Ocean's Eleven | 1960
- Locations |
- Nevada; Los Angeles, California
- DIRECTOR |
- Lewis Milestone
The locations for the original 1960 Ocean's Eleven are mainly in Las Vegas, which is – conveniently – where the stars happened to be performing.
Unlike the recent remake, the 1960 film has Danny Ocean’s (Frank Sinatra) gang targeting five separate casinos. Of the five establishments targeted, you can only now lose a bob or two in one of them – the Flamingo Las Vegas, 3555 Las Vegas Boulevard South (owned by the same corporation as Caesar’s Palace) dating from 1946 and, of course, the brainchild of mobster Bugsy, sorry, Benny Siegel (although El Rancho, built in 1941, was the first hotel-casino, the success of Vegas is usually dated from the opening of the Flamingo). You can see the history of the Flamingo in Barry Levinson's Bugsy, with Warren Beatty in the title role.
Long gone are The Sands and the Desert Inn. The Sands, which stood at 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South, opened in 1952 and hung on as last of the old-style casinos (Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin not only performed regularly in its Copa Room but had shares in the business). It was demolished in 1996 and the extravagant Venetian now stands on the site.
The Desert Inn (aka Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn), built in 1950, another old-timer, was imploded in October 2001. The Wynn Las Vegas (Steve Wynn is the mastermind behind themed extravaganzas such as Treasure island, Mirage and Bellagio) now stands at 3145 Las Vegas Boulevard South.
The Sahara, 2535 Las Vegas Boulevard South, which boasted a Moroccan theme, opened in 1952 and closed in 2011. It's sine been gutted, and opened as SLS Las Vegas.
The Strip's first hi-rise hotel and casino, the Riviera, opened in 1955. It hung on until 2015, at 2901 Las Vegas Boulevard South at Riviera Boulevard. You can see it in its heyday in Doug Liman’s 1999 Go and in The Hangover.
One non-Vegas location is the upmarket barbershop patronised by Spyros Acebos (Akim Tamiroff) at the picture’s opening. It was Gornick and Drucker’s, 9740 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills – the premises now houses a bridal store. This was the place to go for an old-style experience: mahogany and leather furnishings, and a shave with a real razor. Past customers included mobsters Mickey Cohen and ‘Bugsy’ Siegel himself.
If you still fancy being pampered, Gornick and Drucker lives on in the Montage Hotel, 225 North Canon Drive, Beverly Hills.
Steven Soderbergh's successful 2001heist movie Oceans Eleven takes little but the title and the Vegas location .
