Episode
The Untouchables: The Death Tree
Overview
Early November 1931. On West Madison Street, there is a wonderfully diverse neighborhood made up of gypsies of Romanian, Hungarian and Czech descent. The area is flooded with Capone's rotgut, being distributed by Janos Colescu. There are many colorful characters, including the chestnut vendor with his singsong voice: ""Get your red-hot che-e-estnuts, the wind is cold."" When the rotgut leads to a drunken knife-fight that leaves a gypsy dead, the 8-member gypsy Senate, headed by Victor Bartok, with his brother Fedor Bartok, convenes. Eliot Ness shows up to offer his help to end the bootleg booze; they decline his help, saying they will handle matters themselves.
Details
- Series
- The Untouchables
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 1962-02-15
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
The Death Tree is Episode 16 in Season 3 of The Untouchables. It aired on 1962-02-15. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 15: The Whitey Steele Story
New York City. July 23, 1934. The Underworld, which had long made big money by covering bets on horse races, wants to get their hands on a new invention-- the racewire, which can speed the results of horse races to bookmakers everywhere. That rainy night, Michael Barrigan and Frederic Withers (who, along with their partner Douglas Barrows, own and run the Trans-Pacific News Service) receive an urgent call from Barrows-- but Barrigan finds Barrows dead in a bookie joint (the back room of Hayes florists) when he gets there.
Episode 17: Takeover
Chicago, October 1932. The only ""beer"" allowed to be served during Prohibition is ""near-beer"" or ""Near-O""-- which is 0.5% alcohol, as opposed to real beer which is 4.0% alcohol. And so, a lot of legitimate beer producers wind up ""spiking"" the barrels of near-beer with pure alcohol, to get it up to strength. A northside brewer named Woody O'Mara wants to smash all his competition; he tells his girlfriend Amy Gratzner, a rather plain-looking 23-year-old secretary for rival brewer Franz Koenig, to blow the whistle on her boss.
More episodes from this season
Episode 14: The Silent Partner
Chicago, March 2, 1932. The hottest nightspot in town is the Club Tunisian, owned by gangster Pete Kalik, who built it up from a small speak. Ness and Lee Hobson show up, but not to see gorgeous singer Mavis Carroll-- they had gotten an anonymous phone tip earlier. Lee Hobson is tired, he is due to take his vacation leave starting Friday. Ness and Hobson get contacted by the club comedian Eddie Paris, he is the one who phoned them. After his show, he meets with Ness and Hobson at the Denton Street wharf; Eddie wants Pete Kalik put away behind bars, he says Kalik is working out a big alcohol deal with the Partner, the mysterious man who had backed Torrio and Capone.
Episode 18: The Stryker Brothers
March 3, 1932. It's the great train robbery, on the southbound express headed for Chicago. The Stryker brothers steal mail sacks containing 750 grand in payroll money. During the robbery, a baggage man and Lippy Carson (an associate of the Stryker brothers, who had worked as a mail clerk) are killed, and thrown from the speeding train. Since mail robbery is a federal offense, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables are called in.
Episode 13: The Gang War
1932. Chicago is a thirsty town, consuming 86,000 gallons of booze a day; that's 32-million gallons a year. Almost all this booze is beer and rotgut, but 1% is the finest Canadian scotch. Nitti's boys, armed with tommy guns, shoot up a rival speak, the Blue Lion, that's serving the Canadian scotch. Ness and his men investigate; 2 people dead, 3 critically injured.
Episode 19: Element of Danger
Chicago, August 29, 1934. That night, in the Haymarket district, special agent Daniel Gosden, a policeman on loan to the Untouchables, goes through a skylight and finds an opium laboratory in the top floor of a rundown tenement hotel. Just then, drug lord Victor Rait and 4 hoods (Gus, Sully, Max, and Trapp) show up, carrying crates of supplies into the place. Rait spots Gosden and gives chase; just as Gosden phones Ness for back-up, Rait blows him away with a shotgun. Then Rait blasts 6 bullets from his gun to disperse the crowd of tenants investigating the noise. Somebody phones the cops, because within minutes Eliot Ness and his men and some policemen are on the scene.
Episode 12: Fall Guy
October 1932, Chicago. With Capone in the slammer, other bosses are biting off chunks of Capone's empire. One boss is Frankie Gruder, head of a group that is the forerunner of Murder, Inc.; Gruder wants control of all the Canadian imports and exports. Gruder and his boys go to a warehouse, Gruder shoots a longshoreman. Ness and his men show up and start blasting. There's a shoot-out. Gruder manages to escape.
Episode 20: The Maggie Storm Story
Chicago, after the Repeal of Prohibition; (so this would be around 1934). With booze legal, the racket czars step up their dealings in narcotics. Ness and Lee Hobson are chasing 2 dope-pushers, one of them is Benny Rivas. After the shootout, one hood is dead; Benny moans, ""Get me a priest."" Ness finds heroin on him; wanting to die with a clear conscience, Benny says, ""808"" and dies. That leads Ness to Maggie Storm's 808 Club.
Episode 11: Canada Run
November 1932. Big-time gangster Joe Palakopolous is playing a dangerous game-- he just had his hitman rub out Danny Kugan, the biggest supplier of Canadian whiskey that Frank Nitti had. And Nitti's plenty sore. Kugan was the only guy who could import Canadian Gold for Nitti. The phony stuff is no good; Nitti quips that bottled rotgut is so bad, ""it peels off the labels from the inside."" Eliot Ness and his men investigate Kugan's killing, and try to find out who will take over the operation.
Episode 21: Man in the Middle
November 7, 1933. Slot machines are big business; 2,000 of the one-armed bandits rake in $100,000 per week; ($50 per machine). One night, ""Moose"" Tobin and 3 other Bomer hoods drop in on Porker Davis' upstairs gambling joint. Tobin tells Davis that Bomer wants to teach him a lesson; the hoods chase everybody out of the joint. Then they start throwing the slot machines out the 2nd story window; when one of Davis' employees tries to stop them, the hoods throw him out the window.
Episode 10: Hammerlock
New York, middle of 1932. The Syndicate-- headed by Joe Kulak, Louis ""Lepke"" Buchalter and Dutch Schultz-- has the city's huge garment industry organized and under control. Now they are setting their sights on bakeries; there are 500 independent wholesale bakers in the city. They give Bull Hanlon the word: get the biggest independent baker, Adam Stone, to sign up and all the rest will fall in line.
Episode 22: Downfall
Chicago. Pete ""The Persuader"" Kalmisky, former bodyguard of Al Capone, accompanied by Syndicate business manager Alan Sitkin, have a meeting with Joey December, president of the debt-ridden Great Lakes Pacific Railroad. They form a crooked alliance; Joey agrees to transport their illegal liquor on his trains, in exchange for ""20% off the top."" After Kalmisky leaves, Sitkin talks privately with Joey. Sitkin gives Joey $100,000 for 10,000 shares of Canada Central stock, now worth $10 a share;