Os Intocáveis

i 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.

Seeing an excerpt from 'Untouchables' on satellite TV recently brought back some memories of forty years ago, when I looked forward in eager anticipation to seeing the weekly appearance of Eliot Ness and his associates. To see them again was to see characters apparently frozen in time, operating in a mythical world where the differences between good and evil were clearly delineated and the 'bad guys' got their just deserts. Notwithstanding the fact that Capone and Ness never met, that Ness had little, if anything, to do with putting Capone behind bars, the programmes were quite well directed and acted, even though some of the supporting characters had little,if anything, to say - I can remember often waiting for some considerable time for 'Rico' (Georgiade)to say his only line ! Enjoyable,nevertheless, as cinematic curiosities, well crafted, but so far removed from historical reality as to be a rather threadbare tapestry of the events which the series purported to represent.

I must differ only slightly from the praise of one who precedes me, but yes, it was a cracking good show! When a local station ran the series in syndication at midnight in 1967, I turned into an insomniac.

Part of it was my youth; part was/is the b&w presentation giving it a brooding, "gritty" (pardon the cliche) flavour; part was the musical score. Frankly, I found it much superior to the colour and more mature (?) series recently under the same title. Possibly the early '60s series had the elements of a morality play that move some part of me that the more ambiguous -- and in places historically accurate -- new UNTOUCHABLES can not.

One thing bothers me, however, although I fully understand that in the television productions of forty years ago one had to be discrete. It concerns the depictions of violence. I do not object (within reason) to violence per se, but THE UNTOUCHABLES showed a lot of it without the horror. With a more jaundiced eye of the 1990s, when on very rare occasions I have been able to see an old time episode, I am struck by the trivialisation of violent scenes. Even the point-blank firearms shots are comically muted, and there is never a hint of flying blood.

That said, however, I consider the advent of THE UNTOUCHABLES and BONANZA in the 1959-60 season as the beginning of the REAL "golden age of television" in the United States.

Post scriptum: I am sure there were a couple of spin-off "made for TV" movies in the 1960s from the series. Of that I know nothing more save the title of one of them: THE GUN OF ZANGARA.

Quinn Martin, Desilu and Robert Stack propelled a crime series into the status of TV greatness. This series ran 114 episodes long, but stands shoulder to shoulder with such giants as GUNSMOKE and BONANZA. Set in Chicago, late 20s and 30s during depressed times and prohibition, Special Treasury Agent Elliot Ness(Robert Stack)and his band of crime fighters must deal with bootleggers, gangland murderers, assassins and crime figures like Al Capone(Neville Brand) and Frank Nitti(Bruce Gordon). Expertly narrated by Walter Winchell, this power packed crime drama got the story told without the use of on screen gore, profanity or blatant violence.

Besides the super work by Stack and Gordon others became familiar faces:Nicholas Georgiade, Oscar Beregi Jr., Anthony George, Abel Fernandez, Jerry Paris, Steve London, Grant Richards and Jason Wingreen. This series was so near perfection production wise. Awesome.

Note: TV Land, A & E, Nick at Nite, TNN...somebody put this back on the air for future generations.

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.