THE UNTOUCHABLES Season One

Robert Stack as Eliot Ness

THE UNTOUCHABLES Season One. 1959 ABC television series. 

I think I may have watched one episode or so of The Untouchables when I was a kid. It was adult material, not for children, and held little interest for me. Even today I find many of the episodes -- one in particular -- disturbing and depressing, although I think it is a good and classic show. Inspired by the memoirs of the late Eliot Ness, who went after prohibition-era gangsters like Al Capone but who ironically wound up a forgotten  alcoholic years later (until the posthumous memoir made him famous again), The Untouchables bounces around in time from the late 20's to the 30's when prohibition ended and bad guys moved in on everything from narcotics to milk!

Stack with Fernandez and Paris; J. Carroll Naish in foreground 

The amazing thing about The Untouchables is how hard-hitting it still is after sixty years, how brutal, with horrible things happening to the innocent as well as the guilty. No, it isn't gore-graphic as the stuff you now see on cable, but it is tough and uncompromising, much like the lead character, Eliot Ness, very well-played by Robert Stack. There is a squad of "untouchables" -- including Jerry Paris, Abel Fernandez, Nicolas Georgiade -- but they are petty much shunted aside in favor or Stack, given less screen time than the gangsters and assorted victims. Anthony George of Checkmate was nearly forty when he joined the series in the first season but was constantly referred to as "the kid" -- he was later killed off. 

White Slavers: Jeremy Brett, Kellin, Paul Langton

The Untouchables received criticism for its depiction of Italian-Americans and for its violence, although many argued that it would be wrong not to show exactly how vicious these gangsters could be. In "The White Slavers" several pretty young Mexican girls who think they are being transported to the U.S. for careers as models (but who are really destined for drug addiction and forced prostitution) are machine -gunned to death -- even up to the last minute you can't believe they won't be saved by Ness or his associates. The scene doesn't occur off-camera, and although you don't see bullets hitting the bodies etc., it is still pretty raw. Later a group of prostitutes begin to tear apart the man (Mike Kellin) who ordered the murders  and the miserable bastard shoots himself in the head. 

Martin Landau guest-stars with Paris and Stack

Other especially memorable first season episodes include: "Ma Barker and Her Boys," with Claire Trevor as the notorious supposed gang leader; "The Jake Lingle Killing" with a shady character (Jack Lord) wanting reward money but Ness isn't certain of his credibility; "Ain't We Got Fun" with Cameron Mitchell as a stand up comic that "Big Jim" (Ted De Corsia) takes a liking to; "The Underground Railway," starring Cliff Robertson in one of his best performances as a disfigured prison escapee who gets a girlfriend (Virginia Vincent) and plastic surgery; the two-part "Unhired Assassin" featuring plots on both the Chicago mayor and President-elect Roosevelt; and "The Frank Nitti Story," in which both Nitti (Bruce Gordon) and Untouchable Cam Allison (the aforementioned Anthony George) go to their final rewards. (Gordon would reappear as Nitti in flashback episodes.) Jerry Paris [Man on the Prowl] also left the series to go on to Michael Shayne where he had more to do. Nelson Riddle's intense theme music grows on you, and Walter Winchell's narration adds immediacy. The Untouchables began life as a two-part episode of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse which was released to theaters as The Scarface Mob. 

Verdict: Pretty raw at times and quite well-acted by various guest-stars. ***1/4.