Written by Mr. Mouseburger 14th May 2006
Kindly submitted by The Doctor
After a successful illegal whiskey raid on the US-Canadian border, Eliot Ness and the Untouchables have captured George, one of Al Capone's cronies, with a ledger linking payments to Capone. Seeing the opportunity, Ness intends on getting him to stand trial so they can indict Capone for tax evasion.
Our heroes are at the hospital celebrating the birth of Ness' new baby when Ness sends an officer to escort them to a waiting van in the back, where Wallace and George will be taken to the police station. Unfortunately, the officer that has been sent is none other than hitman Frank Nitti in disguise.
No sooner are George and Wallace in the elevator and heading down to the parking lot when Nitti pulls out his pistol and shoots George. Wallace can't believe how brazen Capone's goons have been and can only stand aghast as Nitti turns the gun from George to him. The camera cuts away to the chief of police looking lamentably out of his window and we hear the gunshot and see Nitti running away from the scene.
Ness, Malone, and Stone all hear the shots and head to the window, where they see a police van and a dead officer. The three men quickly run to the parking lot, where they find the elevator door ajar, with blood covering the walls and inside are the corpses of the bookkeeper and Wallace. As a very, very sick touch, the word TOUCHABLE is daubed on the wall in Wallace's blood.
Minor nitpick: the guy with Oscar when he gets killed is George, who is just a bagman. Payne, the actual bookkeeper/accountant, is the guy held hostage by Bowtie during the stairway shootout, and he survives.
It is a good point, but why would George have the ledger if he was not also a bookkeeper? He confesses, under duress admittedly that he can decipher the ledgers code, so he must have been pretty au fait with the accounts.
However, in honesty, i did confuse George and the Bookkeeper, and can see that calling him the bookkeeper will lead people to think he is the fellow in the train station, so i have changed it.
That detail must have slipped by me. I only saw the film twice (once in a U.S. History Through Film class, and the other when I picked it up on DVD) and that detail escaped me. Thanks, Mouseburger for the correction.
Mr Mouseburger Wrote:
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> It is a good point, but why would George have the
> ledger if he was not also a bookkeeper? He
> confesses, under duress admittedly that he can
> decipher the ledgers code, so he must have been
> pretty au fait with the accounts.
>
I just know they have a scene early on (during the trip through Capone's hotel) that shows Payne giving George the ledger and instructing him on what to do. My guess is he's like the assistant bookkeeper or something.
Again, the grabs seem to be streched...
Just watching the DVD making of, and here's some trivia:
- The continuous Steadicam shot before Oscar gets in lift is a bit of foreshadowing (Steadicam shots are often used to up the tension)
- De Palma did not want the audience to see Oscar actually getting shot because he thought it would be too much for the audience (Oscar was mostly used as comic relief) (side note: where is Offscreen Killing?)
- When shooting the scene where Oscar is found in lift, De Palma, who had a reputation for not going easy on blood, actually told the set decorators they used too much blood.
- Charles Martin Smith was actually standing on a box in the said scene.
- Charles nearly wept when Sean Connery lifts him off the hook, sighing "Oh, Jesus".
- A bit of IMDb trivia: the first untouchable to die is the first seen drinking alcohol. Malone is also briefly seen having a drink before his demise.
Nice factoids Matt
What version of the Untouchables have you got? my version does not have any "Making of" documentary on it.
Mine is the Special Edition, which in addition to 4 new featurettes (where De Palma is a frequent commentator (although Costner, Garcia and Connery only appear in vintage interview clips and De Niro doesn't appear at all (he's interview-shy)), an 1987 promotional featurette, a re-mixed soundtrack and improved picture quality. Can be picked up dirt cheap (at least in the UK, where I got it for £4, a blind buy too)