This show's concept was hastily developed to become a one-hour weekly dramatic series after the success of the beautifully produced made-for-television movie "The Scarface Mob". At first, the producers tried filming the capture of other important criminals using Eliot Ness, the TV-film's fictionalized real-life hero, as their central character. Then they designed a unit like the 1930s "Untouchables" squad depicted in the TV-movie, a federal group combating gang activity and other crimes in Chicago, one headed by Ness (Robert Stack) who worked out of an office in the city. He had six men, with Martin Flaherty (Jerry Paris), Jack Rossman, (Steve London), Enrico Rossi (Nicholas Georgiade), Lamarr Kane (Chuck Hicks) and William Youngfellow (Abel Fernandez) as its mainstays. In the second year, Paris left to be replaced by Lee Hobson (Paul Picerni) for the remainder of the series' run, and Cam Allison (Anthony George) was added for that year only. It was also decided that Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) and other mob bosses would be used as the main scheming villains without a regular "Al Capone" being portrayed. Nitti was killed off four times during the series, but Gordon was so popular with the show's watchers he was resurrected each time. A stable of regular police and ganglord types was also developed, played by Oscar Beregi, Joseph Ruskin, Frank Willcox, and Nehemiah Persoff with regular police and useful guest stars being hired a number of times. As Robert Stack had feared from the beginning, the show tended to marginalize the role of the ethical Ness in favor of unglamorously and dramatically portraying the activities of the victims, criminals, or crimelords of the week. The use of a narrator, radio commentator Walter Winchell, helped to keep the ethical view uppermost in observers' minds; and frequently, Ness and his squad were able to get across the desirability of cooperating with police, as this idea finally sank in. Outside agents played by John Gabriel, Jack Lord and others were sometimes used to improve a script. But from the first, the show's outstanding quality was the abilities of writers, directors and guest actors to produce powerful hour-long series. "The Petrone Story", "The Rusty Heller Story", "Cooker in the Sky", "Ginger Jake" and a hundred others may have occasionally overdone graphic detail and use of machine guns, but they were often brilliantly cinematic. The list of directors who toiled for the series included 29 first-raters including Ida Lupino, Tay Garnett, Vincent McEveety, Paul Wendkos, Richard Whorf, Walter Grauman and Bernard L. Kowalsi among others. The writers' list included 40 names, many illustrious, such as Robert C. Dennis, David P. Harmon, Ernest Kinoy, Harry Kronman, John Mantley, Gilbert Ralston, Sy Salkowutz, Alvin Sapinsley, George Slavin, William Templeton. Guest stars such as Patricia Neal, Elizabeth Montgomery, Lee Marvin, Arlene Martel, Will Kuluva, Dolores Dorn-Heft, Robert Middleton, Ruth Roman, Brian Keith, William Bendix, Barbara Stanwyck and Joe de Santis were always an extra cause to tune in to the latest adventure. In the last year, producer Quinn Martin bowed to pressure groups and tried to replace Italian surnamed villains with others; but the top-ranked series was canceled after 4 unforgettable years. To measure the quality of "The Untouchables" against most other series is impossible; its scenes have far more power than those of almost any other series; It was not always ethical fiction; but the series always had first-rate production qualities, acting, writing and directing. It holds a very high place in U.S. film history.
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AlsExGal31 December 2021This was a one hour crime drama show shot in spartan black and white that lasted four seasons and supposedly followed the exploits of Elliott Ness (Robert Stack) and his Untouchables (unbribable) during their time in Chicago, 1931- 1933, although the details are very fictionalized.
It managed to stay interesting and creative by centering loosely on the criminal exploits of Al Capone and mainly Frank Nitti, played by Bruce Gordon throughout the series, but branching out to other Prohibition era criminals, often without the involvement of the Capone gang, and sometimes even without much mention of the Untouchables themselves. In fact, the Untouchables are often shown dealing with issues such as local murders that would be outside the purview of federal law enforcement and more in line with what the local police would have dealt with.
The guest stars are like a who's who of 1960s TV and even film - Elizabeth Montgomery, Lee Marvin, Cliff Robertson, Victor Buono, Rip Torn, Werner Klemperer, Brian Keith, etc. - as well as some veteran film stars such as William Bendix, Barbara Stanwyck, and J. Carroll Naish.
The show is episodic, skipping around in time, and it is interesting that with all of the talk of bringing criminals to justice that Ness ends up shooting it out with and ultimately killing almost all of the criminals at the end of the show. Either that or rival criminals ended up killing each other. The Department of Justice couldn't have been happy about that.
Ness died shortly before this series began, and it is ironic that the best days of his career were during his time with the Untouchables. Afterwards his life went on a downwards trajectory and included a couple of divorces, a failed election campaign for mayor of Cleveland, and failed business ventures. His time with the Untouchables largely forgotten by his death, this TV show resurrected interest in that period of history and thus that period of Ness' life. -
DKosty12315 September 2008This show got a lot of critique during it's run for being to violent and glorifying Mafia type criminals. As for the violence, while there is a lot of shooting, there is only a few times you see much blood. The Godfather films and The Sopranos since have done more to glorify the Mafia than this program ever did.
