Deeds represent. A clear and present danger
national security of the United States you.
Have no idea what bit of power? Hello and welcome back to Clear
and Present Dudes, a podcast sponsored by Saint Jude's patron
Sin of Lost Causes and police officers.
For tonight we are discussing Brian De Palma's 1987 crime
caper, The Untouchables. I am delighted to introduce
alongside our regular rogues gallery of Rory O'Toole and
Sonia Bjorkson, Jen Lansbury, who I believe is a distant
relation of 1. Mr. Al Capone.
Yes, hi. Nice to see everybody and I'm
very happy to be here and very, very distant I discovered.
But you know, it's probably a good thing.
Yeah, it counts. It all counts for this.
Probably great. Yeah.
So how did you discover that you were just in relation of Al
Capone? Grandmother's last name is or
her maiden name is Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rico Capone's are
very tight. Heard family stories growing up
of course that we were related to him, but my dad is very into
genealogy and everything like that.
So I wish I had it, I asked for it, but he has this whole huge
document about the Capones, Puerto Ricos and we're we're in
there. I was like, oh, hey.
So yeah, it's his sixth great uncle.
So it would be my 7th which I believe is 1/6 great
grandparents brother. It's incredible.
That's amazing. Distant, but yeah.
Doesn't enough that the movie doesn't offend you that it's
showing your family in a poor light.
It's also distant enough that there's no repercussions, and
perhaps any living ancestors of Elliott and nests aren't going
to come and fight you. So yeah.
Sorry, Elliott. Cool.
Before we get going, I think we're all customary.
Thank you to everybody who's been listening so far and
leaving comments and all that good stuff to employ you.
Yes, again, if you like this, please follow it, like it, share
it, do whatever you want with it, but that'd be great.
Much appreciated. I grew up in a tough neighbour.
Sometimes a reputation follows you.
Robert De Niro is Al Capone. There is violence in Chicago, of
course, but not by me and not by anybody I employ.
And I'll tell you why, because it's not good business.
Kevin Costner is Elliot Ness I. Have sworn to put this man away
with any and all legal means of my disposal and I will do so.
Sean Connery is Jimmy Malone You.
Want to get Capone? You're sure you get him.
He pulls a knife, You pull a gun.
He sends one of yours to the hospital, you say.
One of his. Log Itchy the Chicago way.
You just joined the Treasury Department, so everybody knows
where the booze is. The problem isn't finding it.
The problem is who wants to cross the pump?
Somebody messes with me, I'm going to mess with him.
You carry a badge. Yes.
Carry a gun. Get your hands in the air.
You're all under a rash. You fellas are untouchable, is
that the thing? No one can get to you.
Hey everybody could be gotten to.
All right, then. Drive them to the station.
Anything happens, you shoot first.
You understand me? I'll.
Tell you one more thing, you got an all out price fight.
You wait till the fight's over one guy's left standard and
that's how you know who won. Just tell me, are you being
careful? Careful.
His mice. I want to hurt the man Malone.
I want to start taking the battle to him.
I want to hurt Capone. This.
Man can finger Al Capone. This man can put Capone behind
bar. What's can't you talk with the
gun in your mouth? Not to prove methods.
You're not from Chicago. Cool.
So we're here to talk about The Untouchables.
It's a 1987 American crime film directed by Brian De Palma, who
directed Carrie, Scarface Blowouts, Mission Impossible,
produced by Art Linson, written by David Mamet, who wrote Glenn
Gorrigan. Ross won a Pulitzer for that
play, and The Postman Always Rings Twice and weirdly Run in
It stars Kevin Costner in the same year he did No Way Out,
which is the first movie we covered Charles Martin, Sis
Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro and Sean Connery.
Set in see Chicago, the film follows Elliot Ness Kostner as
he forms the untouchables to bring down Al Capone to justice.
During Prohibition is the third film in which De Niro and De
Palma collaborated after Greetings and the film Hi Mom.
And it's also worth noting out we're recording this pod on the
7th of December, which makes it two days after the anniversary
of the end of Prohibition. So that's, yeah, that's a total,
total accident, but there we are.
The screenplay is really loosely based on Elliot Ness's 1957 book
The Untouchables, where he just really gassed himself up in
terms of how involved he was in all this.
And the the screenplay itself is massively fictionalised as we'll
go into the Grammy award-winning score.
Score is by Ennio Morricone but he also was nominated for an
Oscar for it as well but missed out at the film.
