The Las Vegas Story

A minor RKO gem showing all the preferences of its then owner Howard Hughes (aeroplanes, brunettes, breasts and disenchanted heroes). Jane Russell, with amused detachment, plays a singer returning to Las Vegas with wealthy but despicable husband Price in tow, and picking up with her erstwhile lover, hunky Mature. Initially the script relies on innuendo-laden repartee and a couple of wonderful numbers from Hoagy Carmichael. But then a man is murdered, the pace changes, and the film charges into a superb action climax with a helicopter swooping through deserted hangars and Mature making a fifty-foot leap (to save Jane, of course). It all finishes with a perfunctory nod toward family values (by marrying off an irrelevant young couple), but the film wears its intentions on its sleeve with the final shot: Hoagy looks first at the seductive Russell, then winks at us as he sings, 'My resistance is low...'