Casino Joe Pesci Scene

1. Casino Hammer Scene
2. Casino Joe Pesci Scenes
3. Casino Joe Pesci Scene

Joe Pesci pretty much steals every scene in Casino, as Nicky, even though he’s a despicable sociopath who only has maybe one redeeming scene in the whole movie, which is where he is described as always, after a night of intimidation and beatings and murder, getting home in time to make his son pancakes before.

• A graphic scene from the 1995 movie Casino shows actor Joe Pesci’s character placing a man’s head in a vise, and squeezing until one of his eyeballs pops out.This was based on a real-life incident that took place in a Chicago suburb in 1962.
• When Nicky, Rothstein’s loose-cannon childhood friend (Joe Pesci) moves to Vegas for a piece of the action, it signals the beginning of the end. Likewise, Rothstein’s attraction to a known hustler and casino fixture named Ginger (Sharon Stone), whose charm inspires Rothstein to feel a love in his heart that is never reciprocated.
• One of the more memorable scenes in the 1995 movie Casino depicted the character based on Tony Spilotro (played by actor Joe Pesci) and his brother being beaten to death in a cornfield. The actual killings of Tony and Michael took place in June 1986. After their bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield, there.
• In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci’s character is playing late-night blackjack while waiting for a marker. Over and over he is dealt face cards.

Revealing mistake: At the beginning of the film where Robert De Niro gets into his car and it explodes, you can clearly see the cut where they have replaced him with a dummy.(00:00:50)

Revealing mistake: Near the end when Ace gets into his Cadillac, in the first shot facing the front of the car, there is a protective glass in front of Ace (the same width as the windshield) with the dashboard in between that glass and the windshield. Note the vertical edge of the glass is visible at the right side, and the rearview mirror's sticker on the windshield casts a shadow onto the second glass. During the stunt, the flames on the dashboard are between the glass shield and the windshield, keeping the actor safe from harm.(02:46:05)

Revealing mistake: When Sharon Stone gets thrown out of Joe Pesci's club, you can clearly see the pads on Stone's hand's to break the impact of the fall.

Revealing mistake: In the scene where Joe Pesci is beaten in the corn fields, if you look closely at the bats you will see them bend ridiculously on impact with his body. Foam bats anyone?

Visible crew/equipment: When Robert De Niro goes to meet Joe Pesci in the desert, the whole crew is reflected on the side of the car.

Continuity mistake: When Joe Pesci is beaten and then buried - look at the blood on his chest. In one shot it is all over - the next it is just a smaller patch.

Continuity mistake: When Remo Gaggi is talking to Andy Stone about Ace cussing out the Board, there's a pack of cigarettes beside Gaggi in his car. The camera angle changes to show Stone's face, who is outside the car, and when it flips back to Gaggi, there is a Zippo lighter in place of the cigarettes. The camera goes back to Stone, and when it comes back again, the Zippo is gone and the cigarettes are back. And to top it all off, not once did Remo smoke in this scene.

Continuity mistake: When Joe Pesci is stabbing the guy with a pen that insulted Ace, the pen is shown without blood after there was significant blood on it the cut before, then it goes back to having blood on it.

Continuity mistake: When Ace fires Don Ward, the shot is on Ace and you can see Don turn away. When the shot changes to Don, you see him turn away again.

Audio problem: After Pesci and De Niro's meeting in the desert, Pesci gets into his car and you distinctly hear the sound of tyres peeling out. Am I wrong or is this impossible on sand?

Suggested correction:The desert outside Las Vegas isn't pure sand, but rather a dry lake bed. It is certainly possible to squeal tires on this type of surface.

Continuity mistake: When Robert De Niro is at the restaurant with Sharon Stone and catches her with James Woods, the menu under his hands goes from being horizontal to vertical.

Continuity mistake: When Artie Viscano is complaining to his brother in law about Las Vegas, he backs into about 10 bottles. They all fall except for two, and then the scene cuts to to his brother in law and when the scene cuts back to Viscano, all the bottles are back up.

Continuity mistake: After meeting with Ginger about Lester being beaten up, Nicky is about to leave. Before he does, Ginger hugs him and puts her arms around his neck. In the next shot her right arm has suddenly moved and her elbow is now bent.(01:19:50)

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where DeNiro is throwing Sharon Stone's character out of the house after overhearing her on the telephone, he drags her into the bedroom. Just before the scene cuts away, the camera appears in the mirror on the wall behind them.

Continuity mistake: When Joe Pesci and his brother are beaten and then buried, you see one bat and then suddenly, appearing from nowhere, three bats. Sometimes they are blood covered, then clean, then blood covered again.(02:47:30 - 02:48:25)

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Sharon Stone is talking to Joe Pesci about how De Niro had his guys beat up James Woods, there are 4 security monitors on the desk behind Sharon Stone. First, the top left monitor goes out. Next only the bottom right monitor is on. Then all four monitors are off. Finally, all four monitors are on again.(01:18:05 - 01:19:20)

Factual error: In the jewelry robbery montage, Joe Pesci is shown holding a rechargeable Mag-Lite flashlight which would not have been available at that time.

