The Hangover Trilogy: A Location Tour of the Morning After
Caesars Palace played itself, a Bangkok skyscraper played a fever dream, and downtown Vegas played the getaway.
"Did Caesar live here?" No, Alan, but the movie mostly did. Caesars Palace lent the 2009 original its real lobby, entrance and corridors, and the breakfast-by-the-pool scene was shot at the resort's Garden of the Gods pool complex. The wrecked villa itself, with its tiger, chicken and missing tooth, was a set on Stage 15 at Warner Bros in Burbank, which is the only reason a tiger was ever in it.
The Vegas that no longer exists
The film's blackjack sequence, Alan's Rain Man homage, was shot at the Riviera, the 1955 Strip veteran that closed in 2015 and was demolished a year later, which makes the scene an accidental historical document. The wedding chapel where Stu married Jade was never real either: the production built the facade on a parking lot at 1236 South Las Vegas Boulevard. Pilgrims still go looking for it.
Bangkok and the ride downtown
The 2011 sequel swapped the Strip for Bangkok, and its skyline moments belong to the Lebua at State Tower, whose 63rd floor Sky Bar became so identified with the film that it still serves a cocktail named the Hangovertini. The 2013 closer came home to Caesars, added Planet Hollywood and the Paris balloon to the frame, and finally gave downtown Las Vegas its due: Chow crash-lands on Main Street by the California Hotel, and Alan finds love in a downtown pawn shop. Old Vegas gets the last laugh, as it usually does.
One sober footnote from the Bandit: the trilogy is a comedy about waking up with no memory and empty pockets, and the reason it is funny is that everyone in it should have stopped three drinks and one bet earlier. Play it straight and the morning after stays funny.
The Faces
