The BEST episodes written by William Spier
#1 - The Big Train (1)
The Untouchables - Season 2 - Episode 12
Movie: ""The Alcatraz Express"" (Disclaimer shown on screen) ""The events portrayed in this film are fictitious. The Federal Prison guards portrayed do not represent any actual persons, living or dead. ""Nothing herein is intended to reflect unfavorably on the courageous and responsible prison guards who supervised Capone during his internment in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta and during his transfer from Atlanta to Alcatraz."" Chicago, October 17, 1931. The 11-day trial of Al Capone ended, with the judge fining him $56,000 and sentencing him to 11 years in the Federal penitentiaries. On May 3, 1932, Capone is taken from Cook County jail to the Dearborn Station, to take a train to Atlanta. Nitti and his boys are there, as are Ness and his men. There is also a large crowd; to many of them, Al Capone, who had donated a few million dollars (peanuts to him) to support public charities like soup kitchens, he is sort of a hero. One well-wisher yells to Capone (referring to the Atlanta
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#2 - The Big Train (2)
The Untouchables - Season 2 - Episode 13
Movie: ""The Alcatraz Express"" (continued) Sunday, August 19, 1934. At 2:30 a.m., the Big Train is backed into the prison yard of the State Pen in Atlanta. 54 hardened criminals, including Al Capone and Tony Diaz, are handcuffed and loaded onto the train. On board are prison guards armed with machine-guns. Once seated, the prisoners are additionally given leg shackles and told to put them on. Then, at 5:00 a.m., the Big Train pulls out-- right on schedule. Ness and his men fly to Salt Lake City, Utah, and get there 3:00 p.m.; they head straight to the Lone Eagle Flying Service. One of Nitti's boys, Victor Seth Gordon, carrying 300 grand in a suitcase, has just hired Fred Noonan to put his plane ""on hold"" until the 22nd, and then fly a client to Mexico; oddly enough, Seth Gordon never told Noonan to keep his mouth shut-- when Ness and Lee Hobson pose as potential customers, Noonan tells them all about the trip to Mexico, what the guy who hired him (""Mr. Green"") looks like, the ti
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Dragnet (1951) - Season 8 - Episode 4
The detectives take a report of valuables stolen from the home of a somewhat eccentric old lady. They begin to suspect something is amiss when she starts talking about how she gets the "scoop" on crimes by being the first to report them to the local newspaper.
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#4 - Unhired Assassin (1)
The Untouchables - Season 1 - Episode 20
Movie: ""The Gun of Zangara"" Chicago. November 9, 1932. FDR has just been elected president, and the repeal of Prohibition is inevitable. But later that night, Ness and his men smash another of Capone's breweries. Agent Youngfellow asks Eliot, ""Are we going to be out of work?"" But Ness tells him no-- after all, bootleg booze was only a part of the Capone empire: there's still narcotics, gambling, prostitution, protection rackets, etc. Capone may start muscling in on legitimate businesses; in fact, Ness is having a meeting with Mayor Anton Cermak-- they want to ""clean up this town"" before the Chicago World's Fair in the spring of 1933. Miami. Giuseppe ""Joe"" Zangara, a man with homicidal tendencies, decides to kill the president. A newspaper vendor is hawking his papers; Zangara talks to him, and is surprised to learn that Hoover is no longer president. But Zangara sticks to his crazy idea to kill the president, no matter who he is.
#5 - Unhired Assassin (2)
The Untouchables - Season 1 - Episode 21
Movie: ""The Gun of Zangara"" (continued) Nitti's plenty sore! Mayor Cermak's stepped-up law enforcement has cut deeply into Nitti's operations. In the Montmartre club, Nitti takes a newspaper with a big photo of Cermak on the front page, and tacks it to the wall-- then Nitti takes out his 6-shooter and blasts 7 bullets into the photo. Nitti talks to 4 of his lieutenants. Frank Diamond says they better rub the Mayor out when he's out of town, or Capone won't like it; Louis Campagna knows of a good hitman in Florida: Fred ""the Caddy"" Croner, so-named because he poses as a golfer and keeps his rifle in a golf bag. The Mayor will be in Miami on February 15, the same time President FDR will be visiting there. While Nitti is planning Cermak's hit, in Miami Joe Zangara is planning to shoot the president. In Chicago, as if the Mayor hasn't made Nitti mad enough, he is now having a meeting with some City Council members and Ness.