Once Upon A Time In Las Vegas
Real gamblers—gamblers by nature—don't gamble. They don't play. They don't play games. They don't play at games of chance. Fools play because fools are losers.
"But, it's entertainment." Picture me shaking my head. Gambling money on games of chance is a vice. The compulsive gambler, the inveterate gambler, the "degenerate gambler," all have one thing in common. They're playing for the wrong side.
As the legend of Las Vegas goes, when Joe Schenck, chairman of 20th Century Fox entertainment corporation, had a friendly conversation with W.R. “Billy” Wilkerson, publishing magnate, millionaire, and gambler, he told it like it is -and as a friend.
Mr. Schenck hated to see Mr. Wilkerson gambling-away his hard-earned millions, and so he suggested that he try playing with the casino, for a change; "Why don't you build your own casino?" All Wilkerson needed was a nudge. A challenge.
Wilkerson didn't need to have his arm twisted. He knew opportunity when he saw it. In January, 1945, Wilkerson bought 33 acres of land a few miles south of downtown Las Vegas, for $84,000. That area was nothing but vacant lots, at the time, with a road through it. Unlimited possibilities. Sky's the limit.
It would be different from the sawdust joints up the road. Wilkerson had in mind a classy place, modeled on the European spas he had visited. It would cater to the Los Angeles high society he ran with. Reservations suggested. It was to be a place for wealthy socialites to unwind far from the vice and crime of Los Angeles.
It would be named The Flamingo. Wilkerson got as far as pouring cement foundations when the mob got wind of it. Despite the best of intentions, Wilkerson did not know how to build a resort casino. To be fair, nobody—neither shady nor legit—knew how to build a master-planned, casino resort. That opened the door to mob influence.
It was then that Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel—a man of intelligence and imagination—got in on the deal. A trusted mob enforcer, Ben Seigel was sent to keep an eye on where investors' money was going. Finding the project in disarray, "Bugsy" made Wilkerson an offer he could not refuse. Deeply in debt, Wikerson was effectively muscled-out of the entire deal.
It is at this point in the historical sequence of events that Sergio Leone discovers the legend, and tells the story from his own, unique, point of view. With one, significant departure from the facts. In Once upon a Time in the West, director Sergio Leone doesn't have the entrepreneur muscled-out; he (fictionally) has him rubbed-out.
In the movie, Morton, a railroad baron, has Frank, a killer and outlaw, eliminate McBain, who owns property in the path of Morton's railroad. McBain is Wilkerson, in Sergio Leone's conception. McBain (in the director's mind), is the type of diligent Irish immigrant, with his red hair and sideburns, bad temper and iron will, a character "straight out of central casting."
As the real Wilkerson proved a liability to the future of The Flamingo, so did McBain get in the way of progress, and had to be eliminated.