Mob Experience wipes away the blood, highlights the puppies

Call me a not-so-wise guy, but I went to the Tropicana recently to get the Las Vegas Mob Experience.

It wasn't the real mob experience, of course. But who wants to pay good money to take a bullet behind the ear or play squat-and-rot in a prison cell?

This Mob Experience was touted as a much more entertaining place where the ghosts of Vegas past circulate freely, and some mugs get "made" while others get "whacked." Although its grand opening is set for tonight, short-pockets guy that I am, I bought the "preview special" ticket at $29.95 and toured the place ahead of the crowd.

After peeling off a few simoleons -- they take simoleons and major credit cards -- I noticed that for only $999.95 I could receive the "Godfather" package, which would give me VIP entry for life, other perquisites and an annual reception with mob family members, characters and celebrities.

"I ought to be able to get someone hit for that price," I thought. My eyes nearly popped out like a guy with his head in a vise, but I suppose mob families have to earn a living too.

It's cute stuff, the Mob Experience. There's good-looking ushers in fedoras, a "Mob Shop Gangster Emporium" and a walking tour of what might politely be called a revisionist history of the mob in America and its influence on Las Vegas, narrated on television screens by tough-guy actor James Caan.

Halfway through the tour I felt like Caan was stalking me. And you don't want Sonny Corleone -- or Brian Piccolo or, for that matter, even the cynical dad from "Elf" -- stalking you.

There's interaction with bit actors playing a Mulberry Street made guy and a Louisville Slugger-toting enforcer, but not a single kneecap was shattered during the making of the Mob Experience.

I also noticed there were no streetwalkers or heroin addicts. There were no guys screaming for mercy before being put on meat hooks. No fixed ballgames. No corrupt politicians. No crooked cops. Not much grisly historical perspective at all, really.

The slaughter was sanitized.

The Mob Experience has, however, secured the cooperation and memorabilia of a number of relatives of infamous gangsters, including Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana and Anthony Spilotro. There's Giancana's living room furniture, Bugsy's home movies, Lansky's library and golf clubs, and photos and footage from Spilotro's personal life.

But I still wonder what we're going to learn from, say, Siegel's daughter. Something like, "Daddy was a psychopath who got his brains blown out in '47, but he was nice to kids and puppies."

That's my trouble with the Mob Experience. It practices the "Hitler had a dog" version of organized crime history. Hitler was evil incarnate, but apparently he had a dog, which might lead the naïve to believe he had a redeeming quality.

The same thing happens when you try too hard to portray killers as colorful characters without blood on their hands and expensive shoes. The Mob Experience gives Siegel, Giancana, Spilotro and Lansky a dog. (As an aside, Lansky actually had a dog. His name was Bruzzer.)

Memorabilia aside, it's a museum about organized crime in Las Vegas like "Pirates of the Caribbean" is a museum about 17th century buccaneering near the island of Tortuga.

That is to say, not much.

It's the mob as filtered through a B-movie lens. It's organized crime with the icky parts cut out like the tongue of Carlo Gambino's enemy.

By the end of the tour, I was ready to take out a contract on myself. But they saved me the trouble. I was eliminated in a hail of machine gun fire.

Didn't hurt a bit.

I survived, but the Mob Experience has left me psychologically scarred.

It's that James Caan guy.

He haunts my dreams.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.