The Untouchables (TV Series) The Night They Shot Santa Claus (1962) User Reviews

You think you know someone

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 29 November 2013]

Eliot Ness and The Untouchables get good and involved in what would normally be a homicide handled by the Chicago PD. That's because Robert Stack was friendly with the victim, a nightclub comedian and front man for a club run by mobster Murvyn Vye. The killing was brutal too, the victim was shot down while in a Santa Claus suit after leaving an orphanage run by Russell Collins.

What happened was that the victim did witness a slaying at the nightclub and those the police think of as witnesses are being systematically eliminated. While that's going on Vye remains hidden and unavailable.

A good episode to kick off the final season of The Untouchables. Best performance in there is that of Edward Asner who was another witness. His scene with Robert Stack in the police station where Asner spills all the beans is the highlight of this episode. Asner plays a real mook of a human being, but tragic nonetheless.

Resolute.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 13 August 2015]

It's a curious experience, looking at an episode of "The Untouchables" without having seen one in decades. At the time, the series had everyone glued to their television sets. It becomes a joke in "The Apartment." Yet, reviewing it now, one is conscious of the rather routine detective story that's unfolding over the course of some forty-five minutes.

Robert Stack, as Elliot Ness, could be any police officer or gumshoe. He could be Michael Shane or Boston Blackie. And old and respected friend of his is shot down on the street. Ness's attempt to unravel the mystery -- why would anybody shoot such a nice old guy -- takes him to various louche cocktail lounges and dumpy apartments. He doesn't get to convict the murderer, which is unusual.

Stack himself is a kind of curiosity. His acting is wooden. Not soft wood like pine or balsam, but hard like oak or walnut. His handsome masculine features seems completely without expression, except on those rare occasions when he tries to smile in triumph. Even then, we can almost hear the creak of long-unused muscles. His mellifluous baritone is flat.

And what makes his on-screen performances so curious is that in his real life he seems to have been an interesting guy -- born in Tokyo, an ace skeet shooter, and a very lively interviewee. You'd never know.

The other Untouchables have practically nothing to do. But Nita Talbot, as the girl friend of Ness's old acquaintance, is something else. She's magnetic. She was magnetic as the under-aged girl in the saloon near the opening of "On Dangerous Ground" in the early 50s. She was magnetic here, ten years later; and she was still magnetic (and very funny) in an episode of "Colombo" called "A Stitch In Crime." She retained her good looks and her delicious figure for at least twenty years.

Also giving a cultivated performance is Ed Asner as the drooping and resigned loser who knows he's a dead man.

On the whole, it's a little like looking at a show through the wrong end of a telescope. It all seems so far away now.

Worth watching Ed Asner

[bjboulden · 7/10 · 29 July 2022]

The story is good but watching up and coming actor Ed Asner give a five minute confession to a crime, with the camera never moving off his face. Absolutely fantastic scene. One of the best scenes in the series.

No, Virginia....there ain't no Santa Claus!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 21 March 2016]

This is the first episode of season four--the final one for "The Untouchables". Season four featured different graphics, slightly difference music as well as a change with the bumper scene. Instead of showing a clip of what would happen in the show, it was simply the first scene. This one is a REAL heartless one, as Hap Levinson is doing his annual visit to the children of an orphanage. He's dressed as Santa and passes out presents to all the kids...and then is gunned down right in front of the place as he leaves! Talk about some folks lacking the Christmas spirit!!

What follows is no less cynical than the introduction, as Ness investigates this murder on Christmas Eve and learns through the course of the show that Hap was NOT the guy he thought he was. Drugs, a mistress and murders...followed by an even more cynical finale makes this one perhaps the most hard-edged and dark episodes of the series. I actually appreciated this as too often the shows were formulaic and predictable...and this one is anything but.