Talk:The Untouchables (1959 TV series)

Split?
Should we split this up into three article - the book, the tv show, the film?--Commander Keane 23:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Historical accuracy
The TV series was extremely careless with the truth. The initial episode, a TV movie titled "The Scarface Mob", depicted Ness as a family man with a wife and daughter, when, in fact, the entire basis of the Untouchables enforcement squad was none of the members have any family that could be threatened or harmed. "The Scarface Mob" had virtually every mob character, even Capone who was born in New York, speaking in a Chico Marx-type accent; evidently viewers' complaints were numerous enough that when the regular series began the same characters were speaking lovely unaccented English -- and Ness had acquired a new recruit, an utterly untrained barber of Italian extraction. Having gotten rid of Capone in the TV movie, the TV series focused on imaginary confrontations between Ness and other criminals, primarily Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) - killed twice in the TV series in gunfights with Ness. In fact, Ness's squad was soon disbanded after Capone went to prison. Some of these, e.g. Ma Barker, had nothing to do with Ness, Chicago, or Prohibition, and in that episode and some others, Prohibition Agent Ness was given credit for the work of the FBI or other law enforcement agencies.

The production company behind The Untouchables bragged about their attention to historical accuracy, but they actually got sued as a result. A two-part episode imagined that Capone had planned an elaborate escape to take place while he was being transported with other prisoners from Atlanta to the new Alcatraz island prison; the screenplay showed that the mob had lavishly bribed one of the prison guards assigned to Capone's train car to assist in the escape (in actuality, this was pure fantasy - Capone had only a limited prison sentence for tax evasion but as a fugitive from a prison break would not be able to return to Chicago or his home in Miami Beach). In reality there had been only two guards per car, and one of the two in Capone's car was still alive - and had frequently dined out on his reminiscences of guarding Capone - and did not appreciate the suggestion that there was at least a 50% likelihood that he had been bribed by the mob; it turned into a very serious, and for the producers very expensive, libel suit. American Broadcasting Co. - Paramount Theatres Inc. v. Simpson (1962) 106 Ga.App. 230, 126 S.E.2d 873.

On the other hand, the Kevin Costner movie of the same name was even more remote from truth, including the suggestions that the Eliot Ness pushed someone (Nitti) off the roof of a tall building and that Ness blackmailed the judge in the Capone tax trial to make rulings favorable to the prosecution. Sussmanbern (talk) 17:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * TV shows are never accurate. The series has The Untouchables involved with cases they had nothing to do with. Or in the case of Frank Nitti having Eliot Ness shoot him before he falls in front of a train when in reality Nitti committed suicide to avoid prison. Eliot Ness was actually married three times. His first marriage lasted from 1929 to 1938. So yes he was married while working to take down Capone. They got the name of his first wife wrong though. Her name was Edna. Elisabeth Andersen or Betty Anderson as the pilot had it was his third wife, in 1946. At least once Ness in the series mentions having a son, though neither his wife nor the son are ever seen, (at least not in first 3 seasons, I haven't started 4th yet) even the few times he's seen at home they are absent. In real life Ness had no biological children though he did adopt his third wife's son. The original TV episodes were part of "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" and were titled "The Untouchables" (part 1 and part 2). "The Scarface Mob" was the title given to a movie created by editing them together. "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" also featured an episode written by Rod Serling which led to creation of "The Twilight Zone". On the DVD that two part Capone escape attempt has a disclaimer saying prison guards are honest individuals and this story is entirely fictional. The remake TV series of "The Untouchables" had Ness commit adultery which would have left him open to blackmail rendering him no longer "untouchable". Which is why I stopped watching it. Eliot Ness died broke and all but forgotten. The book and TV series didn't come out until after he was dead. 40.131.181.35 (talk) 04:06, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

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Legacy
The TV series The Untouchables did not inspire the movie Al Capone, which featured Rod Steiger as the title character. That film was released the same year The Untouchables' premiered on ABC, and at the time it usually took at the very least six months to a year to get a film in production, thus I can't see the TV series that hadn't even aired yet being a factor in that film's success.

"Period" gangster films, such as the popular 1957 Baby Face Nelson, were likely factors in The Untouchables becoming a weekly series. There were other, similarly themed gangster films from the same late Fifties era, enough to suggest a trend of the "it's in the air" sort that in my opinion rather culminated, to speak, with the TV show The Untouchables rather than the other way around, as the main article suggests. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Telegonus (talk • contribs) 08:19, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * "The Untouchables" was a book, then a two part story in the televisions series: "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" (which also sparked "The Twilight Zone" in an episode written by Rod Serling), then a weekly TV series. Then a movie. Then a remake TV series. "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" was a CBS program but CBS declined to pick up The Untouchables as a regular series so Desi Arnaz sold it to ABC. Sadly Eliot Ness never saw any of this, dying before the book was published. 40.131.181.35 (talk) 04:18, 18 October 2020 (UTC)