The Untouchables (TV Series) Stranglehold (1961) User Reviews

Something's fishy on "The Untouchables".

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 2 March 2016]

This is an interesting episode because the powerful mob bosses didn't like Frank Makouris (Ricardo Montalban) and the heavy-handed way he controlled the fish markets. He even had the affront to bug Ness' telephone!! So, they ordered him to back off...stop with the killings and be a kinder, gentler sort of gangster. So instead of murdering folks, his right hand man, Lenny (Phillip Pine), began tossing acid in folks' eyes! So much for kinder and gentler! At this point, the mob bosses deliver an ultimatum...either Makouris will die or, if he chooses, he can kill Lenny himself and end the problem. Unfortunately, the plan to kill Lenny goes awry and all sorts of problems result.

This is a tough and gritty episode of "The Untouchables". While Phillip Pine never was a household name, he was excellent here and the show is well worth seeing.

Ricardo Montalban is a mealy mouthed mobster

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 30 January 2022]

Montalban plays Frank Makouris, a mobster who has a protection racket going in New York's Fulton Fish Market. His embrace of extreme violence has even the syndicate of more powerful mobsters telling him to stop with the killing. So he just decides to switch to maiming people instead. The syndicate is not amused with Makouris obeying the letter versus the spirit of the law they laid down. Never having the courage of his convictions, he blames the recent blinding of an old man via throwing acid in his face on one of his hired guns rather than his own orders. Thus his other hired gun, Swede Kelso, is given the unenviable task of killing his friend, Lenny, to placate the angry public and get the syndicate off the hot seat.

Usually the mob muscle was portrayed as mindless thugs on The Untouchables, having no real part in the plot. Here you see real camaraderie between the two hired guns, although they do remind me a bit of the two villains in Fargo except with a strong friendship between them. Thus it causes Swede all kinds of mental anguish being told to violate the trust of someone he considers a friend. Montalban plays an interesting mobster. He is all about his workouts and physical prowess, but at his core he is a coward.

Fish Racketeering

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 3 August 2012]

Eliot Ness and his Untouchables squad is taken out of Chicago once again to investigate racketeering at the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan. Though the story is bogus I have to say the recreation of the Fulton Fish Market in the scenes was nicely done. It looks about the same today and probably the same when a kid from the Lower East Side named Alfred E. Smith was hawking fresh fish there.

Ricardo Montalban with his two top enforcers Phillip Pine and Kevin Hagen are muscling in on the Fish Market and getting real reckless in doing so. Robert Wilke who plays Dutch Schultz is ordering him to go which is a real irony because Schultz was usually leaned on himself to go slow in real life.

Through a tenuous Chicago connection Robert Stack and the guys are brought in. I guess there was no law enforcement good enough in New York. But the show had only so many Chicago based stories they could do.

Still the show is a good one and Montalban is especially good as the amoral racketeer of Fulton Street.