Post #33213 by thejab on Tue, May 6, 2003 8:10 PM

*On 2003-05-06 19:13, Futura Girl wrote:*The 1958 Aku Aku restaurant left this world sometime in the 1980s. Perhaps they shot outside the Tropicana Hotel where there were similar moais made of plaster that were there until 1996 (Casino was shot in 1995).

Somebody tell me I'm not seeing things! Perhaps they recreated part of the Aku Aku for the movie as the movie portrays the reign of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal (played by DeNiro), who ran the Stardust in the 60s and 70s (but they called it the Tangiers in the movie). The scene with the moai was inside so I know it wasn't the plaster ones outside. The movie was filmed in the Riviera and the outside "Tangiers" casino scenes were filmed at the Landmark casino. More fascinating trivia here:

http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0112641

For a laugh check out the filming locations of the movie:

http://us.imdb.com/Locations?0112641

Here's more info on the moais at the Tropicana:

Aztar Corporation completed the Tropicana's outer island in 1991 which included two 35 foot tall Aku Aku gods, Polynesian long house with tiki carvings which was all done by hand; a unique sound system featuring in-ground speakers; a large tiki called Kalanui, the "God of Money"; and tropical landscaping.

quoted from http://www.a2zlasvegas.com/hotels/history/index.html