Duran Duran’s John Taylor stars in the sleazy skin flick ‘Vegas, City of Dreams’

04.04.2017
10:41 am
Topics:
Amusing
Movies
Music
Tags:
2001
Duran Duran
John Taylor
Vegas, City of Dreams

The blog Preppies of the Apocalypse from writer, publisher, and lover of pop-culture Morgan Richter posted some amusing analysis regarding Duran Duran bassist John Taylor and his 2001 movie, Vegas, City of Dreams. The film was a direct-to-DVD release and likely made the rounds on sleazy subscription cable channels such as Cinemax and satellite TV in South America and the Caribbean.

Though Taylor has been clean and sober since 1994, he played the role of super shady “Byron Lord,” (geddit?) a character who straight-up oozed bad times, blow and booze with sleazy-ease. Perhaps Taylor ripped out a couple of pages from his own personal playbook when it came to finding the proper inspiration for his portrayal of Byron Lord. Who knows?. When it comes to the film, which also goes by the titles of C.O.D. and Marked for Murder , it was directed by Lorenzo Doumani, a casino mogul/filmmaker and the son of M.K. Doumani who owned the famous La Concha hotel in Las Vegas. In addition to Taylor, the film also includes a plethora of Playboy models in almost every female role, lots of sex scenes involving Taylor (including a little bondage action, hello!), post-coital murder and the girl everyone was in love with in 1989, Playboy Playmate Erika Eleniak. With all that going for it, how could this film possibly fail? Well, as Richter eloquently points out, “it’s mostly John’s fault.” Not even appearances by the great Joe Don Baker or actor Paul Winfield could help elevate this mess. In fact, there is at least one scene in Vegas, City of Dreams where, while Taylor is taunting Winfield’s character the actor actually looks as though he’s quite literally regretting his decision to be in the film right then and there. Oof.

If you’ve never seen the film, that’s probably okay. However, that would mean you’d be missing out on some genuinely campy entertainment featuring one of the biggest MTV heartthrobs of the 80s, Duran Duran dreamboat John Taylor. So because I really care about all of you DM readers, I took one for the team and watched the whole thing. Thankfully, I was able to track down some of the film’s various um “highlights” on YouTube so I could share them with you including the finale which is one of the best/worst/best things ever. Normally that would be reason enough for me to note that what follows requires a “spoiler alert” but you’re never going to watch Vegas, City of Dreams are you?. And I’m pretty sure John Taylor will be okay with that.

John Taylor getting nice and sleazy in ‘Vegas, City of Dreams.’

Actor Paul Winfield is having none of this shit.