Les incorruptibles

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.

This 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.

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.

I 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.

Crime: 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.