The Untouchables is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC Television Network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized experiences of Elliot Ness as a Prohibition agent, fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character, and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a celebrated film in 1987 by Brian De Palma, with a script by David Mamet, and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993.
Alan A. Armer Alvin Cooperman Walter Grauman Bert Granet Paul Harrison Herman Hoffman Sidney Marshall Vincent McEveety Del Reisman Norman Retchin Lloyd Richards Stuart Rosenberg Charles Russell Josef Shaftel
Cinematography
Robert B. Hauser Glen MacWilliams Charles Straumer
October 15, 1959(1959-10-15)– May 21, 1963(1963-05-21)
A dynamic, hard-hitting action drama, and a landmark television crime series, The Untouchables won series star Robert Stack an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1960.[1]
Series overview
The series originally focused on the efforts of a real-life squad of Prohibition agents employed by the United States Department of Justice and led by Eliot Ness (Stack) that helped bring down the bootleg empire of "Scarface" Al Capone, as described in Ness's bestselling 1957 memoir. This squad was nicknamed "The Untouchables" because of its courage and honesty; squad members could not be bribed or intimidated by the mob.[3][4] Eliot Ness himself had died suddenly in May 1957, shortly before his memoir and the subsequent TV adaptation were to bring him fame beyond any he experienced in his lifetime.
The pilot for the series, a two-part episode entitled "The Untouchables," originally aired on CBS's Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse on April 20 and 27, 1959. Later re-titled "The Scarface Mob", these episodes, which featured Neville Brand as Al Capone, were the only episodes in the series to be more-or-less directly based on Ness's memoir, and ended with the conviction and imprisonment of Capone. CBS, which had broadcast most of Desilu's television output since 1951 beginning with I Love Lucy, was offered the new series following the success of the pilot film. Chairman William S. Paley rejected it on the advice of network vice president Hubbell Robinson. ABC agreed to air the series, and The Untouchables premiered on October 15, 1959.[5] In the pilot movie, the mobsters generally spoke with unrealistic pseudo-Italian accents, but this idiosyncratic pronunciation was dropped when the series debuted.
The weekly series first dramatized a power struggle to establish a new boss in Capone's absence (for the purpose of the TV series, the new boss was Frank Nitti, although this was, as usual for the series, contrary to fact). As the series continued, there developed a highly fictionalized portrayal of Ness and his crew as all-purpose, multi-agency crime fighters who went up against an array of 1930s-era gangsters and villains, including Ma Barker, Dutch Schultz, Bugs Moran, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, Legs Diamond, Lucky Luciano, and in one episode, Nazi agents. On many occasions during the series run, Ness would blatantly violate suspects' Fourth Amendment rights with no legal ramifications.
The terse narration by gossip columnist Walter Winchell, in his distinctive New York accent, was a stylistic hallmark of the series, along with its ominous theme music by Nelson Riddle and its shadowy black-and-white photography, which was influenced by film noir.
Controversy
The show drew harsh criticism from some Italian-Americans, including Frank Sinatra,[6] who felt it promoted negative stereotypes of them as mobsters and gangsters. The Capone family unsuccessfully sued CBS, Desilu Productions, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation for their depiction of the Capone family. In the first episode of the first season, the character of "Agent (Rico) Rossi", a person of Italian extraction who had witnessed a gangland murder, was added to Ness's team.
On March 9, 1961, Anthony Anastasio, chief of the Brooklyn waterfront and its International Longshoremen's Association, marched in line with a picket group who identified themselves as "The Federation of Italian-American Democratic Organizations". In protest formation outside the ABC New York headquarters, they had come together to urge the public boycott of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company (L&M) products, including Chesterfield cigarettes, the lead sponsor of The Untouchables. They expressed displeasure with the program, which to them vilified Italian-Americans, stereotyping them as the singular criminal element. The boycott and the attendant firestorm of publicity had the effect Anastasio and his confederates wanted. Four days after the picket of ABC, L&M, denying it had bowed to intimidation, announced it would drop its sponsorship of The Untouchables, maintaining the decision was based on network-scheduling conflicts. The following week, the head of Desilu, Desi Arnaz (who had attended high school with Capone's son Albert), in concert with ABC and the "Italian-American League to Combat Defamation", issued a formal three-point manifesto:
There will be no more fictional hoodlums with Italian names in future productions.
