THE LAS VEGAS STORY: should be reported under the Trade Descriptions Act

This 1952 RKO drama should more accurately be titled 'A Story Set in Las Vegas' since it is not a
National Geographic-style documentary but rather a love triangle that happens to play out in Nevada's gambling capital.
Ok, so 'A Story Set in Las Vegas' isn't half as sexy a proposition but it would still boast Jane Russell as one of the names above the title. I can't say I've ever cared much for Miss Russell. Her obvious attractions aside I've always found her rather bland and untalented, but she looks almost spectacularly seductive here. Which is a good thing because she still can't act her way out of a paper bag.
A gratuitous number of very unsubtle extreme close-ups not only offer copious opportunities to drink in her charms, but also plenty of time to study her inability to convincingly register emotion. Whether she's wistful, thoughtful, puzzled, happy or angry her flawless features remain mostly blank.
Thankfully, co-star Victor Mature (whom I've also never cared for much) made a pact with her not to show-up her limited acting abilities because he also fails to convey very much emotion through the course of his many close-ups.
It's like watching two beautifully carved and polished pieces of wood revisiting the scene of a lost love.
The heavy lifting is left to Vincent Price as the sneering, ever so slightly less than masculine, baddie, and the wonderfully laid back Hoagy Carmichael as the piano-playing platonic friend Russell left behind when she ran out on Mature several years earlier. Price thankfully tones down the ham which afflicted many of his performances in the late 40s and early 50s but still fails to provide us with one convincing reason why Russell would have married him, while Carmichael's peerless renderings of 'The Monkey Song', 'My Resistance is Low' and 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' give the film a much needed touch of class.
The story's nothing special but the film has value as a record of a kinder, gentler Las Vegas before it morphed into a collection of mega-resorts each trying to top its neighbour for tacky glamour and

life-size recreations of other parts of the world. There's something almost quaint about the cars parked along Fremont Street outside the small, modestly adorned (by Vegas standards) casinos, and the fact that one could walk into the lobby of a casino and stand there completely unjostled by throngs of senior citizens and drunken stag and hen parties rushing to unload their life savings into slot machines.
Equally quaint is the notion that Las Vegas Police Lieutenant Mature could singlehandedly patrol Fremont Street and The Strip, maintaining law and order in every casino while also finding time to bust underage lovebirds attempting to tie the knot in one of the city's many chapels of love, and to reignite his romance with Russell.
Mostly mundane and rarely memorable, if this film truly were the story of Las Vegas its star would be Circus Circus not Caesar's Palace.