Won one off scale, which is best supporting actor for Sean
Connery and it grossed domestically 76,000,000, which
makes it twice as successful as No Way Out was and gross 106
million globally. I think it was the 4th highest
grossing movie of the year. So cool, right guys?
What I'm going to hand over to you guys?
What what was your experience of the movie?
Forgot how good this film was, honestly, I forgot how violent
it was as well. I forgot how just there's,
there's so much go, Emma said. There's a lot of brain matter in
this film. Like there's a lot of brutal
headshots. There's a lot of fuels, you
know, like the the back of the Dome getting blown away and just
would dress the infant girl sized elephant in the room.
The film begins with a small child just being fucking
destroyed by by by an IED that's just fucking picked up, you
know, and, and, and, and it's like, it's not even kind of like
the film. It's not even kind of there's an
explosion in the shop and then in the rubble, the Finder and it
looks like she's she's she's barely wounded, but she's dead.
But it looks like she's just sleeping and there's some dirt
on her cheek. It's like, no, she's evaporated.
She's atomized the picking bones out of things probably after
that. And it's like, fuck this film,
this film stats out its intentions.
This film sets its intentions out.
It's it it is just you've got this score from Ennio Morricone
that is isn't just a cop movie score, right?
Like it's a bit dangerous, it's a bit sexy, it's a bit off key
and horrorish at times. He's pulling in all all these
all all his background of everything from Jallow to, you
know, horror stuff and that as well in this just fucking a
detective movies score needs not be this good yet.
Yet it'd be one of one of the all timer gunfights, one of the
all timer gunfights. Almost 10 minutes of build up of
tension and then just brutal violence, much of it in slow
motion, much of it absolutely balletic and yet utterly,
utterly violent. I love it.
It's class, It is an all timer. It's like it's brilliant.
Some bizarre choices. I think as well in this film,
some some bizarre scenes, some stuff that needn't be in there,
and I see the floor of the rest of you guys for your opinions on
this film. Right, you've you've probably
got 5 things there that all needs to be talked about.
No, it's cool. So the first one, the score by
Ennio Morricone, mate, I couldn't agree with you more.
And actually the phenomenal score, I like it for a handful
of reasons. Obviously Ennio Morricone,
legendary film maker, soundtracks, hundreds of films,
loads of Italian films, 8 Sergio Leone films, The Thing, loads of
stuff. Once Upon a Time in America,
Jeff's case, anyway, what I live about this score is he he takes
the film is against the movie, right?
Yeah. It's kind of like a western as
well. It's kind of like, it's kind of
like you've got like a the corrupt town and all none of the
people can be trusted because they're all corrupt.
There's the bad guy who's in charge of the town, Al Capone in
this case, and he's like the the white hat, like our towner, US
Marshall, federal agent guy. He's going to come in and tie it
all up. Obviously he's the Treasury
Department in this case, but he's like the white hat.
And then he's getting his own. He's running a posse of like his
own good guys like Ujimbo or the Magnificent 7, that kind of
thing, right? And to do that, like obviously
Enya Morikode is like the is the sound of a spaghetti western,
right? He is the guy who came up with
the sound of a spaghetti Western.
And it would be really easy for him to have just done that
again, right? But he doesn't.
He takes little bits. So there's like that honky tonk
player piano sound that that uses for the piano in the movie.
So like Albert Al Capone's doing the town down, down, down, down.
Like that's all done with like that kind of slightly detuned
honky tonk piano. Yeah.
There's like a soprano saxophone that sounds a bit like a
harmonica now, which is awesome. And now my favourite thing about
the Indian Morricone score is the is you know, the fun fair
where they start like winning when they do that right on the
post office. And when they do like the charge
across the Canada bit, which didn't happen in real life, but
yeah. And then, then the final
courthouse bit. Yeah.
It's like this really kind of like again, doesn't doesn't go
to the western troops for the sounds of it.
It's like this beautiful fan fair with like that, like
Arpeggi like like it sounds like he's like a a white knight, like
going to charge it with a flaming sword was kind of coming
in there and like winning the day.
And it sounds like they're not like a bunch of Cowboys.
They're like Knights on a holy crusade.
And they keep saying like crocheted the cops and they're
like on a crusade. Yeah.
So the score elevates it. I yeah, I was I've, I were early
on on any of Morocco and I was going to say that for renewal of
drops, but but you brought it up, so I've done it.