There will be more stress on the law-enforcement role of "Rico Rossi", Ness's right-hand man on the show.
There will be an emphasis on the "formidable influence" of Italian-American officials in reducing crime and an emphasis on the "great contributions" made to American culture by Americans of Italian descent.[7]
The series also incurred the displeasure of the powerful director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, when the fictionalized scripts depicted Ness and his Treasury agents involved in operations that were actually the province of the FBI. The second episode of the series, for example, depicted Ness and his crew involved in the capture of the Ma Barker gang, an incident in which the real-life Ness played no part. The producers agreed to insert a spoken disclaimer on future broadcasts of the episode stating that the FBI had primary responsibility for the Barker case.
The Untouchables was an unusually violent program for its time and its excessive violence and surprisingly frank depictions of drug abuse and prostitution were described by the National Association for Better Radio and Television as "not fit for the television screen".[8] Several episodes included depictions of violence toward children.
In an article titled "The New Enemies of 'The Untouchables'"[9]Ayn Rand argued that the persistent, superficial attacks received by The Untouchables were due to its appeal and its virtues: its moral conflict and moral purpose.
Episodes and cast
Main article: List of The Untouchables (1959 TV series) episodes
The series had 118 episodes which ran 50 minutes each. Though the book chronicled the experiences of Ness and his cohorts against Capone, and in reality the Untouchables disbanded soon after Capone's conviction, the series continued after the pilot and book ended, depicting the fictitious further exploits of the Untouchables against many, often real life, criminals over a span of time ranging from 1929 to 1935. The television episodes were broadcast in no chronological timeline, but were set mostly in the early 1930s (for example, one episode, "You Can't Pick the Number", begins with Winchell's words, "October 1932: the depth of the Depression"), and another episode "Canada Run" begins at Chicago Stadium at the NFL Playoff Game on December 18, 1932. A few episodes were set primarily in a locale other than Chicago (such as the one dealing with the shootout involving Ma Barker and her gang.) Characters and "facts" in the majority of the episodes were more often than not entirely fictitious or loosely based composites of true-life criminals of that era. The gripping theme music was by Nelson Riddle.
Quinn Martin produced the show's first season, which contained elements that could be found in future TV series produced by Martin.[10]
The most prominent Untouchables were portrayed by:
Other Untouchables members who were prominent at first, but didn't last past the pilot or the first season, were portrayed by:
Jerry Paris as Agent Martin Flaherty, (first season only-portrayed in the pilot by Bill Williams)
Chuck Hicks as Agent LaMarr Kane (first season only-portrayed in the pilot by Peter Leeds) killed off in the first season episode, "The Tri-State Gang."
Anthony George as Agent Cam Allison, (first season only)
Keenan Wynn as Agent Joe Fuselli (pilot episode only)
The show also had several recurrent gangsters, many of them loosely based on real life gangsters of the time period:
Frank Nitti, Capone's enforcer who takes over the Chicago mob after Capone is imprisoned, portrayed by Bruce Gordon, and appearing in far more episodes than any other gangster
Joe Aiello portrayed in two episodes (where he's killed off in both episodes) by H. M. Wynant and Grant Richards
Phil D'Andrea, portrayed by Wally Cassell, and appearing only in the pilot and premiere
"Fur" Sammons, portrayed by Richard Benedict, and appearing only in the pilot and premiere
Tony "Mops" Volpe, portrayed by Herman Rudin, and appearing only in the pilot and premiere
Finally, heard in every episode, but never shown onscreen:
Announcer: Les Lampson
Narrator: Walter Winchell
Paul Picerni and Nicholas Georgiade were cast as gangsters in Capone and Nitti's mob in the 1959 pilot before being cast in the series.
