Seasons & episodes
S1 · E24The Doreen Maney Story 1960-03-31 · 60 min
New York City: Yankee Stadium, the Bronx. On the evening of June 8, 1933, Max Baer knocked out Max Schmeling in the 10th round of their scheduled 15-round championship boxing match.* The gate was $240,000. (Since 60,000 fans were there, that means the average ticket price was $4.00) An hour later, one of the Granite Armored Cars, with 4 armed guards, drives off with the receipts. Doreen Maney steps in front of the moving truck; the driver slams on his brakes, but Doreen falls down as if she's been hit.
S1 · E25Portrait of a Thief 1960-04-07 · 60 min
Chicago, 1931. Eliot Ness and his men had cracked the bootleg empire of Al Capone, by smashing his breweries and speakeasies.* But now, thousands of gallons of alcohol were coming into the city from an outside source. Ness meets with D.A. Beecher Asbury; it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out where the booze is coming from, they've found 5-gallon cans with ""Brawley Mills, Brawley, New York"" stamped on them. Chemical analysis showed the stuff is 190 proof, no doubt produced under U.S. Government permit-- but it contained no denaturant, so it is safe to drink.
S1 · E26Underworld Bank 1960-04-14 · 60 min
New York City. Saturday, September 23, 1933. Top rackets boss Milo Sullivan is the head of ""Crime, Inc."" He has a meet with 5 other crime lords: Augie Epstein (gambling, Miami); Harold Bishman (political power in Louisiana); Ralph Lucci (rumrunner, Detroit Purple Gang); Dino Monteiro (slots, K.C.); and Arte Martin (numbers, prostitution, Seattle). Their profits from Prohibition had been enormous; with Prohibition ending, they were going to put their money to good use, creating the Underworld Bank.
S1 · E27Head of Fire - Feet of Clay 1960-04-21 · 60 min
Chicago. (year?)* The jury had been out for 12 hours, on the case Ness had worked so hard on, trying to get a conviction for top mobster Johnny Fortunato. Now the newspaper reads: Fortunato got off, the chief witness was a ""suicide."" At 9 p.m., Ness decides to get some spaghetti at Socrates Eatery. Ness' old high school buddy, Frank Barber, drops in. They laugh and smile as they recount their glory days at Garfield High, when Barber was the star football quarterback, and Ness was his favorite receiver.
S1 · E28The Frank Nitti Story 1960-04-28 · 60 min
1934. Prohibition had been repealed (the Volstead Act ran from January 17, 1920 - April 7, 1933). The syndicate was looking for new sources of revenue. Frank Nitti expands his empire, and goes after small theatres-- with his extortion racket. Late one night, after theatre owner Harold Coldman had refused to pay, Nitti has his triggerman Louie Campagna throw some acid into Coldman's face, blinding him. Eliot Ness and his men are on the case-- this is only the latest in a series of muggings and beatings; even a theatre was burned down. Ness knows if he lets Nitti get away with extorting the small, independent theatre owners, in a few months Nitti will go after the big chains.
S2 · E1The Rusty Heller Story 1960-10-13 · 60 min
Chicago, March 1931. Eliot Ness and his men were doing raid after raid on Capone's speakeasies and breweries; his empire was tottering. Who would take over? A big-time gangster from New York, Charlie ""Pops"" Felcher, had just arrived in Chicago, along with his crooked lawyer Archie Grayson.
S2 · E2The Jack Legs Diamond Story 1960-10-20 · 60 min
New York, 1931. While many people were unemployed and poor during the Depression, gangster-owned speakeasies and nightclubs created a new mobster aristocracy. One top mobster is Jack ""Legs"" Diamond -- known to the Underworld as ""the Clay Pigeon"" because of the many times he'd been shot at, and survived.
