Shark Bytes

Why in the world isn't this on in re-runs, somewhere in the cable tv universe? Robert Stack was perfect as Eliot Ness, Bruce Gordon was terrific as Frank Nitti. Some great guest stars, cool theme music. Desilu knew how to do tv right, whether it was comedy or adventure.

I remembered growing up with the Untouchables. When it was on, I devoured every book written about the era. I thought it was a great series. I'm in line with a lot of the people: The remake just didn't quite make it.

The original never jumped. The remake had a miscast actor as Ness, Tom Amandes. Nothing against the guy, he's probably a good actor but it just didn't fit. Although I dug the over the top performance of William Forsyth as Capone that's what it was, over the top. Then they had a ridiculous episode where Capone dukes it out with Hillbillies.

This megagritty show never, never, NEVER jumped the shark.

twenty five years ago some waiter friends and i would watch this show at midnight, after the dinner shift. we’d all put five bucks into the pool and each of us would pick a victim. whoever’s victim got blasted first was the winner. there was a cash bonus if the bad guy went down in a hail of machine gun fire in front of a wall of beer barrels in a darkened warehouse that ness and the boys had just busted into with those cowcatchers on the front of their ’33 fords. by the way, the list of guest villains was amazing: lee marvin, jack elam, herschel bernardi, rip torn, jack klugman, victor “king tut” buono, peter falk, sterling holloway, lee van cleef, carroll o’connor, cloris leachman, martin balsam, pat hingle, barbara stanwyck, claude akins, harold j. stone, edward asner, jack warden, harry guardino, harry dean stanton, telly savalas, malachi throne, vic morrow, and martin landau.

The two-part pilot on Desilu Playhouse was great noir pulp directed by the fine B-move director Phil Karlson ("Walking Tall"). Stack and Neville Brand were excellent and Walter Winchell as the narrator made the show. But the character I remember most vividly from the pilot was Barbara Nichols' blond bimbo stripper with the sad sack husband (Joe Mantell). Barbara mischievously leans forward slowly to use her cigarette to light undercover agent Bill Williams' cigarette. Williams eyes devour Nicholls' very impressive cleavage for a brief, agonizing moment as their cigarettes touch, and then he is able to get control of himself and the situation. But Barbara clearly enjoyed Williams' moment of extreme discomfort. Adult, sexy, funny, and cool. And its amazing they gave this scene to supporting player Bill Williams rather than Stack.

The Untouchables with Robert Stack as Elliot Ness never really JTS although it did go downhill a bit at the end due to political correctness. Nevertheless it was an exciting violent cops & robbers show, maybe one of the best ever of the genre. Robert Stack's deadpan portrayal of Elliot Ness was fabulous. Great villains like Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti and Neville Brand as Al Capone really helped the show also.

ooooooh, wait a minute, this may be the great grand-daddy of 'em all (cop type shows)..elliot ness definitely the hottest on this kind of show (before or since the untouchables)..oh, off the meter....yep, definitely gets the award in this category.

"RICO, JOHNNY, GET THE THOMPSONS! WE'RE GONNA TAKE OUT ANYONE WHO EVEN THINKS WE'VE JUMPED THE SHARK! ANY SURVIVORS WILL GET SHIPPED TO ALCATRAZ WHERE THEY CAN BUNK WITH CAPONE!!"

