I like Robert Stack as an actor
But even though his portrayal of tough
No-nonsense Elliott Ness treasury agent
I kind of thought that he was too much of a glory hog
While Kevin Costner's Ness portrayal was more of a
Team player I think!
Actually, it was more the other way around. Stack's Ness was always a team player whereas Costner's Ness was a glory hound and a wuss to boot. Costner's Ness was a joke. The wrong actor in a terrible movie.
shareSorry I just thought that Stack
Acted like he was better than thou
Costner's Ness was a team player
Stack's Ness dismissed the other Untouchables
As well as other law enforcement
In paticular local law enforcement.
As Stack was pretty cocky and arrogant
Costner was more mild-mannered and sympathetic.
"The wrong actor in a terrible movie."
Agreed. Only one Eliot Ness.<------->Robert Stack
I find Ness in Stack's portrayl "holier than thou" and a very cold fish, rather than a glory hog. The fact that he is largely enforcing a nasty tyrannical law-prohibition-makes it all much worse. If Stack's Ness was purely concerned with protection racketeers and narcotics dealing I might find him more palatable.
Of course, the series is played very much in black and white as far as morality is concerned, but it was really the sanctimonious killjoys who created the large scale organised crime and corruption of the twentieth century thru prohibition ("the law of unintended consequences").
To: - mcfaddensflats on Tue Mar 25 2008 06:24:51
"but it was really the sanctimonious killjoys who created the large scale organised crime and corruption of the twentieth century thru prohibition ('the law of unintended consequences')."
You may have a point. It boils down to GREED, which is a part of the problem today. Too much OINK. Enron is a good ie.
Ness in the T.V. series is like Batman in the T.V. series, a boring good guy surrounded by much more interesting criminals. All the gangsters are interesting and fun to watch just like the villians in Batman.
shareWho can forget Sean Connery as the tough, but honest veteran beat cop in the movie version of "The Untouchables" ? Connery won "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar for that role. Well-deserved!
share[deleted]
According to the book and by the biography on Robert Stack, the real Eliot Ness was always p---sed off about something - a lot like Stack portrays. According to the Stack biography, Ness's widow said that Stack captured her husband's anger. The whole Kevin Costner family man Ness was a complete fabrication (not a nice family man, but a consumed workaholic who went through three wives).
The real problem in Chicago wasn't the booze - it was Capone. He had the city in his pocket because he was making a ton of money on beer. Read the book "The Untouchables." Eliot Ness went after breweries. He wanted to stop Capone and didn't really care about prohibition. The objective was to get Capone out of running the city like a dictator. Sort of like Daley is doing today.
So Ness was out to topple Capone and save the city from the gangster, not a "killjoy" who didn't like booze. Too bad he isn't around today.
"The whole Kevin Costner family man Ness was a complete fabrication (not a nice family man, but a consumed workaholic who went through three wives)."
I get so tired of people raving about the movie. I saw it in theatres, twice, and after the 2nd time, came to feel they somehow managed to get almost everything wrong. The one thing about the film that seemed "right" was Robert DeNiro's portrayal of Capone, and he went thru a lot to make himself look like that!
The Tom Amandes version of THE UNTOUCHABLES seems to be forever overlooked, especially in light of the earlier Brian DePalma film. Yet I think for what it was, they got it more "right" than ANYTHING DePalma did. Amandes' portrayal reminded me of a young James Stewart. He went from nice family man TO consumed workaholic, and tragically, several episodes before it ended, his Ness received divorce papers. (I guess his wife decided she couldn't wait, as it seemed like she would when she left town.) I've just watched the entire series again, and the only real downside is that the final episode, after doing a virtual "Twilight of the Gods" for Capone, seems to end rather ABRUPTLY-- which gives me the feeling they were planning to do a 3rd season that never happened.
That said, Robert Stack remains the "real" Elliot Ness in my mind, however much a creation of fiction he was.
After I plow thru my collection, I'll probably dig out STRIKE FORCE (1981).
Which reminds me... in the 1980 movie AIRPLANE!, I thought Robert Stack was a HELL of a lot funnier than Leslie Nielsen!!!
I watched the Untouchables series when it first aired in 1959-1963. I thought it was great. But it is hard to compare a series covering 4 years with a single 2-hour movie. That said, I preferred the Robert Stack portrayal of Ness over Costner's portrayal. Connery and Garcia were good in the movie, but collectively Stack's support cast of Paul Picerni, Abel Fernandez and Nick Georgiade was as good if not better than Costner's support cast. And the advantage of the series is that it had excellent special guest stars in most if not all episodes. Also, I thought Capone as played by Nevile Brand in the first part of the series was better than the over the top version of Capone played by DeNiro.
But the 1987 movie was above average; it just wasn't as good as the great 1959-1963 TV series.