User Reviews

Salazar (Joe De Santis) is a dirt-bag who deals with drugs. When the show begins, he and his boys steal a shipment of Morphine. There are and important thing this guy doesn't know...his trusted henchmen cannot be trusted. One, Ballard (Edward Binns) is planning on stealing it from him. Two, and definitely worse, his other, Howe (Pat Hingle), is a federal agent!! Imagine Ness' surprise, then, when he brings Howe in for questioning only to realize that they'll have to start working together to bring these guys to justice.

This is a very good though not great episode of "The Untouchables"...worth seeing and very interesting but not one of the standout shows. I particularly liked seeing Hingle, as he played a rather atypical sort of role in this one.

Though Joe DeSantis is a vicious dope dealing gangster who Eliot Ness is trying to put in the slam you almost feel sorry for this guy in this Untouchables story. DeSantis is one of a quartet of guest stars and in one way or another he's being doublecrossed by the other three.

One of his men whom DeSantis has gone out of his way to crap all over is Edward Binns who's decided to hijack a big shipment of morphine and sell it for himself. Then there's one of his large customer/distributors Michael Constantine who can't wait for his supply and buys off Binns after DeSantis has told all to sit tight while he finds who is betraying him.

But the worst is his number 2 men. This fictional drama may have been one of the earliest examples of deep undercover as Pat Hingle who has risen in DeSantis's crew to number 2 is actually a Fed. Of course Robert Stack doesn't know that at first, but Hingle works for the narcotics bureau and they're both after DeSantis.

With all that against him, did DeSantis have a chance?

Nice episode, especially the scenes with the hot tempered DeSantis and the cool Hingle. With so many people sticking it to him, you've got to wonder how DeSantis rose as far as he did. He was one poor judge of character.

It is usually about booze, and the prevention of people drinking it, when almost every character, including Federal Agents, is seen continually lighting up a cigarette !!!