Activité sur Ma Barker and Her Boys

S1 E2 de Les Incorruptibles

Synopsis · January 16, 1935. Oklawaha, Florida. Eliot Ness, along with Bill Youngfellow and Martin Flaherty, are closing in on Ma Barker, who is holed up in a house along with 2 of her sons, Lloyd and Fred. Ness says they are wanted for everything from bank robbery, kidnapping, to first-degree murder. Now that Ness has found where the Barkers are, he contacts half a dozen state troopers and local police for backup. From a distance, Ness yells at Ma Barker and her boys to surrender and come out with their hands up. Ma Barker goes to a closet, and inside is an arsenal of weapons-- machine guns, pistols, hand grenades, etc., enough for a small army. She fires a chopper at Ness; he jumps behind an 8-foot long wooden flower pot that gets riddled with bullets. Ma Barker throws a hand grenade that almost blows up Bill Youngfellow. Ma Barker is the most vicious outlaw they've ever faced. In a flashback, we see how it all started in Tulsa, Oklahoma years ago: Ma Barker was a church-goer, but always making excuses for her 4 boys who were committing petty crimes, which escalated into serious crimes. In 1927, while the 4 boys were looting a store, Herman got shot by a policeman. Pa Barker finally had the guts to walk out on the bunch. Ma and her 3 boys committed bank robberies, and killed a bank guard; also a kidnapping. They committed crimes in a 10-state area. In 1935, Pa Barker tipped Eliot Ness, and Ness almost caught the Barker gang in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then the Barkers kidnapped a millionaire's son and got $200,000 ransom. Arthur "Doc" Barker and his fiancée Eloise left the gang; Arthur took his share of the ransom and went to Chicago, but all the serial numbers were recorded with the police. Around the first of January, 1935, when Arthur spent a $10 bill, the grocer informed Eliot Ness, so Ness knew Arthur was in Chicago. Ma Barker stupidly sent a birthday cake to Arthur (who was using the alias Clarence Tillman), and enclosed a postcard, "Greetings from Oklawaha, Florida." Arthur even more stupidly picked it up at the post office (January 8), even though there was a "Wanted" poster with his photo on it in the post office lobby. Bill Youngfellow tailed him; Arthur was soon arrested by Ness and his men. Back to the present: January 16, 1935. Ma Barker lobs a hand grenade at Flaherty and almost blows him up. Ma Barker throws another grenade at Eliot Ness, crouching behind a large, fallen tree limb, and the explosion almost kills him. Ma Barker is the most malicious outlaw they've ever faced; she keeps firing her machine gun and screaming defiantly. Eliot Ness, trying to give them every possible chance to surrender, brings Arthur to the scene, hoping they will give up. Lloyd decides to surrender, and walks outside and throws down his chopper; his own brother Fred shoots him in the back. Lloyd manages to crawl back inside the house, and dies. Ness lets Arthur walk all the way to the house; he tells his mom they don't have a chance. Then Fred, shot up badly himself, dies. Ma Barker calls Arthur "scum" for surrendering, and points her chopper at him; nevertheless, she lets him walk back to Ness. Arthur couldn't get Ma Barker to surrender, and she finally gets shot inside the house. Thus ended the threat of the Barker gang. (synopsis by: kdh) --------------------------------- [facts: The Barker-Karpis gang rampaged across the Midwest from 1931 to 1935. Their career spanned the entire "public enemy" era of the Depression and included murders, burglaries, bank robberies, mail robberies, train robberies, and 2 kidnappings. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, in his book "The FBI in Action" wrote, "Ma Barker and her sons, and Alvin Karpis and his cronies, constituted the toughest gang of hoodlums the FBI ever has been called upon to eliminate."] [deaths: The first to die was Herman Barker, he shot himself during a gunfight with the police on August 29, 1927. After a shootout that lasted for hours, Ma Barker and her son Fred were gunned down in the Lake Weir, Florida, resort on January 16, 1935. Arthur "Doc" Barker, captured on January 8, 1935, was found guilty of the Bremer kidnapping, and was sent off to Alcatraz to serve a life sentence; 4 years later, after an ill-advised escape attempt gone bad, Arthur was gunned down by the prison guards on June 13, 1939. Finally, Lloyd Barker was shot and killed by his wife in 1949; she was committed to a mental institution.] [trivia: producer Desi Arnaz, of Desilu Productions, had once thought of casting himself in the role of Eliot Ness.]

