Jan 28

The St. Louis Story – Episode Review

By Dan Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

THE ST. LOUIS STORY

Airdates: January 28th and June 30th, 1960
Teleplay by Joseph Petracca
Directed by Howard W. Koch
Produced by Josef Shaftel
Director of Photography Robert B. Hauser, A.S.C.
Special Guest Star David Brian
Co-starring Leo Gordon.
Introducing Anthony George as Cam Allison. Featuring Richard Bakalyn, Rita Duncan, Frank Wilcox, George Neise, Bernard Fein, Danny Meehan, Percy Helton, Lillian Bronson

“On a peaceful evening in the Spring of 1931. Gang warfare had broken out with sudden violence on the streets of St. Louis. Tim Harrington, long-entrenched as the undisputed boss of the city, was fighting the challenge to his leadership. And the challenger was an upstart hoodlum: Joe Courtney. The most outraged citizen in St. Louis was Dink Conway, the owner of the swanky Jockey Club, a fashionable club house attached to the old Maxwell Race Tracie, converted into the finest restaurant and nightclub in the State of Missouri.”
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Jan 21

Love0

Star Witness – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

STAR WITNESS

Airdate: January 21st, 1960
Produced by Josef Shaftel
Written by Charles O’Neal
Directed by Tay Garnett
Director of Photography Robert B. Hauser, A.S.C.
Co-starring Marc Lawrence. Special Guest Star Jim Backus. Featuring Dorothy Morris, Bart Bums, Jay Warren, Sal Annetta, William Justin, Tom Reese

“In 1934, the Great Depression was four years old. Al Capone had shifted his place of residence to a federal penitentiary. But the criminal empire which Capone had founded refused to fall apart. It continued to operate its multimillion dollar rackets behind legitimate business fronts. One such front was a firm calling itself Midwest Enterprises, Incorporated. It’s president was a man named Luigi Rinaldo, once one of Capone’s lieutenants and now a powerful figure in Chicago’s vice syndicate. Second in command was his enforcer, a compulsive young trigger man named Paolo Rienzi. “

Jan 14

Love0

The Noise of Death – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

THE NOISE OF DEATH

Airdate: Original Air Date: January, 14th, 1960 (Originally Scheduled October 22nd, 1959)
Written by Ben Maddow
Directed by Walter E. Grauman
Produced by Charles Russell
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Co-starring Henry Silva, Norma Crane, J. Carrol Naish.
Featuring Mike Kellin, Rita Lynn, Karen docker, Joi Lansing, Harry Dean Stanton

“A nice day in Chicago, March 31, 1933. At No. 1229 Houser Boulevard lived Joseph H. Bucco, his wife and daughter. Everybody knew Joe Bucco and liked him.”
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Jan 07

Love0

Syndicate Sanctuary – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

SYNDICATE SANCTUARY

Airdate: January 7th, 1959
Written by George F. Slavin
Produced and Directed by Paul Harrison
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Featuring Anthony Caruso, Robert F. Simon, Gale Kobe

“Calum City, thirty miles from Chicago, population, 10,000. A city fighting for its life, divided over an election that could mean honest government, or a return to the jungle law of the underworld. ”
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Dec 31

Love0

The Underground Railway – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

Airdate: December 31st, 1959
Teleplay by Leonard Kantor
Directed by Walter Grauman
Produced by Josef Shaftel
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star Cliff Roberston
Featuring Virginia Vincent and Joe De Santis

“Outside the walls of Lewisberg Federal Prison, in the State of Pennsylvania, August 3rd, 1933. After serving two years and 17 days of the life sentence in a four man holdup of a Federal Reserve Bank shipment, three-time loser Frank Holloway, was on his way out again. The jail break was only step one toward the half-million dollar haul that had never been recovered. Now there were only two ways to cut the mellon: Half to Ed Johnson, custodian of the for tune who had never been caught, and half to Frank Holloway.”
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Dec 24

Love0

You Can’t Pick the Number – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

YOU CAN’T PICK THE NUMBER

Airdate: December 24th, 1959
Written by Henry F. Greenberg
Directed by Richard B. Whorf
Produced by Charles Russell
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Co-Starring Jay C. Flippen, Darryl Hickman, Christine White, Doreen Lang, Harry Tyler

“Chicago, South Side. October, 1932. The depth of the Depression. A time of hardship and despair for many, of standing lines and waiting for a meal. For some, not even a place to sleep. A time of closed gates and no work signs. A time of hope, of small, desperate hope. Hope for a better tomorrow and a little break today. Any little break, any heaven-sent little windfall, to happen now, today, right now. The mobsters were equal to the task and came up with the numbers game. On the surface, it worked like a lottery. You chose a number from zero, zero, zero, to nine hundred and ninety-nine. Your chances to win were one in a thousand. If you were lucky, you got back six hundred for one. If you lost, you could play again tomorrow, and nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand – you lost.”
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Dec 17

