User Reviews

One of Robert Redford's most notable and beloved roles was as con man John Hooker in The Sting. But the guy who with Paul Newman arranged a big con to take down a racketeer who had killed his mentor was nothing like the coldblooded young gangster who dares to even con Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti in The Untouchables.

Seeing Robert Redford as a guest star almost compelled me to watch this episode. He and this frowzy street guy Gerald Hiken have a nice little business selling bathtub booze to college kids. But Redford in his ambition to move up the ladder spikes his product with wood alcohol causing blindness and death in one case and then he foists the whole blame on Hiken to get in good with Nitti.

As often as not Robert Stack and his picked crew never really do anything in the way of arrests and convictions even in this highly fictionalized television series. What they do is in the case of independents like Redford is just drop a dime on them and let the Mob take care of them. It certainly saves wear and tear on the criminal justice system which was so corrupt in the Chicago of that era.

This one is recommended for Robert Redford's legion of fans to see from whence he came.

****SPOILERS**** Blond and handsome Robert Redford who played a mentally unbalanced and reality challenged Neo-Nazi in a "Naked City" episode two years earlier outdoes himself here paying the hot shot former collage boy, who graduated top of his class, Jackson Emit Parker who's trying to make it big time in Chigago Frank Nitti's, Bruce Gordon, criminal organization. Brash and sure of himself Parker has his leg man the not too bright Benny Angel, Gerald Hiken, peddle bootleg booze to collage students that's laced with wood alcohol. Not that much of a bright idea on Parker's part in that by blinding and in one case killing a number of collage students he not only has the feds, the Untoucables, on his tail but also the Nitti Mob whom he's doing business for.

It's when things start to get hot for Parker that he fingers or frames the innocent Benny Angle as the person who's peddling the booze that he in fact forces on him and then has him iced as a favor to the Nitti Mob. Parker also takes advantage of desperate out of work family men, this in the depths of the Great Depression, who he gets to peddle his poison by threatening to have their family members murdered if they don't: What a low life!

***SPOILERS*** It's US Government Special Agent Eliot Ness, Robert Stack, who drops a dime on Parker by informing Nitti that he's been hurting his organization by pushing the stuff, bootleg wood alcohol laced booze, that nightmares are made of and it's Nitti's boys who get the dirty job done for Ness by giving Parker a dose of his own medicine if you know what I mean. In the end Parkers big dreams of making the big time in the world crime lasted less then two weeks, from October 16 to October 29 1930, which earned him a big red D, or Dead on Arrival, on his crime school report card.