Monday, May 7, 2007

Untouchables, The: Season 1 Vol. 1


Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America, and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press.

That was how syndicated newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his Sunday TV news broadcasts, which began in 1952. Presented in an overly dramatic style (think Howard Cosell or Paul Harvey) and combining news with gossip and commentary, the show was an extension of his popular radio broadcasts from the '30s and '40s. And though there isn't a commentary track to tell us one way or another, I'm betting that Winchell's style became the tonal template for this hugely popular one-hour gangster drama.

"The Untouchables," starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, was the kind of cops and robbers show that kids loved. I was nine years old when the show first aired as a two-hour TV movie, "The Scarface Mob." Considering all the sound and fury over violence and sex on TV now, audiences saw an awful lot back then. Along with what I saw in National Geographic magazines, I caught my first glimpse of female breasts in this show. In the pilot, you saw a stripper from the side, then full frontal. Yes, she was wearing pasties, but they were tiny ones (the pasties) and it certainly was enough to leave an impression on a young boy. Same with all the violence. There wasn't an episode in this one-hour show that aired late Thursday nights in which a woman wasn't getting pushed around or someone wasn't getting cut down by a "chopper," one of the coolest guns ever to grab a TV or movie audience's attention. The Thompson sub-machine gun, or "Tommy" gun, was as much a character on this show as the G-men and Chicago hoods who used them.

Now, of course, you wouldn't see this level of violence. But "The Untouchables" was such an odd duck that nobody seemed bothered by it. For one thing, we were told it was based on Eliot Ness's autobiography, so it had the cachet of historical drama. Newsman Winchell's narration also gave the show an air of authenticity, even if his delivery was so over-the-top that it felt as if he could have been broadcasting "War of the Worlds." Winchell's hamminess, the overacting bad guys, the show's heavy film-noir style, and general staginess made it all seem slightly cartoonish. The villains were as cool as the guns. You had the cigar chomping Al Capone (Neville Brand), Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti (Bruce Gordon), Mad Dog Coll (Clu Gulager), and even Ma Barker (Claire Trevor), who historically wouldn't have been anywhere near Chicago, but what did we know? None of us had read the real-life Ness's book, and so we had no idea that Ness's job in Chicago really ended when he got Capone for tax evasion. It never occurred to us that Desilu Productions might have been playing a little loose with the facts, beginning the series at the point when it should have ended. We just enjoyed the high drama (and it's STILL amazingly dramatic) each week as Ness and his Untouchables tried to get the best of the bad guys.

I didn't know it at the time, but not everyone was impressed by the show's sense of itself as being historically accuracy. It turns out that Al Capone's estate sued the show for using the gangster's name and image for a profit-making venture, and the FBI wasn't thrilled that Ness got credit for finally getting Ma Barker and her boys when it was really the other bureau.

So how does "The Untouchables" hold up almost 50 years later? This first thing you'll be struck by is the heavy noir treatment, and the variety of interesting camera angles. The show won an Emmy for its editing this first season, and editors managed to juxtapose interesting shots while maintaining a credible tension. The staginess will also strike you. "The Untouchables" is unmistakable melodrama, but I'd liken it to good cholesterol versus the bad--which is to say, it works. If you're a "Sopranos" fan you're going to see how theatrical this production is by comparison. Some of the acting is really hammy, but it feels so period that the show can easily become as addictive as those HBO episodes. I found myself getting into them all over again, which, with old shows, is never guaranteed.

"The Scarface Mob" was first televised as a two-part episode of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in April 1959, and is presented here as a seamless movie. In it, Ness forms the Untouchables and takes down Capone. Fourteen of the first season's 28 episodes are also included here:

1) "The Empty Chair"--Frank Nitti tries to take control of Capone's organization while the boss is in prison, but the pencil proves mightier than the Tommy gun, as Capone's bookkeeper (Nehemiah Persoff) proves.

2) "Ma Barker and Her Boys"--This over-the-top episode has Ness trailing the notorious Ma Barker gang, with flashbacks showing how Ma went from being a churchgoing saint to make the Most Wanted list.

