The Scarface Mob

The Scarface Mob (1959)

On the big motion picture screen for the first time... Based on the novel "The Untouchables"!

In 1929 Chicago, Federal investigator Eliot Ness struggles in the fight against Al Capone. He decides to form a special team of reliable, dedicated, honest law enforcement officers. First broadcast in April 1959 as two episodes of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse anthology series, this set the stage for the popular series The Untouchables (1959-63). The two-parter was released as a theatrical feature film in international territories in late 1959 and in the US and UK in 1962.

Date of release
1959-12-31
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Crime, Drama, Action
Director
Phil Karlson
Collection
The Untouchables TV Series Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Untouchables

The Scarface Mob is an American film noir crime film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Robert Stack. It consists of the pilot episodes for the TV series The Untouchables (1959) that originally screened as a two-part installment of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse on April 20 and 27 1959. The episodes were cut together and released theatrically as a stand-alone feature outside America in 1959 and inside the US in 1962.

Production

There were a number of stories set in this area on film and TV at the time, including Seven Against the Wall on Playhouse 90 and the film Al Capone (1959).

Desi Arnaz optioned the rights to Eliot Ness' book about fighting Al Capone and decided to turn it into a two-part episode of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse under the title of "The Untouchables". It was always intended to be released theatrically in Europe. Westinghouse paid $200,000 for the episodes but they cost $400,000.

Stack says the lead role was first offered to Van Heflin who turned it down, then Van Johnson who accepted but his wife advised him not to do it. Then Stack was offered; he was reluctant but his agent persuaded him to do it - he says his costumes were fitted for Van Johnson.

Stack later wrote that Phil Karlson was "ideally suited" to direct the show because "he can deal in violence and brutality on the screen, and some of his work was regarded as the precursor of Sam Peckinpah's. But he's a quiet, gentle man who wears a ratty-looking red sweater which he thinks brings him luck... His personal, Joe Milquetoast manner contrasted sharply with the controlled mayhem of his product."

Stack said Brand, a real life war hero, was "schooled in violence and perfect as Capone... even though his Italian accent left something to be desired." Stack says he based his performance on Ness on a "composite of three of the bravest men I ever met": Audie Murphy; Buck Mazza, Stack's former roommate in the navy and a war hero; and a stuntman named Carey Loftin.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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