Last fall I started a project, with the intent of turning it into an article for CCTN. I wasn't sure how it was going....I don't have the writing knack that Mark Erickson has... I don't have any of the lobby cards or chips to illustrate the article, so I pretty much gave up the idea.

My thought was a kind of movie review, here's a sample:

HELDORADO (1946): Starring Roy Rogers ("King of the cowboys") and Trigger ("The smartest horse in the movies"), featuring George "Gabby" Hayes, Dale Evans, and Bob Nolan and The sons of the Pioneers.

The mob was laundering money in Vegas, and it was up to Roy to take care of the problem. This is a "standard" Roy Rogers cowboy film...there's a lot of riding, the good guys always win, and the horse gets higher billing than the wife ! Is it just coincidence that the film was released the same year that Ben "Bugsy" Siegel opened the Flamingo?

Notice that the name of the movie is spelled "Heldorado", while the celebration is named "Helldorado". The censors wouldn't allow the second "L" in the name, though there are signs, posters and banners throughout the movie with the correct spelling. I'd give the movie 3 stars.

For those who love old Las Vegas and gambling: Helldorado was an annual event in Las Vegas from 1935 until 1997. It featured the Helldorado Village, a rodeo, 3 parades, a Kangaroo Court, beard contests, and other frontier fun. Part of the movie was filmed during the 1946 Helldorado days, and shows scenes from the parades as they go down Fremont Street. There's glimpses of the SS Rex, the Apache Bar, El Portal Theater, Wolfson Jeweler, Overland Cafe, Pioneer Club, The Monte Carlo, Boulder Club, Frontier Club "roulette-ladies welcome", Bank of Nevada, the original Las Vegas Club, and several other businesses. The movie also included shots of Boulder Dam.

Quite a bit of the movie was filmed at the Last Frontier and the Western Village (or else there were really good sets built! ), including scenes around the pool and in the 21 Club Casino. There was one shot, by the roulette wheel, that showed stacks of generic comet chips. The Vegas/gambling part of the movie rates 4.5 'chips'.

NOTE: In 2005, for the Centennial celebration, Las Vegas brought back a scaled back version of Helldorado Days. There was a small "Helldorado Village" constructed downtown, the Kangaroo Court found mayor Goodman guilty of not wearing a Helldorado Button and tossed him in the pokey, and there was a parade that lasted several hours. My husband and I were fortunate to be in town during the celebration, though we only lasted for about the first two hours of the parade as the temperatures were hotter than helldorado...