Which is cooler – Frank Sinatra or the Jennings Sun Chief machines? by Don Creekmore

Danny Ocean Getting Ready To Rob A Casino Full Of Jennings Sun Chief Machines!

Recently we ran across a great vintage CBS Television press release photo for the original Ocean’s 11 movie with Frank Sinatra. What makes this photo so cool is that he is standing in front of what appears to be the Flamingo casino with a whole slew of Jennings Sun Chief light-up slot machines!

The original Ocean’s 11 movie has some great scenes of the casino’s and their interiors. It’s actually fairly hard to find vintage interior photographs of Las Vegas casinos. The reason being is the same as it is today, the casinos don’t want people taking photographs inside the casino floor for security reasons.

During the 1950’s and early 1960’s the Jennings Sun Chief was the primary type of machine used in the casinos. Jennings made a number of sub-models of the Sun Chief and would install different color light panels on the lower front as well. These panels would come in red, green, orange, clear and even blue.

The top sign was also customized by the casino’s to give the machines a more unique appearance to that specific location. While not common, these original casino’s Jennings Sun Chief signs can still be found on occasion from places like the Flamingo, The Sands, Desert Inn, Riviera, Sahara and Hacienda.  

A super rare example is the double Jennings slot machine sitting to the left of Frank. These machines were used on the end caps of a bank of machines. Also rarely found today is the extra top sign mounted to some Jennings machines. These signs would simply add a little more pizazz and were sometimes lighted. If you find a Sun Chief with holes plugged up at the very top, there is a good chance a sign like the one just behind Frank’s left shoulder was mounted to it.

As a full time antique slot machine dealer it’s sometimes easy to forget that these machines originally operated in some fantastic locations around the world. In most cases the history of the machine is lost, but on occasion a machine will turn up with just enough clues to let us know where it came from and possibly who could have played it – like Danny Ocean himself!