Anyone know the Untouchables' jujutsu episode?
Here's an interesting tidbit for fans of old television shows and for those who enjoy the martial arts. Or, you might have to be 50 years old or older.
THE UNTOUCHABLES was a popular, black-and-white, FBI crime show in the early 1960s featuring rugged-looking actor, Robert Stack as the head of a regional FBI agency. Each week FBI G-man stack and his loyal office of professional FBI G-men would take on the worst of the worst criminals. Usually these were organized or semi-organized criminals. The show typically avoided the petty criminals.
On one interesting episode it starts off showing the inside of a largely bare room In comes a balding, pudgy, middle-aged, white guy who looks to be some mafia boss. But this dude is wearing a judo gi uniform with a black belt. He sits down, Japanese style, on the mat and looks at two, stern, trim, mean-looking Marine-type white guys with hair crew-cuts, wearing judo gi uniforms too, and also black belts. The older man claps his hands on his thighs, smiles, and tells his two disciples to come on and attack him. Then the scene cuts out.
It turns out this crime boss somehow has learned either jujutsu or early judo and in addition personally selected two, intelligent, physically capable henchmen to be specialized body guards/assassins/special fighters.
In the next scene one of the trained henchman now wearing civilian street clothes is involved in a crime instigated by his crime boss. FBI agent Elliot Ness and his FBI agents corner the criminals in the back of some buildings. The specially trained henchman puts up a fight and we see him using jujutsu/judo edge-of-hand strikes, called, sword hand or knife hand in the Asian martial arts. He flips one or two FBI agents over. But he's cornered and cornered in narrow space that doesn't allow him a lot of lateral movement. I give the director credit for being realistic about the martial arts. Although the trained henchman is a tough fighter, he is overwhelmed by superior numbers of FBI agents crowding him. No Bruce Lee theatrics here. Later on, we see Elliott Ness interrogating the henchman back at FBI headquarters. The henchman shows that he is mentally as well as psychologically conditioned. He sits upright in his chair, staring straight ahead without blinking, his hands flat on the table. That's right, he's not handcuffed, even though he's a trained fighter. But he doesn't pretend to be in a trance. He is completely aware. His demeanor is more like a terminator. When Elliott Ness offers him a cigarette or water, the henchman doesn't move a muscle or an eye, but he simply responds flatly, "No thank you, Mr. Ness", and says nothing more.
I can't remember the rest of the episode.