Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Dan Dailey and Cyd Charisse provide some good chemistry in this 1956 film. Unfortunately, they're a little too old to play the parts of the gambler and ballerina who discover they're meant for each other.In her short appearance as Dailey's mother, Agnes Moorehead's part would have been more suitable to the likes of Marjorie Main. Her booming voice was needed with the scenes on the farm.Charisse dances up a storm and Dailey is given little musical talent, except that he sings very well with a young Japanese child.As her manager, Paul Henried looks so different in color, but maintains the same smoking tradition as he did with Bette Davis, 14 years before, in "Now, Voyager."Cara Williams is able to dance up a storm and really vamps around the stage. Who did the coloring of the hair in the movie? Williams and Moorehead have that same heavy red tint. What kind of henna were they using?Since we're dealing with the Las Vegas night club scene, the appearances of Frankie Laine and Lena Horne are worthwhile. Don't think we don't see Frank Sinatra and Peter Lorre at the slot machines and tables as well.

This almost unknown musical, like the (better) also forgotten IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER (1955) are two of MGM's real treasurebox surprises: modern time musicals instead of fantasy or historical setting musicals. VEGAS is yes, an advertisement for Las Vegas.... and the pre ratpack snazzy nightclub 1955 Las Vegas we all can dream about having been able to visit. With excellent MGM star cameos and even stylish and breathtaking Lena Horne solos this is a raucous rude musical with star turns in slot machine heaven. Jerry Colonna hosts a genuinely riotous number called 'My Lucky Charm" with showgirls dressed in such a funny array of hilarious goofy costumes, I am sure Mel Brooks pinched the 'look' when adding a new level of ridiculous to 'Springtime For Hitler" in "The Producers". The same idea turns up a year later in PAL JOEY with the "My Funny Valentine" tawdriness and costumes. It is a really funny number and as other commenters on this site will tell you, has Cyd wander drunk onto the stage and hilariously wreck the whole routine. The ballet sequence: Frankie and Johnny is a sensation and appears in one of the MGM That's Entertainment/ Dancing films. However, one really scary and sinister dance number is called 'The Girl in the Yellow Collar" with rough bumpkin men hounding Cyd alone around a tree, and is almost like a pack rape scenario. It is a horrible number, subconsciously un nerving with all these lustful rednecks pursuing this gorgeous dancer like a pack of sex hungry men. Otherwise this film is a dance and time/vogue sensation and well worth seeing in Cinemascope.... not the irritating and ridiculous pan and scan cropping of VHS.

"Meet me in Las Vegas" was not one of MGM's most elaborate musicals. As directed by Roy Rowland, this film, seen today, is like a trip down memory lane as it gives the viewer an opportunity to see the way Las Vegas looked back in the days when the film was done. That little town is nowhere to be found in the new Las Vegas, a city that, at best, looks like a theme park today. Isobel Lennart is credited with the screen play.The story centers around two opposites that are as different as day and night. If we believe that Maria Corvier, a first class ballerina has been asked to appear, in all places, one of the big rooms of a hotel, then everything is possible. That she will find love when she meets the down to earth rancher, Chuck Rodwell, that's stretching it a bit too much. But we are not in a real place, we are in movie land where everything is possible.As a musical, there are a few good moments, especially the "Frankie and Johnny" ballet, in which Cyd Charisse does a marvelous job. The other fun thing in the film is the way some Hollywood stars are seen in cameo roles that come and go too quickly. Thus we see Frank Sinatra, Peter Lorre, Debbie Reynolds, Tony Martin, Vic Damone in fleeting moments throughout the film.Dan Dailey plays Chuck with his usual ease. The best thing in the film though, is Cyd Charisse, a lovely dancer, and actress that never got her due in the movies. We also see some familiar faces in minor roles, Agnes Moorehead, Lili Darvas, Jim Backus, Cara Williams, and the fine singers Lena Horne and Frankie Laine."Meet me in Las Vegas" could have used some trimming, then, perhaps, it might have made a better trip to Vegas.

I saw this movie just to see a cameo of Pier Angeli. I ended up loving the movie but I wondered where Ms. Angeli was in this motion picture. Was she wearing the red dress in the audience of the first performance? I am pretty sure she was. If anyone knows for certain where Pier Angeli was in the movie let me know in a future comment about this film.I thought this film was going to be a lame MGM musical but I was pleasantly surprised to find the plot and the dialogs in the motion picture well-developed. Cyd Charisse is very fascinating as the ballerina turned Las Vegas performer. Dan Dailey was convincing as a gambling man who tried his luck with the beautiful Cyd Charisse.