The show was well written having an original basis on the book The Untouchables by Elliott Ness. Desilu seemed to be very good at getting writers to adapt fine scripts for most of the show. One does shudder to think what the show would have been if it weren't for Van Johnson's wife telling him to turn down Lucy's offer that Van play Ness because "television will never amount to anything".
Robert Stack fits the role very well even though he was not the first choice. The show at it's height was a top rated program though it did not have the long term staying power of I Love Lucy.
Walter Winchell was the master stroke of casting in the narrators role. His voice is so authoritative that it gives the show a feeling of reality with each introduction.
Desilu did an early parody of the show in the mid 1960's when it was producing the original Star Trek series. If you ever catch it, the episode is called "A Piece of The Action" and Star Trel literally borrowed some of the Untouchables sets at Desilu to film the episode. Years later, Saturday Night Live did a great satire of Untouchables when Desi Arnez hosted.
The music, especially the theme song, along with Winchell helps sell this show to the audience. -
possumopossum14 April 2007I bought the first series of DVDs yesterday and until then, I never knew there was a two-hour pilot movie about it. I always thought Robert Stack was a better Eliot Ness than Kevin Costner. Stack's Ness was more like a tough, no-nonsense federal agent while Kevin Costner played him more like a nerdy accountant. This used to be my dad's favorite show and, on nights when I didn't have school the next day, he would let me stay up and watch it with him. When I was in college, I caught it when it was in syndication. I hope they continue to put out these DVDs until they have the whole series out. I'm really looking forward to it.
Life sure was simple back when this series first aired. You rooted for the good guys and hissed at the bad guys and you were glad, in the end, to see Capone and his cohorts get what was coming to them. It also shows that we have to be ever vigilant with our government officials so that this kind of evil cannot permeate our society. Great action-packed series and now lives forever in the DVD format. Now, if only THE FUGITIVE would come out on DVD. -
ynot-161 December 2008Although the reputation of The Untouchables is that it is about prohibition, there are more stories about murder and extortion than about the alcohol trade, which is a background in many stories, but central to only a handful.
These bad guys are really bad. Not only are there the commonplace shootings, but people have their cars blown up. They are knifed in the back. They are strangled in the back seats of cars. They are blinded when acid is thrown in their faces. They are hanged. They are set on fire. Good friends and reliable employees have their lives snuffed out with the villain employing less thought than he would spend on selecting the right tie to wear. As Frank Nitti (exquisitely played by actor Bruce Gordon) put it, while plotting the murder of a young man who worked tirelessly to make Nitti's enterprises succeed, "It's a matter of economics. Two of these (displaying bullets) cost 15 cents." While Frank Nitti is the best known of the criminals in this outstanding series, he appears in a tiny minority of the stories, about 25 of 118. Other actors with different personalities but equivalent levels of viciousness terrorize the innocent and not-so-innocent with levels of violence that are shocking even today, and were surely even more shocking in the 50s and early 60s.
While Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti is the best remembered portrayer of gangsters from this show, in other episodes, veteran actors like William Bendix and Nehemiah Persoff, and then-young actors like Martin Landau and Robert Redford, put on entertaining and gritty performances that rarely disappoint. All the while, the newsreel style announcing of Walter Winchell adds enormously to the sensation of reality.
Today's viewer has the fun, not available to the viewers back then, of frequently spotting future stars in the cast, like Alan Hale Jr.(Skipper on Gilligan's Island), Elizabeth Montgomery (Samantha on Bewitched), Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker on All In The Family), Gavin McLeod (Capt. Steubing on The Love Boat), Jack Warden (veteran of countless movies and TV shows), Lee Van Cleef (perennial star and costar of westerns), Peter Falk (Columbo), Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies -- without his toupee). The list goes on and on.
Two often-made criticisms of the show are justified, but to my mind, unimportant. First, it is true that in real life Eliot Ness never met most of the notorious criminals that he and his men defeat on the show. However, the show is admitted to be fictional. Second, it is true that the characters of the good guys, Ness and crew, are not particularly colorful. However, the gangsters and their victims provide ample color, and the solid steadfastness of Robert Stack as Eliot Ness and the rest of his crew gives viewers an anchor of emotional security in the face of the omnipresent evil portrayed on the show. Without this, the helplessness of the victims in the face of the ruthlessness, treachery and cold-heartedness of the villains that dominate the show episode after episode might be difficult to bear.
Everyone will benefit when the operators of networks that play reruns of old series finally decide to put real quality before the viewers and begin to regularly show The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Rawhide, and the other real classics of years past. -
mrizaj5 November 2014The above title describes THE UNTOUCHABLES in a nutshell.