The other thing you talked about, man, is the contempted
thing. We're going to hold that to
later. We're going to talk about this
the, the, the Odessa steps a bit later because that that deserves
more time. I'm going to seat the floor
again and and wing it around the room.
Sonia, Jen, what? What are your thoughts?
Yeah, I I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn't expecting the the I
don't know if you guys expected it to the the scores to go that
hard. I was like, wait, what's
happening right now? This is amazing.
It was it took turns. I was not expecting like the IT,
it felt Western at some point. So, you know, like actual
Cowboys going. I was like where?
Where did this come from? I, I was dying at the scene with
the baby on the stairs, Like what what is happening right
now? And I went down a few rabbit
holes in terms of the Capone violence that I kind of saw.
And I was like, this is very, very violent.
And the, the little rabbit holes of things like, did he or did he
actually not do these things in real life?
So yeah, yeah, I, I really enjoyed it and glad I watched
that. Cool.
Weed. Sonya, we kind of killed with
this movie because you'd mentioned that you've seen it
before. Yes, us talking about all this
intense violence, it's sort of my fault I suppose.
Yes, we've touched on the immense amount of violence.
I am usually not a gall blood and violence person at all.
I don't enjoy that in films at all.
Somehow for this one I'm OK with it.
There is a lot. I was mostly re watching it,
amazed by how much attention it builds the entire time despite
by today's standards being a fairly slow paced film.
Radio. Yeah, I agree with that.
I think it gets you early with. So the first first thing we've
seen in the movie is, is the setting up piece for Al Capone
where he's being interviewed by the press whilst he's being
shaved by that guy. When he comes across really
genial and everyone's laughing at all these jokes.
But then the Barber cuts them and draws blood and everyone's
like, oh, fuck, because they because they all think, Oh my
God, this guy could fly for a hand on any minute.
But we don't see it yet. We see him be gracious about it
and then continues on. But that's the initial kind of
character be of like, so Capone might not be the nice guy he's
coming across as because everyone's a bit afraid of him.
And then, as you said, Rory, you know, we get the scene.
Destruction of the child. Yeah, it's in the that's, yeah,
yeah, absolutely horrific. And it's in the screenplay like
that as well, just how it's like the girl get cut off mid
sentence and then just the shop, the shop's facing.
Storm holding it, it's horrible and even it's on thing because
that just covered it like collect some food for a sick mom
or something like that and and it's like, hey, Mr you forgot
you're instantly atomized. Yeah, there's a bit more set up
for it actually in the film than there is really.
Yeah. And the screenplay.
So you know how the in the in the film they have a bit of an
argument about the the green beer, which is a real problem at
the time during Prohibition. So obviously the you'll know
this is a Brewer, they weren't the controls in in place for
like sanitary brewing processes that there are now.
So what they used to have a lot of during prohibition is like
bacteria growing in in the Brewer I guess, which would make
it into like a sour, horrible mix and they'd call it green
beer. Yeah.
So that guy said he doesn't want to buy any more of it of, of
Capone's organisation because it's not, it's no good.
And the guy's like, if you're a fine boy and then leaves,
there's the briefcase there. You just see the we had like 7
years before craft beer got big and sours were in fashion and
it's like, you know, oh it's like a porn.
You've you've, you've saved my fucking hipster bar with the
food truck outside and exposed brickwork and you know.
And it's probably worth mentioning at this point that
the movie is less space in fact, and more based on the
Untouchables TV show from the 90s Nineteen 59.
This isn't the only time that Brian De Palma would take ATV
show from the 50s and 60s and then and then turn it into a
movie. Did the same thing with Mission
Impossible. But yeah, so why I say that is
Ellie and S is the star is the main guy here, which is he was
no doubt, you know, a a key figure during this period.
But he isn't the guy who brought down Capone ultimately for tax
evasion. That that was just a different
guy from the IRS called called Ellie.
And S in real life at the time was about 27 years old in the TV
show he was kind of portrayed by a guy in his 40s.
They've aged him back a little bit for the movie.
So coming across he was in his mid 30s when he played him as
well casts Elliot Ness is a family man who with a he was
married, but he didn't have any of his He adopted a son after
the events of the movie, didn't have a daughter, didn't have a
baby, ultimately got married three times in his life as well.
The wife in this played by Patricia Clarkson isn't named.
She's just called wife of Nets or something in the credits.