Agreed: when Desilu bowed to mob pressure and got rid of the Italian surnames, The Untouchables jumped the Sharkliani, no doubt about it. I believe I heard somewhere that some crime family was putting pressure on a longshoreman's union not to receive a sponsor's product unless Desi and co. "cooled it"... Oh wow-season one...one word:Blam!....Part of what makes an action show entertaining is good villains, too and they had great guest star bad guys that just made the show, and seems like the hoodlums never just let the unfortunate victim of their dirty work just "slip on a banana peel" to death, did they? Here comes the sedan full of thugs! Oh boy! Ness: "Hold it!" Thugs: "Bratatatatatatatat!!" Here we go! The late Robert Stack, God rest his soul, just played Ness perfectly for the show- grim and all business, a perfect counterpoint for all those wild villains. It was always funny to see Ness and company, though, mowing down the bad guys with little pipsqueak police .38s that sounded like shotguns while being shot at by .45 caliber submachine guns. No doubt about it though, Ness could really light 'em up when the flag went down. You know, we could have saved untold taxpayer dollars during Operation Iraqi Freedom had we had Lucas McCain, Eliot Ness, Harry Callahan, and Rambo together on our side. Planes? Tanks? Who woulda needed 'em? "Hold it!" "Blam, blam, blammmm!"

I always found it ironic that supposedly the mob was so insensed by this show that they were going to put a hit on Desi Arnaz, the show's producer. According to legend, the big wigs in crime opted not to do that for two reasons: it would really put more pressure on them than necessary, and if they really wanted revenge on Arnaz, they just let Lucy rip him to shreds. Hearing about the Arnazes' rocky marriage, they decided to let Desi remain alive. He really did suffer in the long run with his divorce, alcoholism, and lack of respect in the TV community for making Desilu Productions a smash hit in the 1950s and 1960s. Guess the mob got its revenge after all. Also loved the Lucy Show where they played it tongue in cheek with Stack. He played a modern day version of Elliot Ness and he asks Lucy to portray another redheaded woman in order to catch a crook. At the end, there is a hokey scene in which the crook and Stack both say, "I'm really touched." Lucy turns to the camera and wisecracks, "Ya see? No one's really untouchable!" Not even a funny line or scene really, but it brought down the house.

Both versions of this show were classic. Neither jumped, though the 1990s one did dip after Malone died. However, no show could truly jump as long as it featured a performance like William Forsynth as Al Capone. This guy was awesome. Best Capone EVER, and that includes Dinero. Brilliant. Absolutely f*cking brilliant. It's a pity he and Stack's Ness were never on screen together. The sheer force on their dueling personas would have been one of TV's greatest moments.

Robert Stack as Eliot Ness rules!! Over half a lifetime ago, when I was in college in the late 60's early 70's, the Untouchables were on every night at 11:00 p.m. Our dorm kept an "Eliot Ness" rubout sheet to keep track of the body count each episode. Stack's Ness was a tough guy whose only real equal in the last 40 years has been Dirty Harry, although Bullitt and McGarrett are pretty tough, too. Also, Kudos to Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti. He was one of the best TV villains ever. Too bad this show became a victim of political correctness.

I'm a big fan of both TV versions of the "Untouchables," and I didn't mind the Capone-Ness boxing match on the 90's version with John Rhys-Davies. I don't remember the Robert Stack version as well, but the 90's syndicated program (which is what I'm discussing here) actually had some pretty respectable episodes, in my humble opinion. There was the plotline where Ness' reporter friend Dorrie Greene was murdered by gangsters in a hit-and-run incident, the episode where a young man attempted to avenge his policeman father's murder at the hands of a Capone thug, or the one where the Untouchables were tracking a Nazi psychopath loose on the streets of Chicago- that episode didn't even feature any members of the Capone mob at all!

I rank this show as one of the best in many categories, HOWEVER it's at least 99% fiction and since it used real names,places,and certain details, along with Walter Winchell's naration, and the "disclaimer" giving the impression only minor details were changed it is responsible for a lot of people having a very distorted knowledge of what they think is history. It's about as accurate as the movie JFK or the recent Pearl harbor battle/romance movie.With that said it was fantastic for the action (rated by many groups as being the most violent show on at the time) the guest stars, many who went on to mega stardom,and wacky stories the writers came up with to include every ethnic group around.It was fun to see the same footage (burning car,truck plowing into warehouse,etc) pop up in so many different episodes, over and over again. I loved it when Ness didn't know road the bootleggers etc. would be taking it to Chicago so he sent his boys out to cover them all, after all how many roads etc. could there be feeding Chi.