User Reviews

Ever since time in memorial humankind has shown a vast capacity to make some kind of intoxicant or refine what nature has put out there. Every people, every culture, makes no difference. That ingenuity was put to the test during Prohibition when people tried all kinds of ways to break the Volstead Act.

The Untouchables team up with the Public Health Service and doctors Dane Clark, Joseph Schildkraut, and John Gabriel when a lot of alcohol poisonings show up first in Kansas City and then in Chicago. It's traced to a kind of hair tonic which has an alcohol base and is legal. But something called 'Ginger Jake' is made from it and it and for some who drink it they can get paralyzed and permanently.

Worse than that, wait until you see who is doing this. That I will not get into at all, but trust me this one's a real bottom feeder.

Again, I think that The Untouchables were airing a possible pilot for another series on the Public Health Service that didn't get picked up as they were with two episodes involving Barbara Stanwyck as the head of Chicago PD's missing persons. On its own it's a good episode though and there is also a touching performance by Sondra Blake as one of the victims of the alcohol poisoning.

The previous season, Dane Clark played the same character on "The Untouchables"...Dr. Victor Garr. Garr works for the government and his campaign is to wipe out the awful effects of tainted 'Ginger Jake'...an artificial liquor that could leave its drinkers with permanent neurological problems!* In Wichita in particular, there are tons of people with the 'Jake Dance'...with a peculiar gait when they move due to the poisoned liquor. And, like the previous episode with Dr. Garr, Ness and his men aren't in this one very much and it plays like it's perhaps a potential set-up for a spin off that never occurred. Along for the ride this time is Joseph Schildkraut who plays Garr's mentor.

This is a decent episode but not especially remarkable. With less Ness and more "Dr. Kildare" it's more soap opera than violent crime show. Good...certainly not great in any way.

*They never mentioned it in the show but the poisoned Ginger Jake was deliberately poisoned by the US government! I looked this up after seeing a previous Jake episode. How could they do this?! Crazy...thinking that poisoning a few folks would be a GOOD thing by discouraging others from demon alcohol.

This is a sort of mix up between the previous episode and those two starring Barbara Stanwyck, a couple of épisodes earlier. First, Dane Clark is in the same position as Stanwyck was. he is perfect in the recurrent role of the doctor - Stanwyck was a detective in Missing Persons squad - helping people, but he could easily had another role, a heavy character for instance, a gangster or hired killer. The same as Stanwyk. A kind of miscast. And the second element which is this story, is the fact that it is question of a drink illegally made by bootlegers from the wrong stuff and that eventually kills people, or make them sick. The previous episode showed us a terrific Robert Redford selling liquor making people getting blind.