The Underground Railway (1959) User Reviews (7)

They Transformed His Face, But Not His Heart

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 26 June 2007]

It's Aug 3, 1933 outside the walls of Lewisburg (Pa.) Federal Prison, "Frank Halloway" breaks out of prison. He was serving a life sentence and had only been in jail for two years. Guest star Cliff Robertson plays the ruthless criminal who grabs the getaway car and runs over his partner, en route to going after a half-million dollars that had never been recovered in a theft. Robertson has a bunch of cotton or something stuffed in his mouth to make him look like some sort of Neanderthal man!

The story mainly involves "Mona," whom we first see at one of those old, brutal marathon dance contests they used to have in the early '30s. She is supposed to accompany Halloway en route to his destination to get "the loot." Mona is not a criminal; she was just picked out by Halloway's crooked lawyer for the job of going along on this cross-country car trip to make Frank look more legit as a married man. She isn't thrilled at first with the offer but is desperate need for money and is thrilled when she finds out they'll give her a decent amount of cash. She doesn't know the new "husband" is a crook, and is a little freaked out when she sees this Lon Chaney-werewolf-looking guy (who has a complex about his looks).

Elliot Ness and his Untouchables of trying to track Halloway down. They know about the "underground railway" which was, according to narrator Walter Winchell, "a series of stations around the country where a criminal on the lam could eat, sleep and be comfortable. It was organized by smart lawyers and controlled by top gang leaders and protected by certain local politicians. A hunted man going in any direction could travel in safety and style, providing he had the right contacts and enough money."

That all sets up this episode, how the Untouchables go about finding and sending the thug back to jail. The job isn't made easier have Halloway has some teeth work done to change his appearance. Later, he gets more and more plastic surgery done until, at the end, nobody recognizes him.

Overall, this was one of the more intense, better shows with good actors and good photography. Robertson was terrific as the nasty killer.

Criminal Safe Houses

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 17 September 2013]

Cliff Robertson guest stars and dominates this story on The Untouchables playing a murderous escaped convict who is one plug ugly dude. That's what's responsible for the bad attitude Cliff has against the world.

He was sent up for a robbery where a friend of Robert Stack's was killed and Stack has him in the sights of The Untouchables. A man in Los Angeles is holding the loot from the money and Robertson's lawyer Joe DeSantis has him go out to LA to collect and he travels with Virginia Vincent as his wife, the better to escape detection. He also takes time to have some plastic surgery done and then he looks like the Robertson we all know.

He also stays at stops on the criminal Underground Railway which is a series of safe houses where you can unwind for a very big price if you're on the run.

Even after the surgery and he's a new man, Robertson's personality is set so to speak.

Not only does he get the loot, but in a manner of speaking takes it with him. To see what I mean watch this Untouchables episode.

Invitation to death

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 8 May 2017]

The untouchables was aired in Globo TV around 1988-89 and l'd watched some episodes narrated by Celso de Freitas in dubbed version, this is remarkable series and one of my favorite ever, mainly in a "Noir style", in this episode a bad guy Frank Halloway (Cliff Robertson) escape of the jail helped by your former lawyer who intend to takes him cross country to meet your old pal to share a half million dollars of the robbery, Eliot Ness track down his footsteps to catch both, along the way he changed his face making dental and plastic surgery, also he has a female companion to seems a married couple to mislead the police, besides in this episode have two beauty women Virginia Vincent and a China girl Linda Wong.

Chilling.....

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 12 January 2016]

"The Underground Railway" is one of the better episodes of "The Untouchables" because its star of the week, Frank Halloway (Cliff Robertson), is one of the most chilling and blood-thirsty villains you could imagine. Robertson is great in this part and the writing really is superb.

When the show begins, Halloway escapes from prison. His co-escapee is then murdered by Halloway...just because! This ugly mug really is a horrible piece of work...and folks keep underestimating his evil. The biggest mistake is made by folks running a sort of underground railroad for wanted criminals. They keep bleeding him dry of all his funds...not realizing that Halloway NEVER forgets a slight. Additionally, after getting plastic surgery and looking like a new man, these bloodsuckers know what he now looks like...and that is something Halloway doesn't want!

As for Ness and the Untouchables, they're barely in the episode at all and that is not a bad thing. Halloway is such a compelling and vicious guy, you really want to see as much of him as you can! Overall, among the best episodes....and one you won't soon forget.

By the way, it's a TINY mistake but at the end of the show, Halloway is driving away from Ness and Ness fires one bullet. Then you see the windshield and it has MULTIPLE bullet holes in it BEFORE other shots ring out!

Great story and performance.

