The Untouchables (TV Series) The Empty Chair (1959) User Reviews

"EXTRA! EXTRA! Al Capone Sentenced To Federal Prison!" So Who's Gonna Supply our Booze?

[redryan64 · 8/10 · 12 June 2007]

With the great success of the two part Untouchables presentation on the CBS Network's Desilu Playhouse, the world cried for more "G-Men" on TV. And, Presto, THE UNTOUCHABLES was born! The main problem with launching the new series lied with the fact that the Desilu Playhouse presentation dealt with the long and tedious investigation leading up to the Trial & Sentencing of Al Capone on an Income Tax evasion charge. What would the series do to continue the story? Well, a lot of embellishing goes into a Hollywood version of occurrences, but one thing for sure is true. Life goes on and so does crime. The ABC TV Network welcomed series with open arms.

THE EMPTY CHAIR is a neatly done hour episode that starts with Capone being sent off to prison. Elliot Ness observes Capone being taken from the Court House to his transportation to prison. Was this now the end of lawlessness in Chicago, the U.S.A. and the world? Well of course not.The UNTOUCHABLES Series would be all about Gangland's transformation after the Capone verdict. Who would run things in the organization (in Chicasgo Lingo we call it "The Outfit").

In the initial installment, THE EMPTY CHAIR, we have a lot of the characters from the Desilu Playhouse 2 Parter*, including Barbara Nichols as a former Strip Tease Artist, now long on morning her lost husband. Bruce Gordon reprised his role as Capone Lieutennant, Frank Nitti, who was known as "The Enforcer". Only now, Nitti's ambition leads him to start making a power grab for the Top Spot in the Syndicate.

Opposition comes West Side Gangster, Jake Guzik (Neamiah Piersoff). Instead of guns and muscle, he uses a pencil as he is and has been the bookkeeper for the Capone mob. He convinces Nitti that he should call off the war and use brains and the protection of hiding behind legitimate business.

The episode goes on to continue this unending war to keep America dry, a temporary platitude at best, for in a couple of years, The Volstead Act would be repealed and National Prohibition would be a memory.

The Series brought us adventures in fighting the underworld in Chicago. THE EMPTY CHAIR was a top rate episode and had everything that one could want to inaugurate this series.

The first regular season episode of The Untouchables...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 26 January 2022]

... which explores some background information on Untouchable agent Enrico Rossi and the enforcer, Frank Nitti.

It is shown how and why Rossi first became an Untouchable - I don't think OPM would approve this hire today- and Frank Nitti's desire to sit in Al Capone's "Empty Chair" after Capone is convicted of income tax evasion.

Nitti has an unlikely opponent in Capone organization bookkeeper Jake Guzik. Guzik points out to Nitti that shooting things out with opponents in a war and striking back at the Untouchables is exactly what Elliott Ness wants, but having legitimate businesses as fronts and paying their taxes on them while still going about their illicit activities will leave Ness no course of action. This starts an uneasy truce between the two with Ness wondering why Nitti isn't behaving like the violent thug he is.

On the sideline is ex burlesque queen and widow of hoodlum George Ritchie, Brandy LaFrance, who wants to get even with whoever killed her husband and has been made to believe that Elliott Ness is responsible.

Guzik really was right - the pen, or the accountant's pencil, really is mightier than the sword. Nitti and his explosive temper should not have lasted another episode into the series, but then Bruce Gordon as Nitti was very flamboyant in the role. It will take a while after this episode for The Untouchables to find its footing with really great performances and scripts.

Great Start To A Classic TV Series

[ccthemovieman-1 · 10/10 · 12 April 2007]

Not having seen this show in over 40 years and having loved it as a young teen, I couldn't wait for the DVD to finally come out with Season One. I am sorry it's only half of the opening season, but at least it's a start.

This was great to watch, right from the beginning,because, for those like me who have forgotten or for new viewers, it gives us the background of all the major players. We get quick profiles of the men who were called "The Untouchables," beginning with the leader "Elliot Ness," a role that brought a lot of fame to actor Robert Stack.

Stack had already starred in several melodramas in the mid '50s but this TV series really made him a star. His right-hand man on the show, "Enrico Rossi," wasn't on the team right away, as I re-discovered watching this. Rossi (Nicholas Georgiade) was an assistant barber, who witnessed a brutal massacre in his shop and then had "the moxie," as Ness put it, to confront one of the thugs and be willing to testify against Frank Nitti. Ness is so impressed he hires Rossi shortly afterward on a conditional basis.

The opening episode re-unites us with Bruce Gordon as Nitti, "The Enforcer" as he was labeled. He's the chief villain since Al Capone has just been put in jail. We see Nitti try to take charge over the other three major hoods, but is stopped by the much smarter bookkeeper "Jake Guzik" (Nehemiah Persoff), who persuades Nitti and the two others - "Phil D'Andrea and Fur Sammons" - not to make the mistakes Capone made. They'll keep Capone's chair empty (hence the title of this episode) and run things smarter as a group.