S1 E1 de Les Incorruptibles

Synopsis · Narrator: "Chicago, May 5, 1932. After 7 months of legal delays, Al Capone... was on his way to federal prison, to serve 11 years for income tax evasion."* Eliot Ness and his Untouchables had spent 18 months to get Capone behind bars-- but now who would try to take over the throne, the Empty Chair? May 8. Barbara Ritchie (niece of Jake Guzik) has been grieving over the death of her husband George Ritchie for 12 months-- unaware that it was her own uncle Jake who had him knocked off for being an informer to Ness. At a service at the cemetery, marking the first anniversary of George's death, are: Barbara Ritchie (George's widow), her uncle Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik (treasurer and bookkeeper for the Capone mob), Norma Guzik (Jake's widowed sister, Barbara's mother), Phil D'Andrea (expert machine-gunner), "Fur" Sammons (hijacker and rumrunner), Gus Raddi ("pineapple" expert), Tony "Mops" Volpe (chief triggerman) and last and most important Frank Nitti ("The Enforcer"). May 12. Two of Capone's principle lieutenants-- Gus Raddi and Tony "Mops" Volpe-- go to a barber shop where Enrico Rossi is working as a barber. Nitti barges in with a machine-gun and blasts them, eliminating some competition for the Empty Chair. (Unfortunately, some stray machine-gun bullets hit pretty Tessie DiGiovanni, the 17-year-old manicurist working in the barber shop.) Enrico Rossi uses his straight razor to attack Nitti's henchman and agrees to testify against Nitti. Since being a witness against "the Enforcer" can be hazardous to one's health, the Untouchables must give Rico protection. They figure the best way to do this is to hire him on as their driver. Thus, Rico joins the squad where he will remain for the entire run of the series. Guzik calls a meet of the 4 still-living heirs at the Montmartre Cafe, headquarters of the Capone gang: himself, Frank Nitti, "Fur" Sammons and Phil D'Andrea. Nitti sits in Capone's Empty Chair, saying "Big chair-- big man. It fits all right. Anybody object?" Only bookkeeper Guzik stands up to Frank Nitti "The Enforcer," and insists Capone's chair be kept empty. Guzik also insists they all keep books, and pay income tax on their legit fronts, so they can't get nailed with income tax evasion like Capone. May 21. Ness and his men meet with District Attorney Beecher Asbury. Ness gets a subpoena for Phil D'Andrea's books-- but an audit only proves that Jake Guzik is a genius, both as a bookkeeper and a crook. The Capone heirs all get along peacefully-- until June, when Ness and his men, trying to start a gang dogfight, raid Nitti's places: his handbooks, crap parlors, stills, cathouses and his own speakeasy. Nitti's plenty sore! Nitti figures he's being fingered by one of the heirs, and he's ready to start blasting. Nitti shows up at the meet at the Montmartre with 3 hired guns; but he's confronted by Guzik, Sammons, D'Andrea and SIX of their hired guns. Then both sides send all the hired guns outside. But then Guzik lays down the law, telling Nitti: "We're sick and tired of you and your gun. We're tired of seein' you carry it and wave it and pick your teeth with it!" Guzik says they will rule with the pencil, not the gun. Guzik also says they will give him a share of their take until Nitti can rebuild. Nitti takes the pencil out of Guzik's suit pocket, looks at it, and quips, "That's, uh, some pencil." Then they both laugh. September 23, 1932. Rossi sets up a secret meeting between Barbara Ritchie and Ness, in room 208 of the Federal Building. She agrees to help Ness get the hoods who killed her husband; Ness gives her a small handgun for protection. But her meeting with Ness is reported back to Guzik-- by an elevator operator of the Federal Building (Guzik has informants everywhere). Later that night, at Guzik's home, Barbara confronts Guzik-- and Guzik tells her HE gave the order to have her husband killed. Barbara Ritchie takes out the small handgun Ness gave her, and shoots Guzik, but it's just a flesh wound. Ness and his men barge in; Flaherty and Youngfellow shoot Phil D'Andrea and arrest Guzik. Norma Guzik, in retaliation against her brother Jake, takes Ness to George Ritchie's mausoleum where, behind the headstone, Jake Guzik kept the incriminating records of Capone's huge, secret cash reserves. (the records are in code: Polish backwards.) So Ness wins the first battle, but the rest of his war on crime would constitute the entire TV series.

ABC · 1959