When Desilu Productions decided to adapt Eliot Ness and Oscar Frawley's 1957 memoir THE UNTOUCHABLES as a two part episode of the DESILU PLAYHOUSE anthology series in 1958, they didn't know that they were about to give birth to a classic TV crime series. So a year after the two part DESILU PLAYHOUSE episode aired, THE UNTOUCHABLES debuted on ABC in the Fall of 1959 and came on like gangbusters.
Here's the series in a nutshell, at the end of the original pilot, Treasury Department agent Eliot Ness (Robert Stack) and his hand-picked group of agents known as "The Untouchables" continued their war on what was left of the Capone Organization led by Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon). And also found time to go after such notable underworld figures as Dutch Shultz, Charles "Lucky" Lucianno, Jack "Legs" Diamond, the Genna Brothers, and Ma Barker among others who the real Eliot Ness never encountered. Not to mention a variety of would-be underworld kingpins, vice lords, and drug traffickers, many which often end trying to go for "gangster martyrdom" (dying with guns blazing during battle with the Untouchables)not before committing more than a few acts of violence before Ness and company catch up to them. All in 118 1 hour episodes that mixed the machine gun paced style of the 1930's gangster movies with the gritty edge of 1940's & 1950's film noir and pushed along by the staccato narration of Walter Winchell.
For the record, Eliot Ness - real life - disbanded the Untouchables after Al Capone was put away, but that didn't stop Hollywood from doing this show and creating the situations. And remember, Hollywood has a bad habit of playing fast and loose with history. But that doesn't keep this from being an enjoyable show.
For the record, Ness' agents were Jack Rossman (Steve London), Enrico "Rico" Rossi (Nicholas Georgiade), William Youngfellow (Abel Fernandez) for all four seasons with agents Cam Allison (Anthony George) and Martin Flaherty (Jerry Paris) both replaced by Lee Hobson (Paul Picerni) in the second season. A group of incorruptible agents in a time when cops and politicians "on the take" were the rule rather than the exception to the rule (this was the era of Prohibition). Considering the times (the late 1920's and early 1930's), Chicago and the rest of America needed a tough group of law-enforcers for such a tough age.
In the hands of such writers as Leonard Kantor, Harry Kronman, and John Mantley among many others and directors such as Walter Grauman, Tay Garnett, Ida Lupino, and Paul Wendkos among others; THE UNTOUCHABLES became one of the true classics of the crime television genre. Not to mention at time one of the most violent series ever. But quite a few time during the run of the series, they showed that violence made more of an impact when the gory details weren't shown on screen. Examples of this include "The White Slavers" when a massacre of prostitutes were shown from the reaction of a character shielding his eyes and also in 'The Lily Dallas Story" when the title character machine guns a fence to death by showing a close-up of the tommy-gun being fired followed by a reaction shot of the title character. I could name a lot more incidents, but it would take a lot more space.
During its four year run (1959-1963), THE UNTOUCHABLES ended up becoming one of the most memorable TV series ever to come out of any era. And its healthy afterlife in syndication (currently appears on ME-TV) and all four seasons being released on DVD (by CBS Video) ensured THE UNTOUCHABLES position as one of television's most unforgettable series. -
rustyheller200324 January 2007YEAH--For all those who have been asking:
It's coming out on DVD, April 3, 2007. A four disk set, Vol one of the first season. Includes The Scarface Mob and goes up to episode 14, The Noise of Death. Check it out on amazon.
If you guys like the show be sure to buy the DVD set which will insure that they'll come out with the rest of season 1 and all the other seasons. I'm tired of watching my old not so good copies on VHS. Columbia House never had the full show on VHS anyway and the copies made from the TV of the episodes CH didn't put out are much inferior. I can't wait to see it in crisp b/w and hear that great soundtrack.
Funny thing, my 8th grade English teacher also railed on about the violence on The Untouchables, but the kids were crazy about it back then. -
edwagreen25 October 2007Outstanding weekly television series of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Who can ever forget that haunting theme music that was played at the beginning and end of each episode? The show was just terrific, even down to the superb narration of Walter Winchell.
Having lost the Academy Award for his brilliant performance in "Written on the Wind," in 1956, Robert Stack turned his attention to this television series. He portrayed Eliot Ness, a crime buster of A-1 quality, who would bring down some of the biggest names in crime history.
With a terrific supporting cast, each weekly episode was an absolute treasure to view. People such as Nehemiah Persoff and Virginia Vincent had standard stand-out roles.
Yes, there was plenty of violence but Chicago of the 1930s was just that. -
bkoganbing23 January 2009Before Brian DePalma gave us his stylish telling of the tale Eliot Ness and his band of Treasury agents, the world was reintroduced to them via this television series from Desilu productions. Eliot Ness was portrayed in tight-lipped, square jawed fashion by Robert Stack and it became his career role.
If Ness had only lived to see it. After his high point in leading that gang of Treasury agents in Chicago that raided illegal liquor establishments with flair, Ness went on to become Cleveland's Chief of Police and an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of that city. He drifted into obscurity after that.
