The Untouchables (TV Series) The Eddie O'Gara Story (1962) User Reviews

The O'Garra Brothers

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 9 January 2014]

I'm an agreement with the other reviewer who said this particular Untouchables story was a ripoff of the classic James Cagney film, Public Enemy. Doesn't prevent it from being one of the better episodes in the series history.

Eddie O'Garra after years away in jail has come home to Chicago and mother Meg Wyllie and brother Sean McClory give him a welcome and McClory gets a job like his as a street car conductor for the brother who says he wants to go straight.

Michael Connors playing O'Garra has no intention of that, the job is a blind and an organization from the bottom of the criminal food chain stores its weapons in the utility box of his streetcar. What Connors is doing is trying to reconstitute a North Side mob for Bug Moran played here by Robert Wilkie. Connors needs the Moran name to be taken seriously, but Wilkie has no intention of being a figurehead.

Of course Connors reaches to high and the inevitable happens. Robert Stack has the dubious distinction of saving the life of Bugs Moran in this story.

In real life Bugs Moran from his heights as boss of the north side gradually slid down the criminal food chain. After a second conviction for bank robbery Moran died in prison in 1957. He lived to the ripe old age of 65, amazing by underworld status.

Connors as the hot to trot Eddie O'Garra and Wilkie as the wily Bugs Moran highlight this one of the best Untouchables episodes.

Not exactly a history lesson.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 March 2016]

Despite what the summary says, the Bugs Moran mob was NOT wiped out at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre...though many of them were killed that day. And so, Moran was NOT desperate and possibly willing to spill his guts to Ness....so realize that this is NOT a history lesson!

When the show starts, a hobo aboard a train, Eddie (Mike Connors), hears of the Massacre and quickly gets himself to Chicago...but why? Apparently this hobo has a plan that will get Moran and his gang back on their feet! When Ness learn that Eddie is back in town, he's anxious to capture him AND Bugs Moran.

This is a pretty good episode about a stupid punk...well written and entertaining. And, historically inaccurate.

"Public Enemy" Remake

[pattersonros · 27 May 2013]

While I can appreciate that in-between the censors and the general public, the writers might have been running out of fresh material, the writers of "The Eddie O'Gara Story" all but stole this episode from 1931's "The Public Enemy" (this sentence alone is the spoiler).

Eddie's older brother, Vince, drives a trolley car, so did Tom Powers' older brother, Mike. Eddie is his widowed mother's favorite--she babies him and calls him Eddie (Vince calls him Ed); Tom was his widowed mother's favorite--she babied him and called him Tommy (Mike called him Tom). Eddie is pals with "Bugs" Moran; Tom is tight with "Paddy" Ryan. When Eddie starts a gang war, his steely look/stare rivals that of Cagney's Tom Powers; neither character has much time or use for women.

With so many similarities, I was surprised that Vince didn't open the door to a dead and bound O'Gara (it was Ness advising that Eddie was dead).