The Untouchables (1959): September 14, 1932. At 11:30 p.m., Eliot Ness goes to the Odeon movie theatre (not the Odeon Burlesque theatre used in several episodes); he gives stoolie Marty Wilger an envelope with cash for his tips. Those tips had led to successful raids by Ness against Nitti's speaks: booze, girls, gambling tables; also 2 warehouses and a distillery in the last week. Nitti's plenty sore. At an Organization meet at the club Montmartre, Nitti grouses, "The boys in New York are screamin', Cleveland's screamin', and I'm screamin'! Those raids cost us 200,000 bucks in the last 3 months." A lieutenant, Charlie Banion, brings up that Capone used to have Walter Trager to keep an eye on everything, he even had a tap on the feds. Council member Harry Mailer points out that his wife Billie is married to Trager. And so, later, Trager has a meet with Nitti in his private office; Nitti's getting a rubdown from his masseur and Nitti quips, "Hey, take it easy-- I wanna get knocked around, I don't hafta pay for it." Nitti hires Trager, and assigns Cully Grice as his henchman. Trager works fast; after the next Council meet, Trager tells Nitti in private he has narrowed the leak down to 2 guys: Marty Wilger, and his own brother-in-law Harry Mailer-- he'll know which one in a couple of days. Nitti says, "In a coupla days I could lose another 50 grand. It's a question of economics, Trager," and Nitti puts two .45 caliber bullets on the table, "2 of these cost 15 cents." And so, late on the night of September 21, Marty Wilger was taken for a "one way ride" by Trager and Cully, 14 miles outside the Chicago city limits. Then Trager has Cully knock off Harry Mailer. Trager reports to Nitti, who says now there are no more problems. But Trager insists he needs more men (and more money) to investigate, because Nitti still has enemies in the Organization and he needs protection. Nitti balks. 2 nights later, Trager and Cully (with a machine gun in a big flower box) go to the Montmartre club, and walk into Nitti's private office; Nitti and Banion are relaxing with 3 beautiful party girls. Cully shoots Nitti with the chopper! It's a good thing it was loaded with blanks. Nitti gives Trager about one minute to explain that bonehead stunt before he "tears him to pieces." Trager explains Nitti is vulnerable, anyone inside the Organization could kill him, and he needs more men to investigate; this time Trager gets the extra men, including Hawk Feeney (one of Guzik's boys). Billie Trager, hardly the grieving widow, moves back in with her brother Walter Trager; he says now things can be just like they were back in the good old days. Walter has one of his new boys, Hawk Feeney, a deaf-mute who can read lips, rent a 1-room office on the 2nd floor of the building at 152 Columbia Avenue-- directly across the street from Ness' office 208 in the Federal Building; using binoculars, Hawk can read their lips, and tip off Walter what Ness is up to. Although Hawk works for Walter, his big boss is still Nitti; when Hawk reports to Nitti that Billie Trager talked to Ness, Nitti fingers her-- and assigns the rubout to Walter, her own brother. Walter decides to sneak her out of town instead; first he takes her to his secret hideout. But it's not so secret, later Ness shows up and talks to Billie; she refuses to cooperate with the feds, but Lee Hobson finds an incriminating ledger: Trager has gotten over 100 grand in payoffs from Banion, Urcel and Robbins. Later, Nitti's boys get to Billie; by dawn, the cops fish her body out of Lake Michigan. Ness finds out about the lip-reading spy across the street. So he purposely stands in front of the window, and says to Lee Hobson and Enrico Rossi, "Those ledgers show that Trager has been receiving substantial cash payments from Wolfy Robbins, Charlie Banion and Larry Urcel. This can only mean that Trager's taking himself a nice slice of Mr. Nitti's pie." Hawk makes a bee-line back to Nitti with the information. Trager has 40 gunmen, and 3 of the 6 Council members on his side; at the Council meet, Trager plans to make his move to take over and push Nitti out. However, only Nitti and 3 Council members are there. Nitti explains to Trager that Urcel had an "accident" an hour ago when a friend was cleaning a gun; and Robbins got held up in traffic and run over by a car-- a couple of times; and that Hawk took Banion out to the country "to get a little fresh air." Trager managers to escape with Cully; but Nitti only pretended to let him escape, Cully is still working for Nitti. Ness and his men tail Trager's car. At the hideout, Cully is about to shoot Trager, but Trager guns him first. Ness and his men break in, and in a really dumb move, Trager decides to shoot it out with Ness and Hobson and Rossi. Trager gets shot. And so, ironically, Ness' tip to Hawk had saved Nitti's life; but Nitti had his empire split in two because of the double-dealings of Walter Trager. (synopsis by: kdh)

Starring:

Abel Fernandez, Nicholas Georgiade, Paul Picerni, Robert Stack, Steve London, Walter Winchell

Genre:

Action, Crime, Drama