But shortly before that Ness who was in bad health and in a bad financial situation contacted author Oscar Fraley who helped him ghost write his memoirs of those days. Ness died right after that and the book was published after his demise. It was then snapped up by Desilu productions because Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz saw potential for a television series.
The Untouchables had a good run for a few seasons. The period atmosphere was helped by the familiar voice of Walter Winchell who lived through that period and covered it. Winchell helped give the series a ring of authenticity it didn't deserve.
After a while the Untouchables were in New York dealing with Lucky Luciano and those gang wars, dealing with the Purple gang of Detroit and others that had nothing to do with what they really did. They hit Al Capone and his competitor Bugs Moran in the pocketbook, but of course were not the ones who brought them down. We all know it was those busy accountants in the US Attorney's office in Chicago that did the job.
The success of the series spun a brief spurt of nostalgia for that era in America both on the big and small screen. Neville Brand as Al Capone and Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti were a perfect pair of scowling counterparts to the jut-jawed Robert Stack as Ness.
Occasionally the series is still run on the nostalgia channels. It remains an interesting and glamorized look at a part of our past. -
dataconflossmoor-121 January 2010Chicago during the dry years (prohibition) was a venue which had a very rough exterior. Morally rigid guidelines, and a facet of poverty comprising of reprehensible destitution were unfortunate elements of American living which initiated an irascible backlash of pandemic criminal activity. Such tumultuous and illegal shenanigans embodied some extremely visceral emotions with hundreds of thousands of people who lived in Chicago! The television show "The Untouchables" dealt with hard bitten reality which evoked agitated behavior on both sides of the law! Elliot Ness was on a vigilante crusade to stop the flow of liquor into Chicago during the Prohibition era! As it turns out, Elliot Ness himself died of a heart attack which was attributable to his alcoholism! What is the point of this information? Not to depict Ness as a hypocrite, rather, to reiterate that Elliot Ness believed in enforcing the law, regardless of what his position was on any given social issue! The series, "The Untouchables" is an historically succinct account of how Al Capone ruled Chicago during a specific era! The federal agents were either bought off, or, like Ness, they were motivated by disdain and vehement objection for key members of the syndicate who were repetitively thwarting them! An onslaught of prominent actors and actresses made guest appearances on "The Untouchables". This made the series very powerful!! These special guest stars played the roles of Ness' scruple-less adversaries! More often than not, Ness would engage in an ideological diatribe with these criminals. In turn, these ruthlessly calm and collective masterminds of financially lucrative chicanery would emphatically ameliorate their reckless actions by blaming either their environment, or, the nation's prevailing circumstances! A couple of guest stars' appearances won Emmy awards for their segment performances on this series. (Elizabeth Montgomery and Robert Redford) The directing for "The Untouchables" focused on being extremely authentic! The narrating by Walter Winchell added a very wry and supercilious touch to the entire plot of each week's episode! The acting by guest stars and regulars (like Robert Stack) was outstanding! (Especially for the small screen). Chicago, in the twenties and thirties, was a city that cultivated it's identity by making nefariously illicit and felonious escapades their precariously notorious trademark!! The series "The Untouchables" illustrated such copious crimes with a very vividly pejorative and fatalistic disposition!! I loved this show, one of my favorites in all of television!! Mostly on account of the fact that as a Chicagoan, the show "The Untouchables" exudes a very definite and cynical identifiability!
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redryan6420 July 2007Having been born and bred in Chicago, it was at a rather tender age of about 12 or 13 that I first became aware of all of the Gangland Lore that there was in our Fair City.* It was at this time of having Television Dramas such as THE UNTOUCHABLES as the main means of illuminating the period of our recent past known as the Prohibition Era.
It surely must have been the popular topic in Hollywood in this time around 1959 to do stories about Prohibition, the Organized Crime Syndicate and the Desparado Bank Robbers of the 1930's Depression Years.In the Movie Houses we had the likes of AL CAPONE (1959) and THE PURPLE GANG (also 1959) and others.
But on TV, we had only one other series besides THE UNTOUCHABLES to dramatize the businesslike organized crime of that timer between the two World Wars. And that would be NBC's THE LAWLESS YEARS (1959-'61). It featured episodic tales of many different Gangland Thugs, highly fictionalized like the Eliot Ness show was. In it, James Gregory portrayed one New York City Police Department Inspector Barney Ruditsky, who like Elliot Ness, was a real life person, but enough of the competition for right now.
The stories on the Untouchables varied from having been fairly closely written following the facts of the actual occurrences, to just about totally fictional. The best examples would be the Two-Part Untouchables on the CBS weekly anthology, DESILU Playhouse and the two parter on the Untouchables Series, "The Unhired Assassin".
The former details the formation of Ness' Unit of Treasury Agents,** the latter dramatized the events leading to the killing of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak(Robert Middleton) in Florida by one crazed little Italian immigrant, Giusseppe Zangara(Joe Mantell). At the time, Mayor Cermak was on stage next to newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was Zangara's target.