The screenplay that's indicative of the 80s.
Yeah, the screenplay calls like Catherine, which is not the name
of any of his wives in real life.
So yeah, they've kind of changed.
The real guy was apparently a bit of a flirt after prohibition
was lifted, became an alcoholic, you know, just like which is not
a character judgement necessarily, but the the the
whole sort of family man piece is this is not the same.
So they've but they've but they've done that on purpose to
make him into this kind of like Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, kind
of like white hat good guy cop, high noon man shot Rudy Valens
kind of kind of thing going on there.
He obviously joins. There's the whole initial piece
where he tries to make his mark, but he hasn't got any allies yet
and nobody wants to help him. And they have that that initial
first raid on in the docks. What's everyone's opinion of
that absolutely unhinged Mad Max looking snow plough that they
use, by the way, for the raid? That's wild stuff, right?
That's crazy. I mean, I mean, people talk
about like the militarization of like American police now, but
back then the driving like a fucking Mad Max war rig in that
we're building. It's like, OK, OK, cool dude.
Amazing. Is based in part in fact
apparently so that that shock and all kind of like smash the
doors in don't give me time to think kind of thing is what you
did ultimately sweet so that that is I'm not saying I'm not
saying the war rig necessarily it's.
Like witness me just just like him and all those boys got the
silver spray paint. I would like just ride eternal
fucking Rider turtle on the Chicago Rd Christ.
That shit in Chicago PD. There you do not.
So yeah, so he has that that that goes horribly wrong.
And then we meet my my favourite character and customers friend,
the pod, Sean Connery. Like I said, I'm being accused
by people of running a Sean Connery podcasts.
I mean, if we didn't have plans for the month of January, we
could do like January or Conyary.
We could do Sean Conyary. However, we all know there are
there are there are plans for January.
Michael. Michael.
Manure, you mean? Michael Manure.
Maybe just stay for next year. Yeah.
Well, we could move that to March.
Man madness. Man madness, Michael madness.
I like it. So what do you guys think about
Connery and his introduction as character as Malone?
It's band. He's got echoes of your dad,
mate. I'm sorry, but every time we see
like an old school cop in a film, it's like that's some norm
energy. Especially in that a mental
Edgar Allan Poe film, The Raven, when there's a cop in it, looks
like that he's got big norm energy.
He does proper fucking hard. Yeah.
Exactly. He's got norm energy.
That's not why I like him so much, do you think?
Yeah, that's why. Remind me not to piss off your
dad. As if you need any further
reminder. Yeah, Jesus Christ, fair enough,
but. I kind of enjoyed when he was
kind of poking at the, what's his name, Eddie Garcia's
character to try to get him to, you know, be that person that
they want to pick and like, get him riled up.
Yeah, that is so good. That's brilliant.
He was. Testing him, he he was like, I'm
going to put if I pull out ASAP, is he going to put out a gun?
Yeah, he did, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean partially
he's testing him, but part of it's like racism activated.
Yeah, you do get a bit of actual safeguard racism from him later
on, don't you? Yeah.
He was giving a shit about his name change and stuff.
What's your real name? It's like, whoa, bad.
That's a rallying but, but it was a bit later on when he's
having a fight with the chief of police guy, Yeah.
And he starts lamenting what's happened to the city since all
the Italian Americans have come. Yeah, I really like his fight
with the chief of police because it's like you can tell Sean
Connery used to box a bit, you know, like he still has the
physical presence of someone who, you know, could actually
chin someone in the back alley, you know, and I like that.
I love that from like he's like he's like an older guy who like
looks like he could still give you a bit of a hammering.
And I think he's class. He's got good like physicality
about in like fist fights and stuff.
Even get an older and stuff things a bit of a difference
between like and Firefox. That semen cleanest woods in the
that bathroom fight scene and Clint Eastwood is a guy.
You can see shoot people all day, right, But he doesn't have
the kind of like in, in my opinion, in that film at least,
going to brawl our physicality that that Sean Connery's got.
Sean Connery looks like he could like drink like 12 pints of
heavy and then knock you the fuck out in the car park of like
a flat roof pub, you know? Very specific, go through
reference. Absolutely.
And I had to laugh too, because it's I, I don't remember who
said it or the quote, but they call them like the Irishman.
And I was like, that's not an Irish accent, but you know.