Revealing mistake: In the scene where Pesci's character is being buried alive, the body is quite obviously a fake: look at the mechanical way the head moves, and the movement of the chest intended to simulate breathing, not very convincingly.

Revealing mistake: When Nance comes stumbling out of the Costa Rican house holding his stomach, you can tell he is holding a mouth full of blood that he spits out when he gets shot in the head.

Audio problem: In the scene where Sharon Stone is talking to Joe Pesci about how De Niro had his guys beat up James Woods, at one point Sharon Stone says, 'Oh C'mon.' If you look closely her mouth doesn't move at all. Also if you listen closely, that line comes out on surround sound. When she continues her line it comes out on mono. It was obviously recorded.

Tony Spilotro inspired Joe Pesci's villain in the movie Casino, but the real man was far worse than the movie let on.

Getty ImagesBy age 22, the unwieldy Tony Spilotro had been arrested at least 13 times.

Among the many Mafia movies, one standout is Martin Scorsese’s Casino — and particularly for the violence. Robert De Niro stars as a Jewish gangster who runs Las Vegas casinos for the Chicago Outfit, with Joe Pesci playing Nicky Santoro, the barbaric mob enforcer who protects him. In real life, Pesci’s role was inspired by the brutal life of Tony Spilotro: and his truth is even more disturbing than the film version.

Indeed, Anthony Spilotro’s unique taste for violence would not only establish him as one of the most fearsome mobsters of the ’60s and ’70s, but also spell his own bloody doom.

Becoming Tough Tony Spilotro

Tony Spilotro might be best known for his success in protecting the Las Vegas casino rackets, but he started out like so many other Mafiosi: as a low-level gangster in Chicago.

He was born in the Windy City on May 19, 1938. FBI agent William Roemer remarked in his biography on Spilotro, titled Enforcer, that Spilotro grew up the fourth of six sons in an Italian household. His dad, Patsy, ran a popular Italian restaurant that was frequented by mobsters like Sam Giancana.

Four of the five Spilotro boys fell in with some criminal elements, which likely wasn’t helped by the fact that their dad died young. Only one of Spilotro’s brothers went to college and became a respected doctor.

Tony Spilotro became a high school bully before dropping out. He grew a reputation for small crimes like shoplifting and purse snatching. Dubbed a “pissant” by friends and enemies alike, Spilotro received a nickname “Ant.” Alternatively, he was called “the Ant” in reference to his small stature: Spilotro stood five feet, two inches.

Spilotro’s mugshot in ’74.

At sixteen or seventeen, depending on the source, Spilotro was arrested for the first time on charges of larceny. By age 22, he’d been arrested more than a dozen times.

He became a ripe prospect for the Chicago Outfit and drew the notice of one Sam “Mad Dog” DeStefano. The former Chicago cop-turned-Mafia errand boy Mike Corbitt recalled of DeStefano, “He was a real sicko. He would do things to disrespect you, like coming into a bar and pissing on the floor in front of your wife.”

DeStefano took Spilotro under his wing and set up the young man for his next big venture in his criminal career: murder.

Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro and his wife, Nancy, leave the federal building in Las Vegas after a mistrial was declared in his trail on racketeering charges.

Tony Spilotro And The M&M Murders

Under the thumb of the uber-violent DeStefano, Spilotro got the chance to become a “made man,” or a full member of the Mafia. This opportunity came when he was asked to handle the so-called M&M Boys. The “M&M” in question were two minor thugs: Billy McCarthy and Jimmy Miraglia, who killed several local businessmen due to a drunken argument. Killing legit businesspeople in a neighborhood of mobsters was a no-no, especially as it brought attention to the Mob.

In 1962, Spilotro was dispatched to take care of the M&M Boys, which inspired the infamous torture scene in Casino. Spilotro and buddies — including DeStefano — beat up McCarthy, then stabbed him through the testicles with ice picks. Then, Spilotro “put his captive’s head in a vise and squeezed, then squeezed some more,” according to Dennis Griffin’s Policing Las Vegas, until one of McCarthy’s eyes popped out. In Casino, McCarthy is portrayed by a one “Tony Dogs,” but the scene is as brutal as possible on screen.

Finally, McCarthy gave up Miraglia. Eventually, people uncovered the mangled bodies of both Miraglia and McCarthy, their throats slit, in a car on the South Side of Chicago.

