Parties in litigation over ‘Vegas Connection’ movie

Grace Leong

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000 | 11:44 a.m.

Las Vegas Entertainment Corp. sued three California film producers in a dispute over rights to a film script, which it alleged the producers plagiarized to make an as-yet unreleased motion picture called "The Vegas Connection."

In a Clark County District Court suit, Las Vegas Entertainment said Dennis Lanning, Lou Vadino and Alan Lin, who were allegedly fired by LVEC, refused to stop filming the script they had allegedly took from Las Vegas Entertainment despite repeated demands by the company.

"They took my script and now claim it is theirs because they claim we owe them money. Does that make sense?" said Mel Ross, Las Vegas Entertainment's owner. "I fired them, then three years later, they come up with my script and start to film it."

Lanning and Vadino, who are co-owners of a Los Angeles-based film making company, Pacific Vegas Connection Ltd., were hired in 1995 by Las Vegas Entertainment to direct a film titled "Vegas Chance" written by Ross and Mark Tan.

Lanning, who said he was hired as a line producer for the project by Vadino, said he and Vadino rewrote Ross and Tan's script because the budget wasn't big enough to make the film.

"We looked at the script and decided the film couldn't be done because there wasn't enough funding. Lou only had $150,000 to produce the film and the script had a lot of expensive car chases and gun shots at the Boulder Dam," Lanning said.

Lanning, who said he rewrote the script while he was working for Las Vegas Entertainment, claims to own the copyright to the rewritten script, which he and Vadino registered with the Library of Congress and the Writers Guild of America.

Ross disputed this claim. "If they rewrote the script while they were hired, then they were paid to do it. So how could they own it?"

"They didn't write the original script ... The script's not even a rewrite, it's virtually identical and they filmed it virtually identical too. They just changed the name of the lead actor," said Barry Levinson, the plaintiff's attorney. Lanning said he and Vadino rewrote the script and used the same names to make the script appear more consistent with Las Vegas Entertainment's original script.

"Our script was based on Las Vegas and diamond smuggling and it had a pretty neat story with no expensive car chases," Lanning said. "Having done that, we hired the crew and were about to start filming in 1995, when we found out from one of our film equipment suppliers that Las Vegas Entertainment had withdrawn funds for the filming and didn't tell us about it."

"Las Vegas Entertainment left us owing $25,000 and I haven't been paid for rewriting the script," he said.

"It was several weeks after we finished shooting the film before we got notice of the suit. So it isn't true that they told us to stop filming and we didn't," Lanning said.

"When they put a cease and desist order on the filming in November 1999, the film wasn't finished. The production was shot in October and finished as far as it is cut. But we can't do anything about dubbing or adding music until the case is over," he said.

Lanning said his production of "The Vegas Connection" included Robert Carradine, David Carradine's brother, in the lead role; Ashley Brooks, Kathy Shower, an ex-Playboy playmate as lead actresses, Mamie Van Doran and the Smothers Brothers.

He said the film is about a retired FBI officer who is contacted by a former partner to find a diamond smuggler in Las Vegas.