All of the episodes, whether more realistic or the far-fetched, strictly pulp fictional "Cops 'n' Robbers stuff, benefited from the use of Former Big Shot Newspaper Columnist, Walter Winchell's fine narration.
When taken with a grain of salt,like all Hollywood Dramatizations should be, the series serves to recreate a little bit of history in Twentieth Century America. Maybe this TV Drama serves us well, particularly if it whets the curiosity, encouraging the viewer to read up on the times of "Bath Tub Gin and The Thompson Sub-Machine Gun!"
* It's funny how often we still hear from some out-of-towner all about how bad our town is and how the Hoods run this place. Our Mother, the now 90 year old Bertha Ryan (nee Fuerst) has cousins in rural Michigan who wouldn't believe that she had never witnessed a Murder! Our late Dad, Clem Ryan, a Navy Veteran in World War II told the tale of English Kids around their Base in Southhampton, Englasd did the old "EH-eh-eh-eh!" sound to accompany their mime impersonation of a Machine Gun, upon hearing that he hailed from Chicago!
** "Treasury Agents", or as Snuffy Smith calls 'em, "Revenooers!" -
tiffanie_says_stay_in_your_lane22 April 2023This has got to be the most fascinating, atmospheric, have-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat crime series I have ever seen!!! I'm not exaggerating when I say I could watch this all night until the sun comes up. Okay, maybe not that long, but if I didn't already have dark circles developing under my eyes, I could see myself watching past 2am - at least until 3. There were a few times I forced myself off of my laptop after watching an episode because I had to get up early for work the next day. As a crime thriller nut, I feel like I've hit a gold mine. Adapted from a memoir of the same title, and narrated by Walter Winchell (who was a newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator, so his narration made the show feel even more suspenseful), The Untouchables is a fictionalized account of real life Prohibition agent Eliot Ness (brilliantly portrayed by Robert Stack) as he leads a group of federal agents (played by Paul Picerni, Abel Fernandez, Nicholas Georgiade, Bruce Gordon, and Steve London) in 1930s Chicago. The crimes they fight mostly center around gangland activity. There is one flaw: the women's hairstyles looked current for that time, but everything else, such as the costumes, cars, and overall atmosphere, are very evocative of the 30s. The series was groundbreaking not only for its candid dialogue about drug use, alcoholism, and prostitution, but also because its overall content was nothing like anything the public had seen. After shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, it's understandable why people were shocked. The 1950s was a decade of family friendly programs. In The Untouchables, characters were shot, stabbed, slapped, choked, and fell from buildings. The National Association for Better Radio and Television deemed it unfit for TV. Thinking about it now, it's laughable that people were offended. I'm sure they couldn't have imagined television would be so gory six decades later (CSI has actually made me scream). This is probably the first show I've seen that doesn't have any one star reviews and I know why. The acting is intense and the stories are multi-layered. I often find myself rewinding more than once so I can get the gist of what the characters are saying. Besides the violence, critics said it was insulting to people of Italian ancestry. Looking it at from the perspective of a person living in this generation, it's more progressive than what's currently on television. I think it's really cool the actors who played the federal agents were Italian American (with the exception of Abel Fernandez, who was Native American/Mesoamerican. But nonetheless, this show was still ahead of its time to cast someone of his ethnicity), so the actors playing the mobsters weren't the only ones who were Italian. Now when they cast non-Anglo people in crime dramas, it seems like they were only chosen as a token. Most 1950s TV shows are lame. I'd rather watch this over that unrealistic suburbia crap. Oh, and I have no desire to see The Untouchables movie. I bet it doesn't measure up anywhere close to this.
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chadwick-8695515 October 2023This series was about "The Untouchables", supposedly government officials, possibly for the ATF,that fought "corruption" during the days of Prohibition. It was the idea that it was impossible for them to be corrupted.
The idea/law of Prohibition, in itself, is preposterous, and only benefited the mobs.
However, this series is quite engaging, and one can get absorbed into the drama of fighting the mobs.
What quite surprised me was the impact this series had to the Italian/Sicilian communities. For Desi Arnaz to be threatened and for contracts to be placed on him is amazing. I did not think that the series was disparaging to Sicilians/Italians, only to those involved in crimes, which, of course, is not the same. I am glad that the contract on his life was rescinded.
The actors are those that were famous or became famous. Robert Stack was his usual great self (especially from Airplane!), and a great skeet shooter. There are so many other great actors. -
valstone5228 August 2023Don't get me wrong, I like the series watched as a kid and watch. I always wondered why the real Ness was never called out for over blowing his so called heroics. By the time the series came out he was dead. But when the book came out, he's lucky he had died by that time. Talk about law suits. When you really think about it, Ness wouldn't dare slap nitti or any of the others, he's shown doing. Capone didn't even recognize him, he was a little man with a big ego. The only thing he's know for is helping, with Capone tax trial true he got credit for that. Other than that he wasn't breaking down doors and man handling gangsters. He was a womanizer and alcoholic in real life. Like I said the series is good, but people need to separate fact from fiction.
