The Untouchables (TV Series) Ring of Terror (1961) User Reviews

Boxing and organized crime

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 8 November 2013]

The death of a boxer who was drugged with a lot of morphine during a fight brings Eliot Ness and The Untouchables into this case. Turns out his trainer Walter Burke who was a junkie himself did the deed. Then he winds up dead in a bathtub.

Who's behind it is of course the syndicate. Boxing and organized crime have always had a symbiotic relationship of sorts. During the 30s the syndicate owned the heavyweight championship briefly with Primo Carnera in real life.

The key is manager Harold J. Stone who has a reputation as a straight arrow in the fight game. But sad to say his wife Viveca Lindfors has the fact that she is an illegal alien in her past. Something that the syndicate will use if necessary to keep Stone from telling what he knows.

I've come to the conclusion that when The Untouchables uses real names and events to fashion an episode many times it's inferior to one like this where reality doesn't enter the picture. This one is very good and Viveca Lindfors really steals it as a woman with a past who loves her husband.

Not The Normal Boxing Tale

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 29 November 2011]

How can you go wrong with characters named "Blinkie," "Herbie," "Hymie," "Rocky," "Rudy" and "Johnny Acropolis"? That's just some of what you get in this boxing-fix story, where an honest fighter is given the drug morphine during the fight and thus, slows down enough to get pulverized...and eventually killed.

It looks like the crime is covered up pretty well, when a crooked medical examiner reports nothing out of the ordinary. However, an honest lab tech sees what the true story is, and goes to Elliot Ness with it. Ness and the Untouchables take it from there.

The big question is whether the obvious guilty party - the boxer's manager "Barney Jarreau" (Harold J. Stone) - is actually so. He seems totally innocent. What's the deal? There's a second part to this story, too, concerning a racketeer and Barney's illegal-alien wife. All in all, an interesting story that isn't solved until the very end.....and not with violence.

So what do a Treasury Agent dedicated to confiscating booze and boxing have to do with each other?

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 March 2016]

In this installment, "The Untouchables" takes on one of the more familiar topics in cop and detective shows of the 1960s--boxing. But while there might be a reasonable reason for McGarrett or Mannix investigating tampering in the boxing ring, the reason for Ness investigating is tenuous as best. After all, the real life Ness was a Treasure Department agent whose job it was to stop booze production and sales during Prohibition....and what does that have to do with boxing?! According to the show, he eventually gets involved because one boxer was drugged and they say that the Treasury Department is there to eliminate the drug trade...but this isn't heroin or crack but morphine and not a drug trade. There is no way Ness or any one of the folks with the Treasury Department would have investigated this--it's strictly a case for the state boxing commission or the local police. Perhaps the writers were running out of ideas or perhaps they just thought folks would get bored with the typical cases on the show so far.

The show begins during a boxing match. The manager of a boxer thinks his guy is throwing the fight--little did he or the boxer know that the guy was drugged instead! Sadly, the guy ends up getting beaten to death because of the drug's effects. But, despite the morphine in his system, the coroner rules it an accidental death! Obviously something fishy is taking place.

One strength of this episode is that Harold J. Stone plays the manager. He was a very familiar and very capable actor--one whose toughness worked well here. Additionally, while completely ridiculous, the story is interesting and kept me watching even though I knew it was all ridiculous. So, if you can suspend disbelief, you'll no doubt enjoy the show. It's tough and pretty exciting as well.