* Steve London's character of Untouchable Jack Rossman (played in the "Scarface Mob" pilot by Paul Dubov),[11][12] was in the series since the original season-one series episode, "The Empty Chair", not from season two on as is commonly reported.
** The character of Untouchable William Youngfellow, portrayed by Abel Fernandez, has been mistakenly referred to by Saturday Night Live actor Dan Aykroyd as "Youngblood". This name is incorrect.[13]
Guest stars
The Untouchables (due to Robert Stack's star power as a successful motion picture actor), was notable for the large number of past and future motion picture and television stars who signed and appeared as guest stars on the show during its four-year run. These include: (S#=Season number, E#=Episode number)
Luther Adler in S2/E3 "Nicky", S2/E22 "Murder Under Glass", S3/E17 "Takeover"
Jason Wingreen in S2E5 "The Mark of Cain", S2E14 "The Masterpiece", S2E20 "The Antidote", S2E30 "The King of Champagne", S3E5 "The Matt Bass Scheme", S4E5 "The Pea", S4E7 "The Eddie O'Gara Story", S4E28 "The Torpedo"
Michael Ansara in S2E3 "Nicky" and S2E16 "The Jamaica Ginger Story"
Val Avery in S1E26 "The Underworld Bank", S2E6 "A Seat on the Fence"
Edward Asner in S3/E16 "The Death Tree", S4/E1 "The Night They Shot Santa Claus " and Frank in two episodes, S4/E8 "Elegy", S4/E13 "Search for a Dead Man",
Paul Frees as radio announcer uncredited in S1E21 "The Unhired Asssassin": Part 2
Al Ruscio in S1E8 "The Artichoke King", S3E19 "Element of Danger", S4E23 "The Spoiler"
Arlene Martel in S2E6 "A Seat on the Fence", S3E4 "The Genna Brothers"
Joseph Ruskin in S1E7 "Mexican Stake-Out", S2E14 "The Masterpiece", S2E29 "The Seventh Vote", S3E3 "Tunnel of Horrors", S3E20 "The Maggie Storm Story", S4E17 "Blues for a Gone Goose"
Dabbs Greer in S2E21 "The Lily Dallas Story", S3E11 "The Canada Run", S4E18 "Globe of Death"
Alan Hale, Jr. in S1E9 "The Tri State Gang"
Michael Constantine, in S2E19 "The Nick Moses Story", S2E30 "The king of Champagne", S3E5 "The Matt Bass Scheme", S4E3 "The Chess Game", S4E20 "Junkman"
Richard Bakalyan in S1E16 "The St. Louis Story", S2E12 "The Big Train Part 1", S2E19 "The Nick Moses Story", S3E16 "The Death Tree", S4E17 "Blues for a Gone Goose", S4E29 "Line of Fire"
Harold J. Stone in S2E1 "The Rusty Heller Story", S2E11 "The Tommy Karples Story", S2E24 "Ring Of Terror", S3E10 "Hammerlock", S3E26 "Pressure", S4E24 "One Last Killing"
Joe Mantell as George Ricci (Brandy LaFrance's husband) in the 2 hour pilot, and as Giuseppe Zangara in S1E20 & S1E21 "The Unhired Assassin" part 1 & 2
Elizabeth Montgomery as Rusty Heller (received a nomination for the 13th Primetime Emmy Award for an "Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Single Program") S2/E1 "The Rusty Heller Story" (1960)
Leslie Nielsen in S1E23 "Three Thousand Suspects", who'd later co-star with Robert Stack in Airplane!, satirizing their serious roles in dramas like The Untouchables
Nehemiah Persoff as Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik in three episodes, S1E1 "The Empty Chair", S2E29 "The Seventh Vote", S4E12 "Doublecross", also S1E27 "Head of Fire- Feet of Clay", S2E4 "The Waxey Gordon Story", S3E18 "The Stryker Brothers"
Harry Guardino in S1E17 "One Armed Bandits", S2E19 "The Nick Moses Story", S3E25 "The Contract"
