Product Description

The Untouchables chronicles the campaign of Eliot Ness (Robert Stack), the young U.S. Prohibition Bureau agent, to smash the beer and booze empire of Al Capone in 1920s Chicago.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41913 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, Portuguese
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 4
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 731 minutes

Amazon.com
Prohibition is over. Al Capone is in jail. "Are we gonna be out of work?" one of Eliot Ness's Untouchables asks in "The Unhired Assassin," one of the 14 episodes that completes this vintage series' killer first season. Not to worry; from armored car heists and assassination attempts to bank robberies and extortion rackets, there is plenty to keep Ness (Robert Stack) and his elite mob-busting squad busy. Ness and company are the heroes of this series, but it's the criminals (and the great character actors who portray them) who maintain as tight a grip on our imagination as the mob had on the city of Chicago in the 1930s, when these episodes take place. Bruce Gordon's Frank Nitti, Capone's impulsive enforcer, is a particular piece of work, as witness his ordered hit on incorruptible Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak in the two-part "The Unhired Assassin," and the season-finale, "The Frank Nitti Story," which chronicles Nitti's own finale. A homina-homina Anne Francis guest stars in "The Doreen Maney Story" as Maney, a Tennessee girl gone bad as one half of "The Lovebirds," responsible for a series of deadly armored car heists. We don't get as up close and personal with Ness or his Untouchables, although we do learn that he is 35 and has a son. And the straight-arrow Fed is not above double-crossing a mob goon for information, or, in "Head of Fire, Feet of Clay," refusing to call an ambulance as one lies bleeding ("You got no damn heart!" he screams). Nearly five decades later, these episodes still play like gangbusters, with Walter Winchell's rat-a-tat narration, gritty language, blunt violence, and great hard-boiled dialogue ("Everybody's yellow except Johnny Fortunata"). The Untouchables was produced by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball's Desilu Studios. A fun extra on this four-disc set is "Lucy the Gun Moll," an episode from The Lucy Show, featuring Stack, very much in character, as a federal agent who recruits Lucy to impersonate a gangster's girlfriend. "You know who you look like?" Lucy asks him. "They kid me about it all the time down at headquarters," he replies. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Alright Nitti, buy the dvd
After getting the first volume, I was more than pleased with it. The stories are fun thoughtful and action packed. These are tales of bad guys, I mean bad guys who face off with the Untouchables. Good guys who could not be bought. I will be the first to admit that we are not talking history here, but you get the feel of an era in American history. Prohibition and bathtub gin, mobsters and molls. Put a great dramatic and action filled story together and frame it with narration by Walter Winchell and you get classic entertainment.

Classic G-Men vs. Mobsters Saga
Retro television shows have never done particularly well unless they were set in the Old West. Shows set in the 20's, 30's, 40's, etc, any era outside of the one in which they aired have never lasted long except in three major exceptions - Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and The Untouchables.

The Untouchables succeeded for a number of reasons. First, the veil that had been on the Mafia for a number of years was slowly but surely being peeled off due to gangland killings and the fame of gangsters such as Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, and others. Even before the Godfather and its outstanding first sequel, the public had a fascination and curiosity with the mob. So take some true events, ture characters, heavily fictionalize them with Hollywood gloss and pathos, and you get a very successful show that made a star out of Robert Stack and brought new fame to a Treasury agent named Eliot Ness.

The Untouchables' First Season collection should not have been split up into multiple sections. That's greed, pure and simple. But the lure of this show - its great characters, performances, grit and intelligence will draw buyers even though they know they're being ripped off. Stack's Ness is one of the best alltime detectives - fearless, relentless, and absolutely ruthless with the bad guys. The supporting casts were always excellent, and Bruce Gordon brough the right amount of humor and menace to Frank Nitti, Capone's chief lieutenant.

The Untouchables - Season One, Volume 2 is not untouchable, but it is irresistable.

Classic TV at it's best
The Untouchables TV series stands the test of time, it was, and still is one of the best TV shows ever made in my opinion. Robert Stack is great in the role of Elliot Ness, the quintessential and imperturbable G-Man. I will get the entire series on DVD as they become available, but I agree with the other reviewer that said splitting the seasons up in to different volumes was stupid, and can only be intended to maximize profits for the studio.