Yeah, he's really not. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, that's that's like I saw a really great review in like the
notes, the Peter Gary section. I'm dead happy Jen mentioned
this because obviously I'll see a voice of funny stuff again.
But one of the reviews is along the lines of Sean Collins, a
Scottish actor playing an Irish American cop with an accent that
belongs to none of these countries.
I mean, it's like Sean Connery refuses to compromise with this
accent. So no, Sean Connery just refuses
to give a shit. I mean, he's class, but it's
like the voice is like that the last thing on his mind, you
know, like he's. So I'm going to drop my Sean
Connery trivia at this point then.
So Connery, as we've talked about before, gets really deeply
involved in his characters and is not afraid of giving the
directors notes. Yeah.
So when they were putting this movie together, this is a genius
thing that they did. And I think they got nominated
for an Oscar for this but didn't win it, which is mental.
But they got all the costumes are by Giorgio Armani.
So like all the suits that everyone's wearing, which is
great because it's a brilliant era for cool suits.
And they did lots of little things, like to try and maximise
seeing people's faces, they made like the the brims of the caps a
bit shorter than they would have been in the actual 20s and 30s.
So you didn't get, like, lots of, you know, brims of caps
obscuring people's eyes and stuff, which would have been
probably a little bit too noirish, I guess.
Because this movie's not really a noir, is it?
It's too bright. No, not at all.
But Short and Connery, he was like, I'm not going to wear any
of that. I'm going to wear what I think I
would wear as a a, a working class cop in Chicago in the 90s
and then then came up with his own outfit.
And as you can see, he looks distinctly different from the
rest of the guys because like, even like Andy Garcia's like
brown car skin jacket thing is, is an Armani piece.
That was the Sean Connery fact. No, you make.
So yeah, you raised, you raised really good point about just how
everyone in this film looks like the coolest motherfucker alive,
pretty much. I mean, it is.
It is incredibly well costumed, I guess.
Giorgio Monument. Come on.
It's like girded and I really like I had a feeling that Sean
Conway might have had something to do with with his own outfit
because his because his wardrobe does look quite different.
It also gives us more kind of accounts backbone to my theory
that in Meteor he was just wearing his own clothes from
home. What I'm surprised by, and I
thought that Sean Conway might have had more impact on the
dialogue for his character because his character has a
really unique metre and he doesn't talk like anybody else
in the film. Yeah.
He's full of, like, all these little idioms of things that he
must to say all the time. So, you know, like the first
rule of law enforcement, go home and all that kind of stuff for.
Yeah. Go all life kind of thing.
Stamp, Stamp your feet to stay warm and you know, all that kind
of stuff and all that kind of thing.
But that's, that's all in the script.
The, the one big change that Sean Connery did do.
And this is a this is a pivotal change to the movie, By the way,
I think in terms of like creating an iconic scene.
So the, the scene where he enters the blood oath with
Elliot with like, you know, how far are you prepared to go if
one of him pulls out a knife? You put out a gun, he puts one
of your guys in the hospital. He put one of his in the morgue.
That's the Chicago way. That scene was originally going
to happen like in that bit of the police office.
And it was Sean Connery went, you wouldn't, you wouldn't talk
about this in the police office. You would have the there is a
line in the script that says these walls have ears and they
go out and have the rest of the conversation on the street.
But he said, put that up front and we'll go somewhere where
people wouldn't talk about it because I'm an Irish Catholic.
We'll do it in a church. So that's his his idea to do it
in that church. You've got an incredible shot
looking up with like their hands, like Michelangelo, the
Sistine Chapel, and you've got like looking at their heads and
you've got like the massive vaulted roof of that incredible
cathedral in Chicago. Like that was Conroy's idea.
This film is so Catholic. I mean, you could, you could,
you could probably easily get away with seeing that like 90%
of cop movies are very Catholic. And this is and then this is one
of the most Catholic films. I have a slight interest.
I love the oh, what's the podcast or not podcast?
OK, I'm going to draw a blank on it, but they explore the way
special effects are done in movies.
And I was looking to see what was done in this movie.
And I glad you brought up the church scene because I think
that was they called that his signature 5050 Philtres to keep
the foreground and background. Split Diopter.
Yeah, split very up late because I having some knowledge of that,
I was like how are they doing that?
