Les Crops

On a breeze of Americana, "les craps" and "les girls" fluttered into the cream-colored Monte Carlo Casino one morning last week. Six bright, mascaraed beauties, "straight from the Wally Wanger Broadway shows" (the publicity handout said), bounced into a big, baroque Casino chamber, joined croupiers, cameramen and curiosity-seekers around the first crap table in the Casino's 71 years of existence. Blonde, white-suited Lillian Moore--"one of the 100 most beautiful girls in the world"--took the dice, shook them, blew on them, threw the inaugural roll (see cut). A ten.

"Is that good?" whispered a little, white-haired French woman. "Don't know a thing about it," her neighbor apologized. Lillian sevened out, the other beauties rolled, the management set up the drinks.

At 5 that afternoon, the play began for keeps. There were a few wise-looking Americans and many sheepish Europeans. One lorgnetted lady inspected the game, flounced away horrified. This was not the old Monte Carlo she knew. A Briton fumed: "If they expect people to play this beastly game, the least they can do is to let them sit down."

Would the game draw revenue to redress the Casino's deficit? On the next night, Albert Jauffret, who had studied "les craps, version originate" in the U.S. this spring, was wary: "It's still a little early for the ice to melt."

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