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rcj536525 March 2004Crime: The unknown nature of it all,and the agents who would stop at nothing to bring them to justice remains one of the greatest crime-drama shows ever to come out of the golden age of television from the late 1950's,early 1960's.
The Untouchables may have been one great show,but in its day it was just that..one of the most violent crime shows on television,but during its four year-run it was propelled into the art of TV greatness when it aired on ABC-TV from September of 1959 to September of 1963.
Produced by Quinn Martin and Desi Arnaz,under his production company Desilu Productions,the series produced an astounding 114 episodes,all in black and white,and stood shoulder to shoulder with such giants as Bonanza,Gunsmoke,not to mention in that same time frame,Maverick,and classic shows like Rawhide and The Riflemen and it was during the four incredible years that this show ran,won Emmys for its breathtaking scripts and incredible acting. At the time this show was on the air,Desi Arnaz's production company,Desilu was producing shows like "Make Room For Daddy"(The Danny Thomas Show),"The Andy Griffith Show", and others and would go on after The Untouchables went off the air to created the shows "Gomer Pyle","I Spy","Mission:Impossible","Star Trek", "Mannix",and would co-produced his own comedy show,"The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour",and would be in charge of production,which went un-credited for "The Lucy Show" starring Lucille Ball during the show's first two seasons.
The Untouchables was groundbreaking at its finest and it was that reason to see why this was just so. Set in the prohibition era of Chicago during the late 1920's,early 1930's,during the depression,Special Treasury Agent Elliott Ness(played by Robert Stack) and his band of crimefighters must deal with bootleggers,gangland murders,assassins,and crime figures and mob bosses like Al Capone (Neville Brand) and Frank Nitti(Bruce Gordon). Brilliantly and expertly narrated by the great Walter Winchell,this power-packed crime drama of a series got the story told without the use of the screen gore,explicit profanity and blatant violence,but this show had plenty of gunplay and some of it was maybe tone down in this day and age,but during the show's run it was very violent,for instance the breaking of glass and the ricoheting of bullets were the standard but you never got to see any blood or gory stuff on the show,which was at the time prohibited due to the censors. This would become so true when Brian DePalma did the movie version of "The Untouchables" in 1987 with Kevin Costner in the Robert Stack role and Robert DeNiro in the Al Capone character and here this version was more violent and graphic than the TV show,which by the way gave Sean Connery an Oscar for his performance.
But getting back to the TV show of the same title,
Among the superior work by Stack,Brand,and Gordon,this show had a array of special guest stars that appear on the show almost on a weekly basis and the guest list included: Jerry Paris(long before his days on "The Dick Van Dyke Show"),Telly Savalas,Oscar Beregi,Jr.,Steve London, Jason Wingreen,Jason Robards,Jack Klugman,Grant Richards,Elizabeth Montgomery(long before her collaboration on "Bewitched"),Lee Grant,Abel Fernandez,Charles Bronson,James Coburn,and so many more. This was as awesome production that was to perfection along with Nelson Riddle's theme score.
I got the chance to catch one of the episodes on video recently,and it goes to show that this series needs to seen again and needs to be put on there on DVD,especially with the first two seasons of the series. Sometimes they do show this long lost series seldom at times on New York's WOR-TV and its very sad that the cable network's A&E,Nick at Nite,TV Land,TRIO,or The History Channel doesn't air this program. -
QueenoftheGoons2 November 2021Wow, the wonderful actors in this. That's what made this. Every episode so exciting because you didn't know which gorgeous actor would be hiding in it. I'm 32 and these guys are better than what is walking out there today. Such as? - Steve London, Lee Marvin, George Sawaya, Frank Sutton, Allen jaffe, Vic Morrow, Cliff Robertson, Neville Brand, Bruce Gordon, Tom reese, Henry Silva, Leo Gordon, Dick Bakalyan, Claude Akins, Richard Anderson, Mike Kellin, Michael Ansara, Kevin Hagan, Joseph Ruskin, Arthur Hill, Paul Richards, John Milford, Leonard Nimoy, Cliff carnell, Paul Mantee, and Harry Guardino. Jaffe & Sawaya god what faces. Sawaya was drop dead gorgeous. Gordon i'm glad he was in it alot. Dad would have loved this series, had he not passed away.
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screenman2 May 2010Here was a great American crime series about the great age of American crime.
Robert Stack played Elliot Ness, the G-Man tasked to enforce absurd prohibition laws and deal with the organised crime that inevitably saw a profit to be made.
The series was so popular in its day and Stack such an iconic figure of good combating wickedness that he often became typecast to a British generation. Even today, greying fans will sometimes refer to him as Elliot Ness.