Telly Savalas in S2/E20 "The Antidote", S3/E5 "The Matt Bass Scheme", S4/E14 "The Speculator"
Johnny Seven in S1E10 "The Dutch Schultz Story", S2E23 " Testimony of Evil ", S2E31 " The Nick Acropolis Story ", S3E27 Arsenal, S4E24 " One Last Killing"
Henry Silva as Little Charlie Sebastino in two episodes, S1E14 "The Noise of Death", S2E5 "The Mark of Cain", also S3E15 "The Whitey Steele Story"
Nita Talbot in S1E22 "The White Slavers", S4E1 "The Night They Shot Santa Claus"
Mike Kellin in S1E14 "Noise of Death", S1E22 "The White Slavers", S3E9 "City Without a Name"
Frank Sutton in four episodes, S3E18 "The Stryker Brothers", S3E25 "The Contract", S4E14 "The Speculator", S4E22 "The Butcher's Boy"
David White in S1E10 "The Dutch Schultz Story", and S2E1 "The Rusty Heller Story"; in the latter, appearing with his later Bewitched colleague Elizabeth Montgomery
Vic Perrin in S2E5 "The Mark of Cain", S2E18 "The Underground Court", S3E9 "City Without a Name", S4E25 "The Giant Killer"
Paul Richards in S3E9 "City Without A Name", S4E25 "The Giant Killer"
Theodore Marcuse in S1E17 "One Armed Bandits", S3E9 "City Without a Name", S3E16 "The Death Tree", S4E6 "Bird in the Hand", S4E29 "Line of Fire"
Antony Carbone in S1E15 "Star Witness", S2E2 "Jack 'Legs' Diamond", S3E4 "The Genna Brothers", S4E13 "Search for a Dead Man"
Oscar Beregi in S2E2 "Jack 'Legs' Diamond", S2E15 "The Organization", S2E27 "Stranglehold", S3E10 "Hammerlock", S3E15 "The Whitey Steele Story", S3E17 "Takeover", S3E25 "The Contract", S3E28 "The Monkey Wrench"
David Brian in S1E16 "The St. Louis Story", S2E23 "Testimony of Evil"
Sean McClory in S3E15 "The Whitey Steele Story", S4E7 "The Eddie O'Gara Story"
Broadcast history
The Untouchables originally aired as a segment of the anthology series Desilu Playhouse in 1959. It was picked up as a regular series by ABC for the 1959 season and was aired on Thursdays from 9:30 to 10:30pm from 1959 to 1962, switching to Tuesday evenings from 9:30 to 10:30pm for its final season (1962–63).
Desilu Productions president Desi Arnaz had originally offered the role of Ness to Van Johnson. Johnson's wife and manager rejected the deal, and demanded double the salary offer. Arnaz refused and signed Stack instead. Arnaz had had a long business relationship with CBS, which had aired many Desilu programs, including I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. When CBS refused to buy the program, Arnaz sold it to ABC.[14]
Neville Brand reprised his role as Al Capone in the 1961 film The George Raft Story.
Some segments were released to theaters as movies: The Scarface Mob (from the two-part pilot), The Alcatraz Express (from "The Big Train"), and The Gun of Zangara (from "Unhired Assassin").
On November 10, 1991, NBC ran the two-hour film The Return of Eliot Ness, with Robert Stack as Ness. It was set in 1947, after Capone's death, and depicted Ness investigating the death of an Untouchables agent named Labine.
Legacy
The Untouchables was a landmark television series [15] that has spawned numerous imitators over the decades,[16] such as S.W.A.T., The F.B.I., Crime Story,[17] the original Hawaii Five-O (Five-O's creator and executive producer, Leonard Freeman, served as executive producer on The Untouchables' final season), Robert Stack's two later series, Strike Force and Most Wanted, The Hat Squad, and the 1993 The Untouchables syndicated TV series.