And yes, Yep. But to keep both things in sharp
focus, I was. Like I love that that's such a
good pull and I'm glad you brought that up because yeah,
again, you see that you see quite a lot in like 70s
pictures. And then I kind of fell out of
fashion. But like Brian's Palmer sticks
with it and yeah, it's like a signature thing that he he kind
of pulls out. He does it in this, he does it
in, I think he does it in Mission Possible at one point as
well, which is like wildly in popular kind of shot them.
But yeah, there's lots of thing that that's sort of linked to
this in this movie. There's a lot of shots looking
up at people from a Dutch dangle.
And then you see the roof of the the ceiling of the building
they're in behind them, which you don't you don't see very
often. But because they use lots of
brilliant real locations in Chicago for this.
So like you get it, you get the vaulted roof in the, in, in the,
in the cathedral. You get the that beautiful
ornate roof of the chandeliers and stuff in the Lexington
Hotel. But Capone's in as well when
he's, you know, he confronts him on the stairs going down and
also the Opera House where he's doing these little bits of the
the press as well. Yeah.
You know, if a guy steals from me, I say you stole.
I don't. I don't pick him up for spin on
the sidewalk, all that kind of stuff.
That's brilliant. Yeah.
Cool. Really good pull.
I love that. Thank you.
Cool. So we have that cool meeting on
the bridge between Malone and Connery.
Jabs with the night stick. What's with the Mahaska?
And who would claim to be that which is not Love that
brilliant. And he's like the special
source. He's what Elliot Ness needed to
to start this investigation proper because no one was going
to help him. But he's got this one guy and he
has and he's got all the good advice.
Don't trust anybody. Do you want to avoid picking a
bad apple? Don't get one from the barrel.
Pick one from the tree. And then we go and see Andy
Garcia. And we're getting like the kind
of running the posse, putting together A-Team sequence.
Andy Garcia we talked about in our last episode doing a weird
fog on Lego on thing, but in this movie, he's fantastic,
right? It's when he's introduced in
this like incredibly turbo cool pistol range sequence when the
camera kind of goes down like the ranks of the dudes who were
shooting in like a normal kind of stance the time.
And then he's been turbo fucking alley with his with his, with
his revolver in his like tracky bottoms and that jog as to our
American cousins, but in his QR tracky bottoms.
And he just does that incredibly rapid draw and just what's
essentially a fucking augmented Mozambique drill because there's
a few in the chest and a few more in the head.
And it's like, it's sick. I actually actually had a go at
like trying to replicate that today at the my local range with
a total calibre, total calibre mark 6 Webley air pistol.
Fucking hell, it was, I'm so bad at that kind of draw.
It was embarrassing. I'm going to make the video
already and like I've got a bum shoulder.
So like it's difficult for us anyway.
And like, like it's like it's like a period accurate pistol.
It's it's a heavy fucking pig of a thing.
And it's like, and there's such a frigging moment when I'm
trying to like adjust and get an actual sight picture.
So it does not look as cool at all as how our our boy does it.
And it's sick. It's what a scene.
Then of course you've got, as I said, Connery's like I'm going
to get some fights out with you. I'm going to give you a shit
about your change name. I'm going to, you know, get you,
get you rajed up and yeah, it's brilliant.
Yeah, Bats. Some bats meant to join in the
team. Our 4th untouchable is a guy, a
fictional character. I should point out that Malone
isn't isn't a real guy, is he? I think he's meant to be a real
guy who's called Marty Lahart. He was a real Irish cop who did
help Ness out. He already knew Ness before he
before he came to take this particular role in Chicago and
he actually outlives Ness as well.
So he survived the these events and and died after Ness.
There isn't a one guy who fits the role of Andy Garcia, and I
already mentioned this, an IRS guy.
He was running a different investigation and didn't meet
Ness during it, but he's kind of inserted into the movie as this
character, Oscar Wallace, who is doesn't get a chance to properly
say where he came from, but he's now part of the team and he's
the guy. He was bringing up tax evasion.
And it's like we obviously if you know the history, you know
that's what you're going to say. It's done for.
So it's kind of like, I mean inserting that.
I will say something about this guy's character then.
This is America. They're not going to make the
IRS, the heroes, the film, right?
I mean, am I wrong? Am I wrong on this one?
Yeah. Like no.
Not the IRS. It's like everybody's like.
Yeah, it's like fuck that. Can you imagine like a similar
British film would have HMRC as the heroes and literally no one
would go and say it? It would do worse than Morbius.