S2 · E3Nicky 1960-11-03 · 60 min
Chicago. By the middle of 1933, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had almost checked the manufacture and sale of whiskey in Chicago. But the biggest operator was still in business: Giuseppe Marconi a.k.a. Gus Marco. He was an apparently respectable owner of a garage of taxis by day; but he trafficked in bootleg booze by night, he had a huge distillery underground in which he processed stolen industrial alcohol.
S2 · E4The Waxey Gordon Story 1960-11-10 · 60 min
New Jersey, the night of April 16, 1931. Waxey Gordon, the undisputed beer baron of New York, is muscling in on New Jersey, which is run by Frankie Dunn, ""Bugs"" Donovan and Roger Weiden. Waxey is waging a gang war to eliminate rival gangsters for control of the Jersey beer market. Waxey and his boys smash into a brewery owned and run by Frankie Dunn; they blast with their choppers until the large beer vats, Frankie and his workers are filled with holes.
S2 · E5The Mark of Cain 1960-11-17 · 60 min
Chicago, late Spring 1932. There is public protest about the increase in drug addiction. Charlie Sebastino has amalgamated all the small distributors into one big empire, setting himself up as emperor. Ness and his Untouchables had virtually shut down dope dealings, by nailing the big operators, but this network is run through small-time pushers.
S2 · E6A Seat on the Fence 1960-11-24 · 60 min
Chicago, late Summer 1932. Eliot Ness and his men had stemmed the supply of narcotics coming into the Windy City from Asia and southern Europe. Now the Underworld was using new ways to supply the city's 5,000 dope addicts. The Syndicate was robbing drugstores, doctors' offices, wholesale drug houses-- any place which kept a supply of painkilling drugs.
S2 · E7The Purple Gang 1960-12-01 · 60 min
Detroit, August 1932. The notorious Purple Gang-- long synonymous with terror in beer, booze, labor and prostitution-- gets into a new racket: kidnapping. They specialize in snatching other members of the underworld, since they can't go to the police for help. So far, they've kidnapped 9 hoods (the latest mug is Rocky Garver), for a total of 100 grand.
S2 · E8Kiss of Death Girl 1960-12-08 · 60 min
Chicago, September 8, 1932. That night, a convoy of 4 trucks, which had crossed the Canadian border, are driving towards Chicago; they are hauling 1,000 cases of Canadian scotch, valued at over $100,000. Ness and his Untouchables have set up a roadblock just outside of town. 7-8 miles up ahead of Ness there is another roadblock, set up by gangster Phil Corbin, owner of Chicago's Club Continental; he's waiting with his boys to hijack the convoy.
S2 · E9The Larry Fay Story 1960-12-15 · 60 min
New York, April 1931. Gangster Larry Fay, a former student of Al Capone, has his greasy fists firmly in the milk racket: he's organized milk companies into a monopoly. The price of milk was 10 cents a quart* (this was during the Depression when many people made 30 cents an hour); he increases the price 3 cents a quart-- with 2 cents going directly into Larry Fay's pockets.
S2 · E10The Otto Frick Story 1960-12-22 · 60 min
The night of May 3rd, 1934. A traveling carnival is at the Midway, 35 miles outside of Cleveland. There are half a dozen bellydancers on stage, as the barker goes, ""Hurry, hurry, hurry,"" and a sign reads: ""One dime shows you the best hootchy koochy show in the world!"" Hans Eberhardt, twice convicted for armed robbery and dope peddling, spots Ness and his Untouchables and the local police about to pull a raid; he runs to the office trailer of carny Otto Frick.
S2 · E11The Tommy Karpeles Story 1960-12-29 · 60 min
May 8, 1931. The special U.S. mail train, coming from Rock Island, is stopped by emergency flares on the tracks in Hillsdale, Illinois. Gangsters wearing Army gas masks lob tear gas grenades into the train; they shoot a postal clerk and make off with a million dollars in negotiable securities. 3 months later, ""Tough"" Tommy Karpeles, former big-time Chicago hoodlum, is arrested for complicity in the case; his 2 accomplices were not caught.
