vegas, and skyscrapers in
the background depicting the Chicago skyline. There's even an old
factory with a smokestack belching smoke.
At 2:21:24 of the movie the same scene is shown from a different angle
but you can clearly see the word Atomic on the facade of the bar.
In the first scene you can see Joe's marquee hanging out over the
street but they deleted the word "Atomic" and left it saying
just "Liquor, Cocktails."
I found no scenes that were filmed inside the bar. But I did come
across an early scene used to depict how Spilotro/Santoro shook down
the bookmakers. It was filmed inside the old Leroy's Race And
SportsBook across the street from the Golden Nugget and directly behind
the old Pioneer Club.
I have some other comments about the movie and the story but will have
to post later as I have a bus to catch.