The Untouchables (TV Series) Fall Guy (1962) User Reviews

Trinity of evil...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 5 March 2016]

Three very different hoodlums are small fish on their own, but when they are brought together they realize that they are a powerful force and decide to open their own employment agency of evil. In other words, they're independents who will do any job and provide folks to do it...if you can afford it and want it bad enough. Vernon (Don Gordon) is the hot-headed gunman, Gruder (Herschel Bernardi) is a genius with numbers and Willinski (Richard Emhardt) has lots of underworld contacts. So why would these three want to have anything to do with an out of touch old timer, 'Big Joe' (Jay C. Flippen), who THINKS he's still the #1 hood but he's actually a loud-mouthed nothing? And, how will Ness stop these folks?

I generally liked this one except for one thing...the ending. Instead of a big confrontation, it was rather small and anticlimactic. Worth seeing but mediocre for the series...at best. Though considering how good it was week to week, this isn't so bad.

"He used to be a big shot"

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 6 December 2013]

Watching this particular Untouchables episode put me in mind of gangster big screen classic The Roaring Twenties when Gladys George uttered that final epitaph over James Cagney. In The Roaring Twenties Cagney did his time in jail and took a fall as he did in Angels With Dirty Faces and then his former associates didn't want him back in the setup.

In this episode Jay C. Flippen a former gang leader gets out of prison after a ten year stretch. In that ten years Al Capone, Dion O'Bannion, Johnny Torrio, Bugs Moran have all come and gone. Flippen misses being a big shot, but he's got three jokers ready to use that nostalgia for their own gains.

The well connected Robert Emhardt, bookie Herschel Bernardi, and trigger man Don Gordon are ready to form their own syndicate, but with Capone's tax conviction in mind they need a fall guy and Flippen's a perfect fit for the part. Robert Stack is after Gordon especially since he got away with a killing by his friends forcing some poor schnook to sign a confession that Stack knows is phony.

Does it work out for Flippen better than it did for Cagney in those big screen classics. You'll have to watch this fine Untouchables episode to find out.

Giving 'Em The 'Business'

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 16 March 2012]

Three crooks - all with different specialties - for an alliance, a new "company" as they call it, to take over a big area. That's a common theme in these Untouchables episodes: crooks getting greedy and wanting a bigger piece of the pie, even if in interferes with the big boys (like "Frank Nitti" or the jailed-but still influential "Al Capone."

"Julius Vernon" (Hershel Bernardi), "Willie Willinsky" (Robert Emhardt) and "Frankie Gruder" (Don Gordon) form the trio. Gordon plays the crude tough-guy hit-man; Bernardi, a bookkeeper- type guy who knows the right people and the other is a semi-boss (played by Emhardt) who has clout. What they need, though, is a fall guy, someone who will take the heat if the coppers nab them. They find one in "Big Joe Holvak" (Jay C. Flippen, who is great in here.) Their business is committing crimes and anyone who wants something done need to just contact them and, for a price, it's a done deal.

Things are rolling along fine but you know with Elliot Ness and Untouchables starting to follow you around, eventually your "business" will be in trouble! This was a good guest cast, led by Flippen, who doesn't appear until over halfway through, but is memorable when he does show up.