I've never seen this movie, because when I was writing my book SEDUCTION: SEX, LIES AND STARDOM IN HOWARD HUGHES'S HOLLYWOOD, I couldn't find a copy. But I still wrote had to write around it, because of the role it played in Hughes's response to the Hollywood blacklist...
The screenplay was initially written by Paul Jarrico, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who was also an open member of the Communist party. When Jarrico was subpoenaed by HUAC, Hughes fired him
The movie was released a year later, without Jarrico's name, but he recognized it as being essentially the same as the movie he wrote. Jarrico filed a grievance with the writers guild, who sided with him over Hughes. Hughes did what Hughes was wont to do:
...he milked the situation for free publicity by issuing a proclamation daring the Guild to strike over their support of the
"red" Jarrico, while painting himself as a patriot
"red" Jarrico, while painting himself as a patriot
Casting Vincent Price as a husband who is destined to be thrown over is...a choice #tcmparty #letsmovie
"That man obviously has no eye for figures." That's the kind of "heh heh, boobs" line that pops up (no pun intended) in each of the Hughes-produced movies starring Jane Russell.
I love Jane Russell for many reasons, but one is that she's always convincingly over-it.
This teenagers-getting-drafted subplot may seem surprising in a casino movie that basically exists to put Jane Russell in that dress, but this kind of subtle pacifist critique is vintage Paul Jarrico
In all the Hughes movies after The Outlaw, Jane is essentially the girl next door with a past. Which is a much better look for her than anything she was made to do in The Outlaw. #TCMparty
Jane always has to play weird, sexualized melancholy in the Hughes films. Here she's a newlywed in a sexy black shroud whose husband just shrugged and let her wander off to reconcile with her past as a free-spirited white-gowned cabaret-singer!
Truly nutty that they have her wearing another sexy funeral dress here for the second night of her honeymoon with a guy she is...just finding out now is a crook/creep?
My husband went in the other room and is missing the song about monkeys, which is unfortunate.
I would find it pretty exciting to drive out to the desert and stay in that bungalow right now.
From now on, I will also refer to diamonds as “white meat.” #vincentprice
Hoagy Carmichael is pretty good in this! Also love the ways in which allusions to "I Get Along Without You Very Well" are woven into the score
Hell of a hat to wear to a murder inquest 
I have a crush on Brad Dexter, the actor who plays the jewelry insurance guy. In the best lighting, he looks sort of like a dad-bod Paul Newman.
Howard Hughes famously became associated with Las Vegas; during the period of this film, the gossip columnist James Bacon wrote, "It wasn't too hard to know him...He usually could be found around the old El Rancho Las Vegas around 4 a.m. eating breakfast."
Later, Howard Hughes would buy (amongst other hotel/casinos) the Desert Inn, reportedly because he didn't want to check out of the penthouse suite.
(Howard Hughes, ultimate master of self-isolation.)
I find Victor Mature pretty boring in this. Mostly because he's not Robert Mitchum, who is Jane's One True Paramour.
"You look like all your rabbits died." I could be wrong but I assume this is a play on the phrase "the rabbit died," which was slang at this time for a positive pregnancy test #Yikes
That white dress! #letsmovie
That's it! Thanks for following along with THE LAS VEGAS STORY with me. And thanks to @TCM for having me!
