Daily Dialogue — November 6, 2012

ACE: (Voice-over) Who could resist? Anywhere else in the country, I was a bookie, a gambler, always lookin’ over my shoulder, hassled by cops, day and night. But here, I’m ‘Mr Sam Rothstein’. I’m not only legitimate, but running a casino. And that’s like selling dreams for cash. I hired an old casino pal, Billy Sherbert, as my manager and I went to work. For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It’s a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples. And, along with making us legit . . .

. . . comes cash. Tons of it. I mean, what do you think we’re doing out here in the middle of the desert? It’s all this money. This is the end result of all the bright lights and the comped trips, of all the champagne and free hotel suites, and all the broads and all the booze. It’s all been arranged just for us to get your money. That’s the truth about Las Vegas.
We’re the only winners. The players don’t stand a chance. And their cash flows from the tables to our boxes . . . through the cage and into the most sacred room in the casino . . . the place where they add up all the money . . . the holy of holies . . . the count room.

Now this place was off limits. Even I couldn’t get inside, but it was my job to keep it filled with cash. That’s for sure.

NICKY: (Voice-over) They had so much fuckin’ money in there, you could build a house out of stacks of $100 bills. And the best part was that upstairs, the board of directors didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

I mean, to them everything looked on the up and up. Right? Wrong. The guys inside the counting room were all slipped in there to skim the joint dry. They’d do short counts, they’d lose fill slips. They’d even take cash right out of the drop boxes. And it was up to this guy right here, standin’ in front of about two million dollars, to skim the cash off the top without anybody gettin’ wise . . . the IRS or anybody.

Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything. Somehow, somebody’s always lookin’ the other way. Now, look at these guys They look busy, right? They’re countin’ money. Who wants to bother them? I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal. Meanwhile, you’re in and you’re out. Past the jag-off guard who gets an extra c-note a week just to watch the door. I mean, it’s routine. Business as usual: in, out, hello, goodbye. And that’s all there is to it. Just another fat fuck walkin’ out of the casino with a suitcase.

— Ace (Robert De Niro), Nicky (Joe Pesci), Casino (1995), screenplay by Nicolas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese based on Pileggi’s book.

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is exposition suggested by Dean Scott. Today’s suggestion by Def Earz.

Trivia: Martin Scorsese hired actual parolees from that era as plot consultants, as well as various F.B.I. agents who had busted same parolees.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from Def Earz: “This scene combines two traditional no-noes (or at least use-with-cautions) in screenwriting — voice-over and exposition. But the sardonic humor (not to mention the inherent fascination with money) keeps us drawn in.” 

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