Wonderful footage of the old Las Vegas I remember as a young adult. It was open, carefree and Fun! I love the 70's look of the Buildings back then. So glad to see these 8mm films shared thru CZcams.
Oh how I remember Las Vegas back in the mid 70's! It was fun, the casinos were fun. I'll never forget the Westward Ho Casino where free champagne flowed from a fountain! What a great place and time that was!
I LOVE this video! .... wish i could travel back in time to be there at that time again! It looks nothing like this now. Really brings back memories. Thank you for sharing!
That was a good trip down memory lane I was to young in 70"s to visit there. But I can remember my first trip in 1991. How much I was in ah. Of being in Vegas I think how much has changed since then.. to look at this really has changed.
My first Vegas trio was 1975 (Aug) when I was 6 weeks too early to gamble (I looked 21)- Elvis was at the Hilton but 2 days later had to leave (illness). I won $25 in quarters in the Hilton at 3 AM. This film captures that time. Great stuff.
That’s my husband (white shirt) and his sister (light dress) standing outside the Aladdin at 2:07! We’re so thrilled to see this! Thank you for sharing it! ❤️
Thanks for posting this film! I love seeing old Vegas because it changes so drastically with each year. Your dad did a nice job panning the camera slowly!
Beautiful. I loved it when the Mafia controlled everything. These scenes remind me of it. Ironically, using a Bell and Howell Super 8 camera today, I'm making films of Las Vegas and Pahrump today.
God,,,I live in Vegas and I am inlove with the history and yeah it totally lost its magic, I go to Fremont street to visit some of the old vegas to get that feeling too cus I never got to experience it :( thanks for posting, its wonderful!
Agreed Sheels. My uncle, who was a bit of a hood, used to frequent Vegas in the 60s and 70s...he said Vegas of today is nothing compared to the old. He said it was WAAAY better when the mob ran it...no kids, no geezers in pajamas and walkers, no fake gangstas, and of course there was Frank, Deano, Sammy, etc. He said one of his big thrills was seeing Jimmy Durante live. Its all gone. Now we got shit. When Vegas got 'Disney-fied' I knew life was never gonna be good again.
wow thats so amazing. Vegas has changed sooo much even in the last 10 years, but to compare it to the 70s, its like a entirely different town. The only hotel I could recognize is ceasers palace, stardust(not there anymore), riveria, and part of the flamingo.
The film looks better than most because it wasn't transferred to VHS first. I think I only saw Frontier from that film when I was there in 1999. The rest have gone! Thanks for the upload.
Of course, the Frontier's gone by now, too (its now a vacant lot). Only resorts still standing from this film are Caesars, the Flamingo, and the MGM Grand (now Bally's).
Yeah Vegas really was such a small charming place back then. Of course people who remember it back then tend to dislike the larger and commercialized place it is now I'm only 20 years old so I know Vegas to be a true glitter oasis. I mean in the 70s you could gamble and swim but now you can do things like dangle 270 meters above the ground on the Stratosphere as well as see Cirque du Soleil.
@inkdeep Funny, having grown up in Las Vegas (I was there at this time) I knew immediately why that shot was so short!....This is a great video, thanks for posting
You're dad had great taste. I wish he would have gotten a little closer on the girls sitting in the valet section:). Seriously, though, great video. I love seeing the flamingo hotel tower was under construction. I stayed there last year. I don't think the carpets were ever replaced. Thanks for posting. Vegas has really changed. It had some charm back then.
Nowadays if you want to see Old Vegas, you have to go to Downtown. Outside of the Fremont Street Experience, you still have some of the Old Casinos that has still been there for as long as I first remembered going to Las Vegas, which was in 1974. And those Old Casinos hasn't changed a bit since then.
2:22 to 2:48 blows me away. It's taken from the Aladdin (Planet Hollywood). As the camera pans from right to left, you see the Dunes (where the Bellagio stands today), the Jockey Club (which is being surrounded by construction of the Cosmopolitan), and then you see......NOTHING.
Nothing on that side of the street until the Hacienda (now Mandalay Bay), although the Tropicana was standing in much its current form on the side closest to the camera.
