The Lawless Years

I do not remember this show from my youth, so I gave it a shot with "The Dutch Schultz Story." Now I'm glad I never watched the series. Despite having Rudisky as a technical advisor, this episode, at least, is fiction based on fact. Schultz was not hit in the manner portrayed. Not even close. Also, there is another version of his last words before expiring.

I give it four stars for the acting and drama.

I have watched nearly every episode of this series.

The plots are based on the memoirs of the real life gangster squad detective and - for me - I prefer this show without the narration of the Untouchables which was spoken in capital letters throughout.

This was a good series and is well worth a look, there is a realism about the way ordinary people were frightened into submission and there isn't the epilogue at the end of each episode which so ruins many shows.

Each episode starts with a slide show detailing the thugs who feature and there is no sympathy from Ruditsky for any of them. What makes this series really great is the fact that the real life Barney Ruditsky was technical adviser - there is an understated realism in each episode.

Believable characters and real stories - well worth a watch.

This is an exceptional TV noir/police drama. For anyone who liked James Gregory as Inspector Frank Luger on Barney Miller, this is the dramatic role he was satirizing. Gregory is great as the tough, sardonic detective who worked his cases logically. He was never presented as the smartest guy in the room or the one who always saw what everyone else missed (think Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O, either version). The show squeezed a lot into about 23 minutes. There is no fluff in the stories, and the outcomes were always well supported. Lots of early appearances from actors who later made it big as well. A very under-appreciated show.

THE LAWLESS YEARS ran from 1959 through 1961, featuring James Gregory as police inspector Barney Rudisky, a real life cop telling how big crime names of the Roaring Twenties like Dutch Schultz, Maxey Gorman, Johnny Lucky, etc got caught and served life sentences or fried on the electric chair.

The episodes are only around 26 minutes long but shortness makes them to the point and prevent your attention wandering.

James Gregory, a very good supporting actor in non-TV films, would go on to play superbly the very opposite of Rudisky in corrupt Senator Iselin in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (US 1962), probably his career's finest hour.

I have watched some seven LAWLESS YEARS episodes and found them all gripping and worth my time. 8/10.

Although I never saw the show, reading through some of the cast members names is like watching the credits roll on "The Untouchables". Joseph Mell, Stanley Adams, Chuck Hicks, Robert Carricart, Bernie Fein, Dick Wilson, Norman Alden, Herman Rudin, Bartlett Robinson, Dick Bakalyan and others apparently worked for Desilu while toiling for California National. Allen H. Miner even directed episodes of both series. In fact, if I'm reading the notes correctly, Chuck Hicks (who later did stunts on CHiPS) even played the same character: Agent LaMarr Kane during TLL season one's "The Billy Boy 'Rockabye' Creel Story". The Kane character was killed off in "The Untouchables" episode entitled "The Tri State Gang", along with "Big Bill Phillips" (described to perfection by Walter Winchell as "a hulking six-foot-four ox of a man") played by "Skipper" Alan Hale. The one glaring omission is WHICH network aired "The Lawless Years". For the life of me I simply don't recall this series, despite the fact it ran three seasons. Of course that is likely because for me, at that age, "The Untouchables" was about the only thing that REALLY mattered on the 21" screen of the B&W Westinghouse console in our living room.