STRANGLEHOLD

Airdate: May 4th, 1961
Written by Harry Kronman
Directed by Paul Wendkos
Produced by Alan Armer
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star Ricardo Montalban.
Co-starring Philip Pine, Kevin Hagen.
Featuring Trevor Bardette, Robert J. Wilke, Oscar Beregi, Burt Miller,
Adrienne Marden, Gene Roth, Frank Puglia.

“The Prohibition years wrote a dark page in our history. Americans who had once defied a king, refusing to pay a tax on tea, now paid a tax to the underworld on everything they drank or ate. From booze to bacon, from medicine to milk, racketeers poked their greedy fingers into every corner of the nation’s business. One little pig was going to market: The Fulton Fish Market in New York. A wholesale market, serving the entire east, shipping as far as Mississippi; a business of fantastic totals turning over $200 million a year, weighing out 700 million pounds of fish and one man’s thumb resting heavy on the scale.” Read More

In less than two minutes, the first step in a plan to defraud the people of the United States of $100 million dollars was completed and three men lay dead. Within 48 hours, Eliot Ness and five other top crime experts of the federal government had been flown to Washington, and were in conference with the men whose job it was to protect the nation against the economic cancer of counterfeiting.”
Read More

THE ORGANIZATION

Airdate: January 26th, 1961
Written by Harry Kronman
Directed by Walter E. Grauman
Produced by Alan Armer
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star Richard Conte
Co-starring Susan Oliver, Milton Selzer, Oscar Beregi
Featuring Richard Karlan, Thom Carney, Grant Richards, John Harmon, Russ Bender, Robert Beecher

“The bookies had given four-to-one against him, but on May 3rd, 1932, through the efforts of Eliot Ness and the Untouchables, Al Capone was convicted and taken out of circulation. Out of circulation, but not out of business. Frank Nitti was holding the organization together. Although the Capone mob still made a big noise, it wasn’t the same. The lion was down and the jackals were already slashing at his flanks. But there were other lions. One of the biggest was Joe Kulak, from St. Louis. Kulak, the one they called The Teacher, because he had trained so many underworld big shots. He had given them their start. He still gave them their orders. On November the 9th, 1932, alerted by federal authorities in St. Louis, the Untouchables watched Kulak arrive. Their job: to find out what he was doing in Chicago. ” 

Read More

THE MASTERPIECE

Airdates: January 19th, 1961 and August 31, 1961
Written by David Z. Goodman
Directed by Walter E. Grauman
Produced by Lloyd Richards
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star Rip Torn
Co-starring Bruce Gordon, George Voskovec, Robert Middleton
Featuring Harry Shannon, Joseph Ruskin, Addison Richards, Alexander Lockwood

“With the conviction and jailing of Al Capone, the richest plum of the Capone empire, the operation of the speakeasies and the breweries in the heart of Chicago, was split into two parts. The speakeasies were acquired by Meyer Wartel. Wartel was a Capone lieutenant. Distinguishing characteristics: killer, and hypochondriac. The breweries and distilleries were acquired by Carl Positan. Positan, too, was a Capone lieutenant. Distinguishing characteristic: killer. In a bold effort to take over the entire operation, Positan had withheld the whisky and beer, which Wartel needed to run his speakeasies. As a result, the number of speakeasies flourishing in Illinois’ largest city, dropped to an all-time Prohibition low. The tremendous loss in speakeasy revenue brought Frank Nitti, Capone’s collector, face to face with Meyer Wartel.” 

Read More

Read More