Lately( in the past couple of months LV isn't doing so well) I guess there comes a piont when people won't ever go back becuase of the very high prices for food, drinks, and the tightest slots on earth. It is a place that just might disappear after a while. Like a bad dream. Las Vegas sort of has disappered anyways. Half the strip is now filthy run-down hotels or WAY overpriced high-end hotels and neither of them are much fun. Las Vegas R.I.P. Thank you for posting the video.
the numbers don't lie, vegas 1976 vistors 8 million, vegas 2007 visitors 40 million. so far in 2008 only 3 months has seen a drop in visitor numbers to the strip and those numbers are tiny like 1%, whereas reno and laughlin and indian casinos nationwide have experienced massive drops like 15-20%. The drop in numbers to the strip is more attributable to the cutting back of flights at mccarran than anything else, some airlines have cut nearly 30% of flights into LAS due to fuel costs
Great video. I love Vegas but get the impression that I would have loved it more back in the 60s and 70s. The Circus Circus and Riviera look like they've come to the end of the line unfortunately.
Great video! My parents got married in Vegas in May 1977 (eloped actually!). I showed this video to my mom tonight, and it was really a flashback to her. I'm amazed at how good the video quality is after 30 years! Do you have any other 70s Vegas video?
@inkdeep funny you should say that - when i saw the casino shot i said to myself "wow, how did he get away with this without being beaten by casino personnel?"
I think maybe thats Ceasars Palace main entrance then... the view of the Dunes from that spot, the Bellagio is in that spot now, the view seems to be right to be Ceasars I think.
@superduperboyx It looks a LOT like the entrance to Caesars Palace (check out Ocean's 11 recent one when Elliot Gould tells Clooney and Pitt about the 3 times Vegas got robbed-It shows a guy running out in the parking lot at Caesars before being....uh...stopped). It looks like this spot exactly.
Back then, taking photographs or filming inside casinos was strictly forbidden. Lots of people there didn’t want to be seen; plus, there was paranoia, back before slot machines were computerized with random number generation, that recording series of pulls could enable people to figure out the sequence leading to a big payout. If I recall correctly, the Excalibur was the first hotel to allow filming in the casino, back around 1990. Of course, nowadays, it's pretty much accepted, since it’s a lot harder to detect and stop someone with a cellphone or body-mount GoPro than it was someone with a large pistol-grip Super-8 camera held up to their eye.
looking back it was patr70 and not you who described CC, sahara, riveria and even flamingo and excalibur as skid row hotels lol sorry for mixing you up with him....
you said and i quote "One end of the strip is filthy, poverty and has run down hotels" you won't find "mom and pop hotels and motels next to the porn shops and nude dancer shows" on the strip, on industrial and naked city district no doubt. there are no strip clubs or porn shops on the strip unless your definition of the strip extends further than sahara avenue. the only crappy motel on the strip i can think of is the travelodge next to Circus Circus
i wouldn't call circus circus, riveria or sahara run down and filthy, if they are god help 85% of hotels in new york, LA, chicago, london or paris which are of a much lower class and i have stayed in alot of them lol, tiny rooms no bathrooms, tiny beds, insects etc a 450ft sq room like you can get at sahara would cost $300 a night in manhattan gold spike and western are run down and filthy hotels, there ain't nothing like that on the strip
Man I sure was born in the wrong decade although at least I got the 80s as a child and the 90s as a teenager. I would slit my wrists if I grew up today. Vegas is such a dump now, its filled with tattooed gangster wannabes partying at the Hard Rock. If only I could go back in time I would go to the late 70s and live it up, seemed so classy an nouvea
WOW! This was the era where I first discovered and enjoyed Vegas. Mondo thanks for posting this wonderful rarity!!
Wonderful footage of the old Las Vegas I remember as a young adult. It was open, carefree and Fun! I love the 70's look of the Buildings back then. So glad to see these 8mm films shared thru CZcams.
Oh how I remember Las Vegas back in the mid 70's! It was fun, the casinos were fun. I'll never forget the Westward Ho Casino where free champagne flowed from a fountain! What a great place and time that was!
I LOVE this video! .... wish i could travel back in time to be there at that time again! It looks nothing like this now. Really brings back memories. Thank you for sharing!
That was a good trip down memory lane I was to young in 70"s to visit there. But I can remember my first trip in 1991. How much I was in ah. Of being in Vegas I think how much has changed since then.. to look at this really has changed.
What wonderful memories. Thanx for making this available to those who loved Vegas as it should've been now
I think Las Vegas looked better back then than it does now. Much classier I think. Thanks for the post. Excellent material!
When i was in high school druing the 70's i went to Vegas and this was the way the place looked.
My first Vegas trio was 1975 (Aug) when I was 6 weeks too early to gamble (I looked 21)- Elvis was at the Hilton but 2 days later had to leave (illness). I won $25 in quarters in the Hilton at 3 AM. This film captures that time. Great stuff.
It's like peeking into another world watching this....thanks so much for sharing it!