Love0

The Dutch Schultz Story – Episode Review

By Dan Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

The Dutch Schultz Story

Airdate: December 17th, 1959
Teleplay by Jerome Ross and
Robert C. Dennis
Story by Jerome Ross
Directed by Jerry Hopper
Produced by Sidney Marshall
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star Lawrence Dobkin
Featuring Mort Mills, Robert Carricart, David White

“The underworld has always lived by one law, the law of the jungle. The strong clawed their way to power, the weak died in a hail of machine gun bullets. In March of 1935, one of the toughest mobsters in New York City, the man who dominated the underworld at the moment, was Arthur Flegenheimer, better known as Dutch Schultz. During his career, Dutch Schultz and his mob were suspected of having committed over 100 murders. He controlled every racket in New York. He had branched out into liquor, narcotics, later shakedowns, the numbers racket. ”
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Dec 09

Love0

The Tri-State Gang – Episode Review

By Kelly Lynch Episode Review, Season 1

THE TRI-STATE GANG

Airdate: December 10th, 1959, June 9th, 1960
Written by Joseph Petracca
Produced by Josef Shaftel
Directed by Allen H. Miner
Director of Photography Charles Straumer
Special Guest Star William Bendix
Featuring Alan Hale, Gavin MacLeod, Jay Adler, Roxanne Berard, Stanley Adams, Peggy Maley, Joseph Mell, John Ward

“In the latter part of 1933, an epidemic of hijacking broke out in the states of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The similarity of the holdups identified them as the work of the Tri-State Gang. This time it was a factory shipment of radios. The routine was always the same: Big Bill Phillips, a cheap, hulking six-foot-four ox of a man, handled the truck. Artie McLeod, a cheap tin horn gambler, handled the burlap hood with style and efficiency. The oldest of the gang was Georgie Kaufman, a battered ex-pug who once fought Benny Leonard in Madison Square Garden. The fence was James Jonathan Harris, sometimes called Gentlemen Jim. A quiet-spoken Englishman from the moors of Yorkshire. He was a suspicious and ever-watchful man. Bobby May, second in command, three-time loser, an ex-con, San Quentin. The leader of the gang was Wally Lagenza, a pale, cold, blond beast untouched by any civilizing influences. The doctors at Dannemora once described him as a vicious, antisocial animal, dangerous, ruthless and depraved. Eliot Ness and his men had been assigned by Washington to investigate the activities of the Tri-State Gang. That same night, they drove down to Richmond, Virginia, where they met with Sheriff Wilson of Richmond County.
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Dec 08

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Fulfilling Dad’s dream: Son working to finish book on ‘Untouchables’

By Kelly Lynch News

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette explores the effort behind finishing Dan Lynch’s book on The Untouchables:

While Kelly Lynch didn’t go into the same profession as his father, he has spent the past few years delving into his father’s passions.

One of those, the railroad, has seen Lynch become the executive director of the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society and his involvement in the restoration of the historic steam locomotive No. 765.

The other is a TV show that Lynch describes as creating a cultural awakening, having impacted everything from “The Simpsons” to “The Sopranos.”

Lynch was barely a teenager when he began to watch with his father the VHS tapes his dad had recorded of the TV show “The Untouchables.”

Dan Lynch would have been a teenager when the show debuted in October 1959, but it made a huge impact on him and started a fascination that continued until he passed away in 2014.

This year, as the show marks its 60th anniversary, the Spencerville resident has uncovered an unfinished, 400-page manuscript written by his father and has revisited the TV production in the digital age.

Dec 05

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The Surprised Mr. Stack – TV Guide

By Kelly Lynch Feature Articles

This article was originally published in the December 5th, 1959 issue of TV Guide.

He finds himself starring in a TV series that was supposed to be a movie

When Robert Stack was first shown the script for The Untouchables, he solemnly shook his curly head and pointed the tips of his well-bred thumbs toward the floor. It was his professional opinion that the story of Eliot Ness, United States Treasury agent, was lacking in something.

“From an actor’s point of view,” says Stack, a 40-year-old California socialite, whose approach to his career has always been marked by a certain detachment, “it had no dynamics. Don’t ask me what that is, but I can assure you it’s a quality that’s mighty important to the leading man, two critics and three other actors.”

For this reason, Stack was cool about playing the Ness role when it was first offered him by Quinn Martin, executive producer of the Desilu package, and Phil Karlson, its director and a long-time friend of Stack’s. Aside from the fact that Martin and Karlson thought enough of him to drop by his house and make the pitch, Stack says two things made him change his mind and agree to clean up Chicago-on film, at least. Read More