User Reviews

Russell Shields when caught by Ness, pleads sympathy because of his disability, trying to excuse his murder and complicity in it. Shields.. "They'll go easy on me, wont they?" Ness. "Yeah they'll put a cushion on the electric chair" Shields " When they see me, they will understand..... WHAT ELSE COULD I DO WHAT ELSE COULD BE (in raised voice)" Ness picks up newspaper with head line "Roosevelt By "Landslide"

" I tell you what you could have been, you could have been elected President of the United States tomorrow" !!!!!

When I saw an episode of "The Untouchables" from earlier in the season about something called 'Ginger Jake' I looked it up and found that some sort of artificial alcohol was being made by the mob and that was its nickname. However, the US government wanted folks to think twice about drinking Ginger Jake and they deliberately adulterated batches of the drink and allowed it to be sold...and resulted in horrible neurological problems for the users! It was much like the evil use of Paraquat--a herbicide the government used to use on marijuana crops that accidentally killed weed users!! So much for good intentions!!

I mention all this because this episode relates to this. It seems that the mob has been coming up with various antidotes for the adulterants the government adds to bootleg alcohol or industrially produced legal alcohol. So, the government adds stuff to make this alcohol non- potable and the mob just finds a chemical additive they can add which makes the drink just fine to consume. When the show begins, the government has announced an ultimate formula...something which the mob can't counteract.

Wally Baltzer (Telly Savalas) isn't convinced that the government has won this battle and insists that his scientists MUST create a solution to the latest government adulterant. And, considering he's a nasty guy, the scientists better come up with a solution or die trying! Or, perhaps they'll just die regardless!

Overall, this is a very good episode of "The Untouchables"--mostly because it features so much dirty dealing and betrayals! Tough, nasty and very enjoyable--and the ending is deliciously cruel. By the way, in addition to Savalas, familiar character actors Jeff Corey and Joseph Wiseman can be seen in the show as well as Bruce Gordon, as usual, as Frank Nitti.

The chemical properties of industrial alcohol come to the attention of The Untouchables after a chemist invents a formula to denature the stuff and make it suitable for human consumption.

But an ambitious yet crippled Joseph Wiseman who is also chemist murders to get the formula then goes into partnership with Telly Savalas and Jeff Corey a pair of fine mobsters who think they've got a good thing going with Wiseman. But Wiseman has an agenda all his own that takes him right to the top of the underworld in the person of Frank Nitti.

Wiseman is a rather ruthless cold fish of a human being and a pair of crutches and a limp don't stop him in the slightest. He's really the one who steals this episode out from under the noses of the regulars and the other cast members.