3) "The George 'Bugs' Moran Story"--Ness tries to enlist the help of the local truckers union to keep mob boss Bugs Moran from infiltrating the labor unions.

4) "The Jake Lingle Killing"--When a journalist is murdered, an ex-con decides to play both sides and help Ness find the killer.

5) "Ain't We Got Fun"--How the mob infiltrated entertainment. When a bootlegger takes control of a nightclub, he takes a comic under his wing.

6) "Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll"--A truly mad gangster kidnaps Dutch Shultz's right-hand man and, if that's not bad enough, the horse Schultz was betting on to win the Kentucky Derby.

7) "Mexican Stake-Out"--Ness goes south to bring back a witness; unfortunately, it turns out to be a trap.

8) "The Artichoke King"--The produce market in New York is up for grabs after gang warfare breaks out.

9) "The Tri-State Gang"--Ness relies on an informant again to help him bring down a gang of truck hijackers.

10) "The Dutch Schultz Story"--Bad guys can be tricky, as Ness finds out when Schultz sways an entire jury with his uncharacteristically good behavior.

11) "You Can't Pick the Number"--This time it's the numbers racket, with Agent Flaherty (Jerry Paris) getting the challenge.

12) "The Underground Railway"--A con who's had plastic surgery to do a job for the mob finds life complicated when he falls for the woman who was hired to play his wife.

13) "Syndicate Sanctuary"--Narcotics, this time, as the daughter of a murdered candidate for mayor hopes Ness will help her drive the mob out of her small town.

14) "The Noise of Death"--Ness becomes involved with the Mafia when he develops a relationship with a mob boss who refuses to retire.

Though Ness was surrounded by a number of agents, it was Nicholas Georgiade as Agent Enrico Rossi who became the fan favorite, partly because of his sculpted good looks, but mostly because we saw just how this barber became a member of the Untouchables in an early episode. This season, look for familiar TV faces like Jack Lord, Jack Warden, Martin Landau, Jack Elam, Marion Ross, Alan Hale Jr., and Gavin McLeod.

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America, and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press.

That was how syndicated newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his Sunday TV news broadcasts, which began in 1952. Presented in an overly dramatic style (think Howard Cosell or Paul Harvey) and combining news with gossip and commentary, the show was an extension of his popular radio broadcasts from the '30s and '40s. And though there isn't a commentary track to tell us one way or another, I'm betting that Winchell's style became the tonal template for this hugely popular one-hour gangster drama.

"The Untouchables," starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, was the kind of cops and robbers show that kids loved. I was nine years old when the show first aired as a two-hour TV movie, "The Scarface Mob." Considering all the sound and fury over violence and sex on TV now, audiences saw an awful lot back then. Along with what I saw in National Geographic magazines, I caught my first glimpse of female breasts in this show. In the pilot, you saw a stripper from the side, then full frontal. Yes, she was wearing pasties, but they were tiny ones (the pasties) and it certainly was enough to leave an impression on a young boy. Same with all the violence. There wasn't an episode in this one-hour show that aired late Thursday nights in which a woman wasn't getting pushed around or someone wasn't getting cut down by a "chopper," one of the coolest guns ever to grab a TV or movie audience's attention. The Thompson sub-machine gun, or "Tommy" gun, was as much a character on this show as the G-men and Chicago hoods who used them.

Now, of course, you wouldn't see this level of violence. But "The Untouchables" was such an odd duck that nobody seemed bothered by it. For one thing, we were told it was based on Eliot Ness's autobiography, so it had the cachet of historical drama. Newsman Winchell's narration also gave the show an air of authenticity, even if his delivery was so over-the-top that it felt as if he could have been broadcasting "War of the Worlds." Winchell's hamminess, the overacting bad guys, the show's heavy film-noir style, and general staginess made it all seem slightly cartoonish. The villains were as cool as the guns. You had the cigar chomping Al Capone (Neville Brand), Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti (Bruce Gordon), Mad Dog Coll (Clu Gulager), and even Ma Barker (Claire Trevor), who historically wouldn't have been anywhere near Chicago, but what did we know? None of us had read the real-life Ness's book, and so we had no idea that Ness's job in Chicago really ended when he got Capone for tax evasion. It never occurred to us that Desilu Productions might have been playing a little loose with the facts, beginning the series at the point when it should have ended. We just enjoyed the high drama (and it's STILL amazingly dramatic) each week as Ness and his Untouchables tried to get the best of the bad guys.