The series was filmed in black & white, and given an excellent noirish style. There was an almost perfect mix of action, suspense and drama. Aiding its authenticity and imbuing it with the stamp of semi-documentary, the story was frequently pushed along by a narrative voice-over, which made scene-shifting and location-changes seamless. Throw-in an excellent script, memorable theme and incidental music and you have the stuff of a classic.
At least some of the programmes are available on DVD, and whilst the violence may seem pretty tame by today's standards, it is still well worth a look.
Robert Stack never bettered his performances. -
aimless-4621 March 2008The 118 hour-long episodes (appropriately in B&W) of the crime drama "The Untouchables" were originally broadcast on ABC from 1959-1963. The first 16 episodes of Season Two are listed below with their original air dates.
The series was promoted as a docudrama-type presentation based on the real-life cases of government agent Eliot Ness (Robert Stack) during the 1930's. Despite this claim the promoters took considerable liberties with the actual history of Ness's squad of "Untouchables" (incorruptible) as well considerable dramatic license as every G-man vs the mob cliché and caricature was incorporated into stories.
The style is less like a docudrama than the screaming headlines of a scandal focused Hearst newspaper from the era; complete with a Walter Winchell's newsreel-like narration. But this added zip to the series and made it a big hit. The many stereotypes simply made the story telling more efficient and did not interfere with the viewer getting into the story.
The episodes are of two basic types; macro (big-name crime bosses) and micro (innocents and low-level hoods caught up in forces over which they have little control). Although the macro type episodes are the ones most subject to historical liberties, both types work reasonably well and the ability of the series to shift between them gave the writers a lot more potential material to work with and in part accounted for the series not running out of gas after just a season or two.
Stack and the actors playing his main agents generally remain intact from the first season. These include Nick Georgiade as Rossi, Paul Picerni as Hobson, Steve London as Rossman, Abel Fernandez as Youngfellow, and Jerry Paris as Flaherty. Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) was the most prominent of the villains.
Apparently the series was an annoyance to then F.BI. head J. Edgar Hoover, who frequently had to explain that Ness and his men were agents of the Treasury Department, not the FBI.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
The Rusty Heller Story: 13 October 1960, Jack 'Legs' Diamond: 20 October 1960, Nicky: 30 November 1960, The Waxey Gordon Story: 10 November 1960, The Mark of Cain: 17 November 1960, A Seat on the Fence: 24 November 1960, The Purple Gang: 1 December 1960, Kiss of Death Girl: 8 December 1960, The Larry Fay Story: 15 December 1960, The Otto Frick Story: 22 December 1960, The Tommy Karpeles Story: 29 December 1960, The Big Train: Part 1: 5 January1961, The Big Train: Part 2: 12 January 1961, The Masterpiece: 19 January 1961, The Organization: 26 January 1961, The Jamaica Ginger Story: 2 February 1961 -
"The Untouchables" is a show that has aged well, as the shows are still quite enjoyable today. And, even today, a few of the episodes are a bit shocking due to their violence...something that brought this Desilu series a lot of attention back in the day. Killings are often shown vividly and bad guys are, in an odd way, the stars of the show. As for Eliot Ness (Robert Stack), his part in most episodes is actually rather limited...as was Stack's acting range and emotional expression. Mostly, he and his men just appeared here and there and the very charismatic baddies killed each other! And, it's all VERY entertaining due mostly to the writing and broadness of the acting by the guest thugs each week.
Not every episode is a winner and a few of the early ones are poor historically speaking because they claim to be about real life villains (such as Ma Barker and Pretty Boy Floyd) but bear almost no resemblance to these folks. They ARE very entertaining...but also complete fabrications...and much of it because the real life Ness had nothing to do with bringing these folks to justice. Despite this, I generally preferred the earlier episodes because later it seemed as if the writers had a hard time coming up with new plots and so they kept featuring Frank Nitti. Again and again, Nitti would somehow avoid capture...while the baddie of the week almost always ended up dead or in prison. Still, however, these shows, while weaker, were quite entertaining as well...just not to the same degree as the earlier ones. -
mm-398 February 2020Watchable old show! When I endured insomnia, back in the day, when we had the Detroit feed! All we had was infomercials on. Infomercials on Exercise equipment, bras, and the anthem sign off was all that was on. Except, for The Untouchables! Well the Untouchables is a cheesy old show, but in retrospect not bad either. Once a Radio show The Untouchables starts with a narration with back ground info on the bad guy. There is many notable up coming actors like Brian Keith, Jame Coburn etc who match up against Robert Stack(before Unsolved Mysteries) aka Elliot Ness and the crew. The acting and story build up of 1920's Chicago was good. The Untouchables being and old show had the usual old cliches of bunch breaks happening at the right time. A few corny old lines. The ending shoots out are choreographed not as well as today's shows, but I also believe police procedures have evolved with better procedures then back then. Watchable when one has insomnia. Thankfully there was something to watch back then. Stack rocks as Ness. 7 stars.
