I had never heard of "The Untouchables" TV show until one morning
my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Schmidt started ranting about the
graphic violence depicted in movies and on television shows such as
"The Untouchables" and what was he world coming to? From the next
broadcast, I was an avid fan. Much as in the style of the James Cagney
classic of 1933, "Public Enemy," "The Untouchables" wove a web of
mysterious gangland horror by NOT showing the graphic violence but by
instead keeping the killing in the shadows. The creators of the series
never forgot that there is nothing you can show in theater that can
measure up to the imagination of the audience. Another mysterious dimension to the series is, like "The Alfred
Hitchcock Show", "The Untouchables" had an uncanny knack of featuring
actors who would later become stars or at least very well known faces
in movies and on television. After 4 years in the air force including
a year in Vietnam, I watched the series as daily re-runs during the
summer of 1971 just before going to university in Tokyo. One episode
had Telly Savalas as an up and coming bookkeeper with The Mob run by
Frank Nitty while Al Capone was in prison. That evening other business
pulled me away from the television set and I figured I'd see the second
half of the show some other time. Because I have been in Japan ever
since, I never did find out whatever happened to the character played
by Telly Savalas. Less than two years later, however, Telly Savalas
finally made it big in television as Kojak.
