My pal Marc Wielage told me about this. It's a short home movie (with pretty good picture quality) of someone's trip to Las Vegas in 1962. So it's a good chance to see a lot of hotels and casinos that either are long gone or have been changed completely. We also get to see what I love to see in films and photos of past-tense Vegas: Marquees.
Brenda Lee and Dick Shawn were at the Flamingo…and before someone asks me, "Hey, wasn't Shawn filming It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1962?": Yes. He started in May of that year and finished in December but he had weeks off during the filming. One marquee in the home movie says Alan King is opening on October 16 so Shawn was obviously playing Vegas during a time Mad World didn't need him.
Stan Irwin is presenting Ray Bolger and Judy Garland (separately!) at the Sahara. Irwin was a comedian who became a Vegas entertainment director. Animation fans are interested in him because he supplied the voice of Lou Costello when Hanna-Barbera made their Abbott and Costello cartoons with Abbott playing himself. Our pal Kliph Nesteroff interviewed Mr. Irwin a few years ago, not long before Mr. Irwin passed away.
Also on the marquees, you'll see the name of Hank Henry — a great old burlesque performer who spent his last days as a Vegas comedy superstar — Arthur Ellen. Mr. Ellen was a very prominent hypnotist who did stage shows and also became rather well known for helping athletes and actors with the quitting of alcohol, smoking, stage fright, etc. Frank Gorshin said he wouldn't have been able to perform if not for Ellen helping him "unlock" repressed voices within himself. There's a lot of history on old Las Vegas marquees.