That’s my husband (white shirt) and his sister (light dress) standing outside the Aladdin at 2:07! We’re so thrilled to see this! Thank you for sharing it! ❤️
It's cool to see how much Vegas has changed in just 30 years.
Thanks for posting this film! I love seeing old Vegas because it changes so drastically with each year. Your dad did a nice job panning the camera slowly!
Beautiful. I loved it when the Mafia controlled everything. These scenes remind me of it. Ironically, using a Bell and Howell Super 8 camera today, I'm making films of Las Vegas and Pahrump today.
Ahhhhh! This video is great! I really like seeing how things used to be. I wish I could go back and visit those old places.
Tnx for posting this video. A lot of hotels that haven't been around for a long time. Some very nice memories.
this is awsome i love vegas now but let's remember the good times and evolution in this city .... partyyyy
vegas in the 70`s is the first place i am going when i perfect my time machine
God,,,I live in Vegas and I am inlove with the history and yeah it totally lost its magic, I go to Fremont street to visit some of the old vegas to get that feeling too cus I never got to experience it :( thanks for posting, its wonderful!
it crazy how much this town changed.
Agreed Sheels. My uncle, who was a bit of a hood, used to frequent Vegas in the 60s and 70s...he said Vegas of today is nothing compared to the old. He said it was WAAAY better when the mob ran it...no kids, no geezers in pajamas and walkers, no fake gangstas, and of course there was Frank, Deano, Sammy, etc. He said one of his big thrills was seeing Jimmy Durante live.
Its all gone. Now we got shit. When Vegas got 'Disney-fied' I knew life was never gonna be good again.
wow thats so amazing. Vegas has changed sooo much even in the last 10 years, but to compare it to the 70s, its like a entirely different town. The only hotel I could recognize is ceasers palace, stardust(not there anymore), riveria, and part of the flamingo.
Wow, Love this video. Im young but sometimes I wish I lived in the 60's-70's. Amazing hisory in this post, good job
Thank you for sharing this great video!!! I wish Vegas was like that now.
wow my mom dad and i visited in sept 1977 i wanted to know how did they see it , i just came back from there , whoa, a whole new world
Looks like he really enjoyed his visit! Thanks for sharing such a timeless video!
Greetings from Italy
Thank you for this wonderful video
... a window into the past ...
The film looks better than most because it wasn't transferred to VHS first. I think I only saw Frontier from that film when I was there in 1999. The rest have gone! Thanks for the upload.
Of course, the Frontier's gone by now, too (its now a vacant lot). Only resorts still standing from this film are Caesars, the Flamingo, and the MGM Grand (now Bally's).
Yeah Vegas really was such a small charming place back then. Of course people who remember it back then tend to dislike the larger and commercialized place it is now I'm only 20 years old so I know Vegas to be a true glitter oasis. I mean in the 70s you could gamble and swim but now you can do things like dangle 270 meters above the ground on the Stratosphere as well as see Cirque du Soleil.
Thank you so much for uploading this.
Amazing vid. It something how some things never
stay the same for to long out there.
This is wonderful - thank you so much!
Great for 70's cars, too.
Excellent posting thank you
@inkdeep Funny, having grown up in Las Vegas (I was there at this time) I knew immediately why that shot was so short!....This is a great video, thanks for posting
wonderful! thank you thank you thank you
You're dad had great taste. I wish he would have gotten a little closer on the girls sitting in the valet section:). Seriously, though, great video. I love seeing the flamingo hotel tower was under construction. I stayed there last year. I don't think the carpets were ever replaced. Thanks for posting. Vegas has really changed. It had some charm back then.
This is great footage, thanks for posting.
Nowadays if you want to see Old Vegas, you have to go to Downtown. Outside of the Fremont Street Experience, you still have some of the Old Casinos that has still been there for as long as I first remembered going to Las Vegas, which was in 1974. And those Old Casinos hasn't changed a bit since then.
Great video! I love Las Vegas!
Cool Video of back in the day.
First tower at Flamingo under construction. FRONTIER: Robert Goulet, Doc Severinsen. RIVIERA: Bob Newhart, Lola Falana. I'm going to guess July 1977.
That looks like the entrance to the Alladin hotel at 2:00. No, it's not around anymore. That building was knocked down, rebuilt and then sold off.
awesome thanks for the post
I remember in 1969 the dinner show for elvis was 15.00 per person, steak baked patatoe and show 15.00
The architecture looks like something from "The Jetsons" cartoon series.
2:22 to 2:48 blows me away. It's taken from the Aladdin (Planet Hollywood).
As the camera pans from right to left, you see the Dunes (where the Bellagio stands today), the Jockey Club (which is being surrounded by construction of the Cosmopolitan), and then you see......NOTHING.