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After having seen Brian DePalma's film (of which I've probably seen a thousand times), I have to say as a fan of crime dramas and gangster movies and shows in particular, this is one of the best crime dramas I've ever watched.
The series loosely (And I do mean loosely...) follows the true story of how Federal Prohibition Agent Eliot Ness formed an independent squad of G-Men to fight the Chicago Mob, specifically the legendary Al Capone. In real life, "The Untouchables" ( A name they actually wouldn't get until years later) fought the Chicago mob from 1930 to Prohibition's end in 1933.
The show originally premiered as a two-hour made-for-TV movie titled "The Scarface Mob" and based directly from Eliot Ness's autobiography. However when the show became such an unexpected hit, the producers decided to turn it into a weekly series. The only problem was that the true adventures of Eliot Ness were covered almost entirely in the movie. So they were forced create new adventures for Ness where he battled bank robbers, kidnappers, other Chicago mobsters (real and fictional), and even had Ness going up against other famous criminals like "Ma" Barker, "Lucky" Luciano, "Dutch" Schultz, and "Legs" Diamond. Which is something the real Ness never did. The sad side-effect of these newly created stories is that historians have been trying to devalue Ness's contributions to fighting crime ever since.
That being said, the series is as hard hitting and gritty as an old James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart movie. It's balance between a semi-documentary, helped by the staccato narrations of famed New York crime reporter Walter Winchell, and the film noir style lighting and camera angles heighten the drama.
The solid storytelling is anchored further by the rock-solid cast which includes series regular Bruce Gordon as the menacing Frank Nitti, Al Capone's successor as well as other inspired guest stars like Peter Falk (Colombo), Leslie Neilsen (The "Naked Gun" movies), Jack Warden, and a wide variety of recognizable tough guy character actors. Playing the members of Ness's squad are Jerry Paris (The Dick Van Dyke Show) as the sensible Martin Flarety, Abel Fernandez as good-natured Native American William Youngfellow, Steve London as the sleepy-eyed Jack Rossman, and Nicholas Geogiande as the eager young Italian Enrico Rossi (Although Brian DePalam says he wasn't inspired by the series and actually didn't care for it, it's easy to see that Rossi may've played some influence in Andy Garcia's character). And, of course, the centerpiece to this series is Robert Stack's indelible, and enduring, portrayal of Eliot Ness with the right blend of toughness, compassion, and moral outrage that isn't bland, nor does it deserve the "boy scout" label that some have used to mock the character. Stack is incredible. And this series is truly entertaining.
If you get the chance, buy this series. While some of the show's elements might seem dated or cheesy, it's still a compelling show that will keep you hooked. -
StrictlyConfidential27 March 2020"The Untouchables" (1959-1963) is widely considered to be one of the very best TV crime series of its time. It starred actor, Robert Stack as real-life Chicago gangbuster and prohibition agent, Eliot Ness, who was famous for bringing down the notorious Al Capone.
Produced by Quinn Martin and narrated by Walter Winchell - "The Untouchables" depicted 1930s Chicago with documentary authenticity where, each week, Ness and his brave boys wrestled with such ruthless villains as, Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, and, yes, even Ma Barker. -
snollen637 October 2007I have been a historian of 20th century American culture for more than 25 years, with a specialty in the 1920s-1940s, as well as a film historian and filmmaker. "The Untouchables" is just as accurate any other Hollywood dramatization of gangland lore. When you have to crank out an hour-long TV episode every week for several years, who can afford to do research 24 hours a day? This show was more or less as accurate as it possibly could be. It is the ONLY version of gangland culture I have seen that has included Dutch Schultz's unforgettable babble, "A boy has never wept, nor dashed a thousand Kim." Hell, that was enough for me. If you need my credentials, check out my newest book (my 15th), "Warners Wiseguys," a look at the classic Warner Bros. gangland world.
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johner237 February 2009Hello.
I wanna trying to discover the name of one episode about these series.
The episode itself was on a school of killers trained to perform services that require training and skill.
Had a "teacher" trained to teach the art of killing, involving martial arts and other techniques of the type.
I do not remember the name of the title.
I could find all the episodes, but I'm confuse to focus the right one.
---> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052522/episodes ---> http://epguides.com/Untouchables/ If you can help with this name, I would be grateful.
Thanks. -
bethnkevin1 August 2004i became aware of the untouchables in the mid-late 1970's. when it was on, i stopped everything to watch it sometimes twice a day. didn't matter that i saw each episode a million times! the stories, the acting, the theme song was the best there is. Robert stack,Paul Picerni, Bruce Gordon, Neville Brand and especially Nick Georgiade (who is my very most favorite) all did great jobs. the show still holds up today. in fact, its better than most of whats on today! it would be great if a channel would pick it up and we could watch it again. just knowing these untouchable websites exist makes me feel really warm and good. thanks for being here for us. I've been trying to locate nick georgiade to write a fan/thank-you letter but have been unsuccessful. well, i can look at him here. i miss this show.