[lorenzb-2 · 10/10 · 22 March 2008]

Cliff Robertson underplays the role of Frank Halloway, to great effect. Halloway is a brutal, ruthless and completely amoral killer and thief. When the story starts out his looks match his disposition, but because of some dental work and plastic surgery he becomes handsome and can't be recognized. He also kills just about everyone he comes in contact with, even those who have helped him to get as far as he did. He's not a smart criminal, but has tremendous animal cunning. He operates completely on instinct and self-preservation. In other words his heart is made of rat meat. He changes his looks, but inside remains ugly and evil. He is single minded and that is also his undoing. My favorite episode of The Untouchables, an excellent show I've loved since I was a kid in the 60s.

Cliff Robertson as cro magnon man

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 31 December 2021]

This episode has some chilling scenes that add up to a fine episode, but countering that is a beauty and the beast kind of story that seems ham fisted and forced.

Frank Halloway (Cliff Robertson) is aided in his attempt to break out of prison by his attorney, Daniel Oates. Halloway has 250 thousand dollars of the loot from a robbery waiting for him in California. Oates wants half of that for helping in the prison breakout and bankrolling his trip to get the money. Oates sends Mona Valentine with him to make sure he doesn't go get the cash and just run out on him, plus you are not going to pull off the beauty and the beast angle with some male henchman accompanying him, at least not in 1960.

Why do I keep saying beauty and the beast? Because Frank Halloway has the ugliest mug that ever cracked a mirror. He has teeth that are too big for his mouth that look like he borrowed them from Goofy Grape, a bulbous nose, and wild goofy hair. Mona takes one look and is repulsed. She tries to be nice about it, but Frank recognizes the reaction he has gotten from people his entire life. And now for the ham fisted part. In spite of them being on a bit of a timetable with the feds looking everywhere for Frank, Mona and Frank have time on this cross country excursion to stop off to get his teeth filed, his nose fixed, and his hairline repaired. The result is that Frank now looks like the Cliff Robertson we all recognize. The other result is that Mona, a mild mannered girl whose highest ambition was to go to secretarial school so she could work sitting down for the rest of her life before all of this happened, is now entering into an affair with a man who has already hit her and shown his explosive temper earlier in Oates' office. Color me incredulous.

Frank is a person with an ugly soul that no surgery will fix, but the episode does make the tie in that perhaps him being scorned his whole life because of his looks did happen to precipitate his criminal behavior even if it doesn't forgive it, and that just undoing that physical ugliness is not going to repair his humanity.

This is a worthy episode of The Untouchables, and I would recommend it.

He died good looking

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 2 May 2013]

****SPOILERS**** G-Man Eliot Ness, Robert Stack, has a very personal reason in getting escaped convict Frank "Hatchet Face" Holloway, Cliff Robertson, to face the bar justice. That in him having murdered his partner George Dayton two years earlier and even worse, by being found Innocent of the crime in a court of law, getting away with it. Now escaped from Harrisburg Prison Holloway together with his woman companion Mona Valantine, Virginia Vincent,provided to him by his shyster lawyer Daniel Oates, Joe De Santis, as cover is on his way to L.A to claim the $500,000.00 he and his partner, who's still at large, Ed Johnson, John Harmon, squirreled away.

With a face that sticks out like a sour thumb "Hatchet Face" Holloway has to get it fixed up or altered to make himself invisible to the police and G-men chasing him. As it turned out it's Holloway's lady companion Mona who saw him before and after his plastic surgery which puts her life in danger in Holloway murdering her to keep Mona from possibly fingering him. That even if she fell madly in love with him, after his face change operation, and would never turn Holloway into the police or G-Men. Holloway and Mona make their way to L.A with him murdering about a half dozen people on the way there including his lawyer Oates. It's Oates who flew there to L.A in order to get his cut of the half million dollar armored car rip off that Holloway & Johnson participated in.

***SPOILERS*** As it turned out it was the murdered Oates personal Japaneses masseuse, who doesn't speak a world of English, Tuki played by Suzie Wong who gave Ness and his boys the clue to were Holloway was going to get the money; An out of the way gambling joint called the "Lucky 7-11" where he was to meet Ed Johnson. The trouble is that no one, with Holloway already having murdered his lover Mona, could recognize him! Not even Ed Johnson who's to split the 500 G's with him! Wild shoot out with a really stupid Frank Holloway revealing himself to Ness & the boys by opening fire on a barley alive and conscious Ed Johnson, whom he thought he had already murdered, who tried to stop him. In the end Holloway got exactly everything that he had coming to him without even having had to stand trial for it.