S2 · E12The Big Train (1) 1961-01-05 · 60 min
Movie: ""The Alcatraz Express"" (Disclaimer shown on screen) ""The events portrayed in this film are fictitious. The Federal Prison guards portrayed do not represent any actual persons, living or dead. ""Nothing herein is intended to reflect unfavorably on the courageous and responsible prison guards who supervised Capone during his internment in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta and during his transfer from Atlanta to Alcatraz.
S2 · E13The Big Train (2) 1961-01-12 · 60 min
Movie: ""The Alcatraz Express"" (continued) Sunday, August 19, 1934. At 2:30 a.m., the Big Train is backed into the prison yard of the State Pen in Atlanta. 54 hardened criminals, including Al Capone and Tony Diaz, are handcuffed and loaded onto the train. On board are prison guards armed with machine-guns. Once seated, the prisoners are additionally given leg shackles and told to put them on. Then, at 5:00 a.m., the Big Train pulls out-- right on schedule.
S2 · E14The Masterpiece 1961-01-19 · 60 min
Chicago, December 1931. With Al Capone in prison, the bootlegging part of his empire was split in 2. One of Capone's lieutenants, Mayer Wartel, acquired the speakeasies; another lieutenant, Karl Positan, acquired the breweries and distilleries. In an attempt to take over the entire operation, Positan withholds his whiskey and beer; the number of speaks flourishing drops to an all-time Prohibition low. Eliot Ness and his men keep an eye on the situation. Nitti's plenty sore.
S2 · E15The Organization 1961-01-26 · 60 min
Chicago. November 9, 1932. Al Capone was in prison, and Frank Nitti was running his Organization. But other crime overlords were ready to take over; the biggest was Joe Kulak, from St. Louis. Joe Kulak was called ""The Teacher"" because he had trained so many Underworld bigshots, and given them their start. Eliot Ness and his men keep tabs on Kulak from the moment he arrives in the Windy City.
S2 · E16The Jamaica Ginger Story 1961-02-02 · 60 min
On the night of May 25, 1931, 2 trucks are rolling into K.C., carrying $1-million worth of Jamaica Ginger rotgut, also known as ""Ginger Jake."" The trucks are owned by Rafael Torrez, gangster and race horse trainer, who has a monopoly on the Jamaica Ginger. Rival crime boss Jerry LaCarver, wanting in on the enormous profits, is ready to hijack the trucks, along with his gang of 5 hoods: the 2 notorious Roth brothers, Andy Bello (alias Louis Belmont), Richie Peters and Wally Heilman. They hijack the trucks with dynamite and shotguns.
S2 · E17Augie The Banker Ciamino 1961-02-09 · 60 min
Summer 1931, Chicago. Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had smashed most of the big breweries owned by the mobsters. But racketeers, taking advantage of the poverty and desperation of many immigrants, forced them to make a gallon of whiskey a day in small stills in their homes-- makeshift stills which could be put together for less than $3. The absolute boss of Little Italy is Augie ""The Banker"" Ciamino, and with whiskey pouring out of 1,000 tenement stills, he was cancelling the gains that Ness had made.
S2 · E18The Underground Court 1961-02-16 · 60 min
September 8, 1934. A cruise ship from Cuba to New Jersey has caught fire. There are over 300 passengers on board; some of the passengers and crew are jumping overboard to avoid the flames. Ness and his men, on assignment in New Jersey, speed to get there when the ship docks; Ness has an arrest warrant for Valentine Ferrar, racketeer and founder of the Big Syndicate. Valentine Ferrar had been in Cuba, picking up a million bucks collection money for the Syndicate.
S2 · E19The Nick Moses Story 1961-02-23 · 60 min
1932. Just 3 weeks after Al Capone was convicted on the ironic charge of income tax evasion, the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. was calling its leading law enforcement agents from all over the country to fly to the nation's capital to testify and get a new Anti-Racketeering Bill passed. Back in Chicago, 4 of Capone's bigshots who ran his bootlegging empire had skipped town, like rats deserting a sinking ship.