Meanwhile, Ness and his boys try to figure out how to get Nitti charged in the murder. That's difficult because the other witness, the head barber, won't testify he saw anything. How can they get Nitti? If not this crime, maybe on tax evasion, or maybe they can start the crooks to mistrust each other. That's the theme for the rest of the program: how to send Nitti and his boys to jail.

It also was fun to see guest star Barbara Nichols who plays "Brandy LaFrance." If that name doesn't suit the roles Barbara played here and in many other TV programs and movies, nothing does.

The story of a smart mobster.

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 7 November 2015]

This is the first regular episode of "The Untouchables" and picks up right after the two-part pilot--with Al Capone being sent to prison. Now, with the big boss-man out of the way, there's a power vacuum. Surprisingly, although Frank Nitti was the nasty muscle-man, Jake Guzik (Nehemiah Persoff) sets himself up as THE power. Instead of trying to bully the others, he worked by getting everyone to cooperate as well as using his brilliance as a bookkeeper to hide the mob's wealth. So most of the show consists of Ness trying to separate Guzik from the mob. First, he tries to ONLY hit Nitti's locations--hoping to drive a wedge between the six mobsters in charge. When that doesn't work, she approaches Brandy La France-- the widow of the little guy ice picked to death in the pilot. What's next? See the show.

This episode was a great follow-up for the series and did a good job of getting the ball rolling. Well written, exciting and worth seeing.

Great Bridge Beyond the Capone Era

[mbanak · 10/10 · 9 September 2018]

The producers of this show had a tricky balance to maintain. The city, the crimes, the people, are real. But how do you keep a story line going after Capone is put away, and maintain some semblance of realism? This premier episode serves as a dandy bridge between the Classic Book, and the continuing careers of the Untouchables. The plot lines, the stories, the historical figures are kind of real, and kind of fiction. There really were/are people like this in Chicago, but their stories are not exactly as shown here. Yet, it's close enough to be instructive. Taking on the Mob is serious business. There is no way a life of crime can look attractive in a series like this. These losers get the rap they deserve. ==>In this episode, Ness resolves to take on whichever hoodlum pops up as Capone's successor. It just happens to be Frank Nitti .. . or maybe not. Excellent camera work here. Film buffs will delight in the staging of selected scenes. Example: Watch for the open-street food market, shot from behind a balcony guard rail. The message is unmistakable: The citizens inhabit a prison. They must delight in little freedoms, like picking tomatoes from the pushcart of their choice.

Plot summary

[ynot-16 · 10/10 · 25 July 2008]

The Empty Chair is an outstanding first episode that captures the essence of The Untouchables. After Al Capone is sent to prison, his enforcer Frank Nitti, portrayed with unparalleled skill by actor Bruce Gordon, schemes to take over the gang. He machine guns his chief competitors, gangsters Volpe and Raddi, in a barber shop in front of the owner and another barber, Enrico Rossi (actor Nicholas Georgiade). The owner, terribly frightened, denies Rossi's account of Nitti being the killer, scuttling any prosecution of Nitti, but leading Rossi to join the Untouchables.

Nitti tries to bully the other gang members into accepting his taking over "the empty chair" left by the departure of Capone, but Nitti, though the toughest and most vicious of the bunch, is stymied by the cleverness and courage of Capone's accountant Jake Guzik (actor Nehemiah Persoff). Much of the episode deals with the maneuvering of these two strong personalities with their very different approaches.

Ness's schemes to get the gangsters at each other's throats are defeated by the clever Jake Guzik. Ness then plots to get the cooperation of former stripper "Brandy LaFrance," real name Barbara Ritchie (actress Barbara Nichols), whose late husband George was murdered by gangsters, and whose uncle happens to be Jake Guzik.

Guzik, getting word that his niece was seen at the federal building, calls on fellow gangster Phil D'Andrea for help, but Ness is too clever, and too good a shot, for the gangsters to prevail.

DVD Purchases

[MarcElliott-1 · 17 April 2006]

I would like to buy all four seasons of the original "Untouchables" TV series on DVD. Is such a product available???? I always enjoyed the series as a youngster. My father and I would stay up and watch every episode each Saturday night. I was always very curious about everything that would happen in the program. I felt this was a way to gain insight into the type of world my parents grew up in. They were young during the great depression, and this series, I felt, had much to do with the climate they were subject to in their early lives. I would be very interested in owning the series. Also, if they were to be re-broadcast on cable today, I'm sure many more like myself would enjoy reliving those moments spent in front of a black & white TV in our homes of the 50's.