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The Untouchables Season 1 Volume 2

The Untouchables was and is the quintessential film noir TV series. The blood flows freely, beatings are commonplace, women are tommy-gunned down in dark alleys, the rivers are littered with weighted bodies, gun fights in the streets are frequent as are drive by shootings.

All par for the course in prohibition era Chicago ruled by vengeful tough guys, violent hoodlums and crooked officials. Despite this, crusading G-man Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) never loses his cool when confronted with hard-boiled mobsters and smack-talking punks.

You can be assured of at least one or two major shootouts per episode, these goons go down in a hail of bullets every time. That's why The Untouchables was known in its day as the most violent show on television, there were so many dropping bodies the network had to clamp down on the production in later seasons because of viewer complaints. Italian American groups complained about the stereotypes and one Union boss threatened to leave the sponsor's products rotting on the docks unless the show stopped profiling the Goomba of the week.

Narrated by Walter Winchell, the production had a ring of authenticity, especially back in the day. Winchell, you might say, was the Bill O'Reilly of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

This was absolutely one of the best and most uncompromising dramas on television at the time and it holds up very well today, it's thoroughly enjoyable. Fans of The Sopranos will especially love The Untouchables as it's clearly an inspiration in some ways.

There are lots of familiar faces that turn up including Bruce Gordon who parodied mob guys in later years on Sanford & Son, Run Buddy Run and in the special feature offered in this collection - an episode of The Lucy Show called 'Lucy and the Gun Moll' that also features Untouchables' stars Robert Stack, Steve London, and Walter Winchell (both Lucy and The Untouchables were produced by Desilu). In fact, this is only the second fully restored Lucy Show episode ever officially released on DVD (the other is on the Gomer Pyle, USMC season 1 set). Great stuff!

This collection contains the final 15 episodes of the superior first season (1959-60). If you were to buy one DVD set of The Untouchables, this is the one you want. Many of the best episodes in the series run are here including the two-part 'The Unhired Assassin.'

The prints have all been remastered to a brilliant sheen. The deep, luxurious black-and-white picture is glorious to behold, you'll be struck with how rich these shows look. I can't recommend this collection highly enough.

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Reviews by Billy Ingram, as seen on VH1, Trio and Bravo.

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The Untouchables Season 1 Volume 2

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.

Released on September 25, 2007.

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