It also inspired films such as Al Capone starring Rod Steiger, The Untouchables (with Kevin Costner), Gangster Squad, Mulholland Falls, and others.[citation needed]The Untouchables is one of two series from 1959, the other being The Detectives, together credited with the concept of depicting a group of crime fighters.[18] Previously, most TV crime dramas had followed one of two formats: either a duo composed of a stalwart police officer or detective and his trusty sidekick/partner (Dragnet, The Lineup), or a lone-wolf private eye or police detective (Peter Gunn, Richard Diamond, M-Squad).
Warner Bros. Television spoofed the Untouchables series in the 1963 Merrie Melodies cartoon short The Unmentionables, with Bugs Bunny playing the role of Elegant Mess, a crime fighter assigned to infiltrate a black market ring operated by Rocky and Mugsy. The series was also spoofed on an episode of the 1961-62 ABC-TV/Hanna Barbara cartoon series Top Cat entitled "The Unscratchables". NBC's Saturday Night Live spoofed The Untouchables several times during the 1970s, with Dan Aykroyd playing Eliot Ness.[19]On a 1981 telecast of NBC-TV's The Tonight Show ,the Untouchables was spoofed with a skit entitled: "The Video Untouchables", with host Johnny Carson portraying Agent "Eliot Nielsen" , whose squad appreheaded citizens who unlawfully videotaped T.V. programs . (Video Available on YouTube).[20]
In their 1988 book, The Critics' Choice—The Best of Crime and Detective TV, authors Max Allan Collins and John Javna chose The Untouchables as one of the "Top 10 Best Police TV Series (Police Procedurals) of All Time".[21][22]
The Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News said of The Untouchables: "Between the hard-nosed approach, sharp dialogue, and a commendably crisp pace (something rare in dramatic TV at the time), this series is one of the few that remains fresh and vibrant. Only the monochrome presentation betrays its age. The Untouchables is one of the few Golden Age TV shows that deserves being called a classic."[23]
In 2019, a 60th Anniversary Retrospective titled The Untouchables Retrospective was undertaken to celebrate the show's cultural impact and legacy in television and film history through mixed media, including extensive episode reviews, a podcast, and a making-of documentary. To date, the retrospective has interviewed several surviving participants involved with the program, including Pat Crowley and Nehemiah Persoff.[24]
Episodes
Main article: List of The Untouchables (1959 TV series) episodes
In 1997, the episode "The Rusty Heller Story" was ranked number 99 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[25]
Home media
Region 1
CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment) have released all four seasons of The Untouchables on DVD in region 1, all digitally remastered from the original negatives and presented uncut, unedited and in its original broadcast order. The first two seasons have also been released in region 4.
On May 10, 2016, CBS DVD released The Untouchables- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[26]
Paramount Home Entertainment released the first three seasons of The Untouchables on DVD in the UK. These releases are full-season sets as opposed to Region 1 and 4, where each season has been split into two volumes. The complete series (all 4 seasons) was released on DVD in the UK on May 29, 2017 by Medium Rare Entertainment.
"About.com". Netplaces.com. July 25, 2011. Archived from the original on April 13, 2015. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
Archived September 22, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
Talese, Gay: "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold", page 27. Esquire, April 1966
Harris, Jay S., in association with the editors of TV Guide, "TV Guide: The First 25 Years," Simon & Schuster, 1978, p. 52-53, ISBN0-671-23065-4
"Archived copy". news.google.com. Archived from the original on October 4, 2015. Retrieved January 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Lynch, Dan. Lynch, Kelly. "The Untouchables Retrospective," 1993-2020. A 60th-anniversary retrospective featuring detailed episode breakdowns, podcasts, and a history behind the making of the series.
"Special Collectors' Issue". TV Guide (June 28 – July 4). 1997.
Tucker, Kenneth. Eliot Ness and the Untouchables: The Historical Reality and the Film and Television Depictions. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2000. ISBN0-7864-0772-7
Vahimagi, Tise. "The Untouchables" London, England: BFI Publishing, 1998. ISBN0-85170-563-4 (Detailed study of the series and episode guide)
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