Nothing on that side of the street until the Hacienda (now Mandalay Bay), although the Tropicana was standing in much its current form on the side closest to the camera.
AWESOME!!!
I remember crusing Fremont when it was Two-Way
Thank u
I first went to Las Vegas in May of 1977. I won $100!
Lately( in the past couple of months LV isn't doing so well) I guess there comes a piont when people won't ever go back becuase of the very high prices for food, drinks, and the tightest slots on earth. It is a place that just might disappear after a while. Like a bad dream.
Las Vegas sort of has disappered anyways. Half the strip is now filthy run-down hotels or WAY overpriced high-end hotels and neither of them are much fun.
Las Vegas R.I.P.
Thank you for posting the video.
the numbers don't lie, vegas 1976 vistors 8 million, vegas 2007 visitors 40 million.
so far in 2008 only 3 months has seen a drop in visitor numbers to the strip and those numbers are tiny like 1%, whereas reno and laughlin and indian casinos nationwide have experienced massive drops like 15-20%. The drop in numbers to the strip is more attributable to the cutting back of flights at mccarran than anything else, some airlines have cut nearly 30% of flights into LAS due to fuel costs
I think LV will keep attracting new visitors and keep re-inventing itself.
Great video. I love Vegas but get the impression that I would have loved it more back in the 60s and 70s.
The Circus Circus and Riviera look like they've come to the end of the line unfortunately.
Great video! My parents got married in Vegas in May 1977 (eloped actually!). I showed this video to my mom tonight, and it was really a flashback to her. I'm amazed at how good the video quality is after 30 years! Do you have any other 70s Vegas video?
@inkdeep funny you should say that - when i saw the casino shot i said to myself "wow, how did he get away with this without being beaten by casino personnel?"
I think maybe thats Ceasars Palace main entrance then... the view of the Dunes from that spot, the Bellagio is in that spot now, the view seems to be right to be Ceasars I think.
@superduperboyx It looks a LOT like the entrance to Caesars Palace (check out Ocean's 11 recent one when Elliot Gould tells Clooney and Pitt about the 3 times Vegas got robbed-It shows a guy running out in the parking lot at Caesars before being....uh...stopped). It looks like this spot exactly.
Anybody remember the "Top of Sahara"? Where "The Lakes".
LOL that would be the Landmark Hotel @ 1:40
Great video. How did you get the film copied to video? Software or what? Good job.
Like it!
very cool
Very good. A bit short on the indoor casino scene though.
Back then, taking photographs or filming inside casinos was strictly forbidden. Lots of people there didn’t want to be seen; plus, there was paranoia, back before slot machines were computerized with random number generation, that recording series of pulls could enable people to figure out the sequence leading to a big payout. If I recall correctly, the Excalibur was the first hotel to allow filming in the casino, back around 1990. Of course, nowadays, it's pretty much accepted, since it’s a lot harder to detect and stop someone with a cellphone or body-mount GoPro than it was someone with a large pistol-grip Super-8 camera held up to their eye.
looking back it was patr70 and not you who described CC, sahara, riveria and even flamingo and excalibur as skid row hotels lol
sorry for mixing you up with him....
@u better watch the orig. oceans 11 movie with sinatra, martin, junior :)
only that was vegas... now its all gone.
holiday casino? what is in its place now?
It was bought out by Harrah's, who (of course) gradually tore everything down and built another generic hotelcasinoresort on the property.
you said and i quote "One end of the strip is filthy, poverty and has run down hotels"
you won't find "mom and pop hotels and motels next to the porn shops and nude dancer shows" on the strip, on industrial and naked city district no doubt. there are no strip clubs or porn shops on the strip unless your definition of the strip extends further than sahara avenue. the only crappy motel on the strip i can think of is the travelodge next to Circus Circus
i wouldn't call circus circus, riveria or sahara run down and filthy, if they are god help 85% of hotels in new york, LA, chicago, london or paris which are of a much lower class and i have stayed in alot of them lol, tiny rooms no bathrooms, tiny beds, insects etc
a 450ft sq room like you can get at sahara would cost $300 a night in manhattan
gold spike and western are run down and filthy hotels, there ain't nothing like that on the strip
Man I sure was born in the wrong decade although at least I got the 80s as a child and the 90s as a teenager. I would slit my wrists if I grew up today. Vegas is such a dump now, its filled with tattooed gangster wannabes partying at the Hard Rock. If only I could go back in time I would go to the late 70s and live it up, seemed so classy an nouvea
Harrah's
Of course, Harrah's wasn’t in Vegas back then - that property was a Holiday Inn at the time.