The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
| The Untouchables | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Crime drama |
| Starring |
Robert Stack Abel Fernandez Nicholas Georgiade Paul Picerni Steve London Bruce Gordon Neville Brand |
| Narrated by | Walter Winchell |
| Theme music composer | Nelson Riddle |
| Composer(s) | Bill Loose Jack Cookerly Nelson Riddle |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 118 & two-part pilot (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Alan A. Armer Desi Arnaz Leonard Freeman Quinn Martin Jerry Thorpe |
| Producer(s) | Alan A. Armer Alvin Cooperman Walter Grauman Bert Granet Paul Harrison Herman Hoffman Sidney Marshall Vincent McEveety Del Reisman Norman Retchin Lloyd Richards Stuart Rosenberg Charles Russell Josef Shaftel |
| Cinematography | Robert B. Hauser Glen MacWilliams Charles Straumer |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Desilu Productions Langford Productions |
| Distributor | Desilu Sales (until 1967) Paramount Domestic Television (1967–2006) CBS Paramount Domestic Television (2006–2007) CBS Television Distribution (2007– ) |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | October 15, 1959 – May 21, 1963 |
The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC Television Network, produced by Desilu Productions. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized Ness' experiences as a Prohibition agent, fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character, and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a film in 1987 (also called The Untouchables) by Brian De Palma, with a script by David Mamet, and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993.
A powerful, dynamic, hard-hitting action drama, and a landmark crime series,The Untouchables won series star Robert Stack an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1960.
The series originally focused on the efforts of a real-life squad of Prohibition agents employed by the United States Department of the Treasury and led by Eliot Ness (Stack), that helped bring down the bootleg empire of "Scarface" Al Capone, as described in Ness's bestselling 1957 memoir. This squad was nicknamed "The Untouchables", because of their courage and honesty; they could not be bribed or intimidated by the Mob. Eliot Ness himself had died suddenly in May 1957, shortly before his memoir and the subsequent TV adaptation were to bring him fame beyond any he experienced in his lifetime.
The pilot for the series was a two-part episode entitled "The Untouchables" originally aired on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse on April 20 and 27, 1959. Later retitled "The Scarface Mob", these episodes, which featured Neville Brand as Al Capone, were the only episodes in the series to be more-or-less directly based on Ness's memoir, and ended with the conviction and imprisonment of Capone. CBS, which had broadcast most of Desilu's television output since 1951 beginning with I Love Lucy, was offered the new series following the success of the pilot film. Chairman William S. Paley rejected it on the advice of network vice president Hubbell Robinson. ABC agreed to air the series, and The Untouchables premiered on October 15, 1959. In the pilot movie, the mobsters generally spoke with unrealistic pseudo-Italian accents, but this idiosyncratic pronunciation was dropped when the series debuted.
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