I didn't know it at the time, but not everyone was impressed by the show's sense of itself as being historically accuracy. It turns out that Al Capone's estate sued the show for using the gangster's name and image for a profit-making venture, and the FBI wasn't thrilled that Ness got credit for finally getting Ma Barker and her boys when it was really the other bureau.

So how does "The Untouchables" hold up almost 50 years later? This first thing you'll be struck by is the heavy noir treatment, and the variety of interesting camera angles. The show won an Emmy for its editing this first season, and editors managed to juxtapose interesting shots while maintaining a credible tension. The staginess will also strike you. "The Untouchables" is unmistakable melodrama, but I'd liken it to good cholesterol versus the bad--which is to say, it works. If you're a "Sopranos" fan you're going to see how theatrical this production is by comparison. Some of the acting is really hammy, but it feels so period that the show can easily become as addictive as those HBO episodes. I found myself getting into them all over again, which, with old shows, is never guaranteed.

"The Scarface Mob" was first televised as a two-part episode of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in April 1959, and is presented here as a seamless movie. In it, Ness forms the Untouchables and takes down Capone. Fourteen of the first season's 28 episodes are also included here:

1) "The Empty Chair"--Frank Nitti tries to take control of Capone's organization while the boss is in prison, but the pencil proves mightier than the Tommy gun, as Capone's bookkeeper (Nehemiah Persoff) proves.

2) "Ma Barker and Her Boys"--This over-the-top episode has Ness trailing the notorious Ma Barker gang, with flashbacks showing how Ma went from being a churchgoing saint to make the Most Wanted list.

3) "The George 'Bugs' Moran Story"--Ness tries to enlist the help of the local truckers union to keep mob boss Bugs Moran from infiltrating the labor unions.

4) "The Jake Lingle Killing"--When a journalist is murdered, an ex-con decides to play both sides and help Ness find the killer.

5) "Ain't We Got Fun"--How the mob infiltrated entertainment. When a bootlegger takes control of a nightclub, he takes a comic under his wing.

6) "Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll"--A truly mad gangster kidnaps Dutch Shultz's right-hand man and, if that's not bad enough, the horse Schultz was betting on to win the Kentucky Derby.

7) "Mexican Stake-Out"--Ness goes south to bring back a witness; unfortunately, it turns out to be a trap.

8) "The Artichoke King"--The produce market in New York is up for grabs after gang warfare breaks out.

9) "The Tri-State Gang"--Ness relies on an informant again to help him bring down a gang of truck hijackers.

10) "The Dutch Schultz Story"--Bad guys can be tricky, as Ness finds out when Schultz sways an entire jury with his uncharacteristically good behavior.

11) "You Can't Pick the Number"--This time it's the numbers racket, with Agent Flaherty (Jerry Paris) getting the challenge.

12) "The Underground Railway"--A con who's had plastic surgery to do a job for the mob finds life complicated when he falls for the woman who was hired to play his wife.

13) "Syndicate Sanctuary"--Narcotics, this time, as the daughter of a murdered candidate for mayor hopes Ness will help her drive the mob out of her small town.

14) "The Noise of Death"--Ness becomes involved with the Mafia when he develops a relationship with a mob boss who refuses to retire.

Though Ness was surrounded by a number of agents, it was Nicholas Georgiade as Agent Enrico Rossi who became the fan favorite, partly because of his sculpted good looks, but mostly because we saw just how this barber became a member of the Untouchables in an early episode. This season, look for familiar TV faces like Jack Lord, Jack Warden, Martin Landau, Jack Elam, Marion Ross, Alan Hale Jr., and Gavin McLeod.

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