In 1963, Spilotro followed up on his murderous success by killing real estate broker Leo Foreman, who’d gotten on the wrong side of DeStefano. Dragging Foreman down to a cellar, Spilotro hammered Foreman’s private parts, then attacked him with an ice pick, and only then shot him in the head. He dropped the body off in a car trunk as well.

When he was discovered, the corpse of Foreman had chunks of his body removed before he was killed.

Viva Las Vegas

Phil Greer/Chicago Tribune/MCT via Getty ImagesMichael Spilotro, left, and his brother Tony.

Spilotro was well known even in the mob by this point for his brutality. But it didn’t keep him from rising the ranks of their lucrative operations in Vegas.

The Chicago Outfit controlled the Las Vegas casinos and skimmed a bunch of cash off it for itself. To make the operation seem legit, Dennis Griffin noted in The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law Vs. The Mob, the Mafia put a man known as Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal in charge of the gambling operation. The Jewish Rosenthal served as the inspiration for De Niro’s character in Casino, Sam Rothstein, who makes the Mob’s skimming operations seem legit.

Spilotro’s role was to keep the mobsters working for the Chicago Outfit in line while in Vegas. If any of them tried to take cash where they weren’t supposed to, Spilotro would wield his infamous ice pick and/or fists. He was also supposed to grab as much cash from the casino before it was officially logged in, i.e. “skim.”

In Casino, Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro serves this role. In the film, Santoro’s bad temper gets him banned from most Las Vegas casinos and according to Nicholas Pileggi’s book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, Spilotro also had a notorious anger problem. Pileggi quoted mob enforcer Frank Cullotta as saying that Spilotro grew jealous of Lefty’s fame and fortune as the legit face of the casino.

He said, “Tony sees Lefty walk in the joint, and everybody jumps up to shake his hand. And Lefty’s loving it. Tony’s just watching. He’s getting pissed, especially when Lefty doesn’t even nod over in Tony’s direction for respect.”

So Spilotro decided to branch out on his own and tap into his old skill—theft. He kick-started a group of burglars, arsonists, and thieves called “the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.” They earned their moniker by busting through walls to get at precious jewelry and other expensive goodies to hawk on the Strip. He even opened his own shop, The Gold Rush, with brother Michael to sell his stolen stuff.

By 1974, the los Angeles Times reported that there was more gangland crime in Las Vegas than ever before, and perhaps with Spilotro to thank for that. By this time, the unwieldy gangster had already been indicted for murder several times.

Tony Spilotro’s Downfall

But there was more than just bad professional blood between Rosenthal and Spilotro. Rosenthal had married showgirl-turned-girl about town Geri McGee. A former waitress at the famed Tropicana club in Vegas, McGee snared Rosenthal and gambled away tons of his money after she won his heart. In Casino, Sharon Stone plays the McGee-inspired dancer Ginger McKenna and she’s rather true to life.

The Rosenthals’ relationship soon soured, though. Just as Rothstein’s wife fell into bed with her hubby’s arch-rival Santoro, so too did McGee have a torrid affair with Spilotro.

At one point in 1982, Spilotro allegedly tried to car-bomb Rosenthal following McGee’s drug-induced suicide. The attack failed, but the repercussions of his affair with Rosenthal’s wife continued to upset the Vegas mob.

Eventually, this incident together with Spilotro’s other misdeeds caught up to him. Since he was a made man at 25, Spilotro had caught the eye of law enforcement. Naturally, too much attention on the mob spelled danger, which meant Spilotro was a major liability.

Spilotro was arrested again in 1981 after cops caught the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang trying to rob a home goods store in Vegas — thanks to an informant on the inside.

Having Spilotro’s name emblazoned across the news once again didn’t sit well with the Chicago Outfit anymore. William Roemer told The LA Times that “Spilotro wasn’t doing his job in Las Vegas. He maintained too high a profile there. Mobsters flourish in darkness. Spilotro, facing three major trials, was obviously not following that dictum. He was under the glare of the harshest spotlight.”

Spilotro was slapped with numerous charges and suspected of a number of other crimes, including the attempted murder of Rosenthal in a 1982 car bombing.

Casino Hammer Scene

Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro sits in a Las Vegas courtroom in connection with two old homicide cases. 1983.

The Mob thus decided to off Spilotro and his brother, Michael. They were beaten to death in 1986, their bodies left in an Indiana cornfield.

Casino Joe Pesci Scenes

In 2007, three Mafiosi were finally convicted of the Spilotro brothers’ killings.

In this case, the film Casino truly imitated life – except for the fact, that unlike Santoro, Spilotro was not buried alive, though he was subjected to a torturous end that befitted a mobster as cruel as he was.

Casino Joe Pesci Scene

After this look at the bloodlusty mobster, Tony Spilotro, dive into an equally horrifying tale: the story behind the film The Conjuring. Then, check out the amazing true tale of Desmond Doss, a World War II hero.