Well, the reason why they kind of did this, what everyone
objected to was like a rich cheek getting away with not
paying his taxes. So Oscar Wallace, he's the he's
the 4th untouchable. And it takes a little while for
his kind of his idea of getting for tax evasion to sink in with
everybody. And when he because LENS is like
he's feeling a bit glum and done about when he first introduces
himself, he just literally walks out of the room.
So. He's like, he's like, he's like,
no, fuck this. I'm going to come back and
there'd better be a six foot 2 chart in the position of of of
this standard issue fucking 5 foot 4 nerd, this little man who
might have fucking contagious polio.
No. So in the screenplay after the
after the failed raid the road beginner, the movie, he actually
writes A resignation note and he's about to hand it in before
that guy comes in and like I can see that why that wasn't in the
movie. So that would have been like
ridiculous. Like we've just had this movie
first roster to work has one bad day and then he's like
immediately going out. Fuck this.
It's like, that's not very heroic.
I mean, I have, I have worked for people who've literally done
that. But then Gannett won't work in
law enforcement, so. We have tried.
Half the time we didn't get Al Capone.
I am out. Yeah.
So, yeah, then we get the really cool bit, which is Malone proves
his worth and has the good Intel straight away on where the booze
is. And it's like, right, I need one
more guy. We need one more guy.
And Oscar Wallace walks in like going like, oh, the dispensary
of this fence. And everyone's like, shut up,
nerd. And he's like, you're a federal
agent. Yeah, carry a carry a badge.
Yeah, carry a gun. It's a great delivery.
And then and it just cuts them. And again, it's awesome music.
And it has like, panic on the street, the one St they've
decked out to make it look like the 1930s.
And they just confidently stride across it with these like, pump
action rifles, walking towards like broad daylight, walking
into a post office, which a lot of people would probably be
alarmed at. And as they're walking through
the post office, you see people are like, what the fuck is going
on here? Like.
What I love about that scene is I am pretty sure no point they
identify themselves as federal officers just.
Walk in just. Walk in shotguns and it's like
what the fuck so. Good.
Like it's like America. And there's a brilliant bit
which they added in the movie, which isn't in the screenplay.
So they get around the back and it's like the door that is for
the stairwell that's got a little sign that's saying like
stairwell out of order, whatever.
But it's clean. Just the door into the warehouse
where they're storing all the booze.
And in in the screenplay, they just break in straight away.
Like literally like Connor just grabs an axe and just cuts into
it. But now that really cool moment
where it's like, once we do this, we're stepping over a line
like and the last time. And then it cuts to like,
Connor. And he goes, there's like, yeah,
ready to go, let's do it. And they break in like, this was
a raid, federal agents. And then like, I was like, no,
this is no good. This is no.
Good. And it's fucking just shooting
up at the ceiling as well. That's like the 1920s.
You go in fucking shoot holes out with the ceilings.
Like what? The policeman.
Amazing. Where's your?
Warrant just. Where's your warrant?
There's my warranty. How do you think he feels better
or worse? We almost laughed so much when
we do police films. He noticed that.
Yeah, I do. It's so good, man.
Yeah. Brilliant.
God. OK.
Yeah. So that's like, that's the first
success. And they kind of find out the
big important point, which is like, everybody knows where the
booze is. It's just like everyone wants to
cross Capone, So this this is them like put themselves out
there, marksman now kind of thing.
Yeah. Well, I love the narrative
economy of that. Like, literally like, I know
where the place is. We'd go straight there, do the
first raid, that's it. And then they go say like their
celebratory dinner and where they get the iconic photograph
taken, which is really nice. I like that scene.
It is classic. It's nice to see you work night
out. Work, night out, everyone's
enjoying themselves. Well, works.
Due when there's no fucking drama.
Do you know why no drinking there?
We'll go there. We'll go.
Oh man, couldn't be. Yeah, I've got a works night out
coming up shortly and my boss wants us all to come in the next
day and climb up a hill. It's like, have you ever seen
Band of Brothers with like they climb up Curry at the beginning,
like 3 miles up, 3 miles down. It's basically what my life's
going to be like next week. I'm not looking forward to it.
Don't let, don't don't let your. Boss, feed your spaghetti
beforehand, yeah? It's just an afternoon.
Actually, I should literally say on the on the XTM as well, it's
like an afternoon of like lectures.
We're running up Curry, gentlemen, no pain.
Depending which path you take off that.
Might be a lecture that could cause serious bodily harm, but
Oh well. So yeah, they have their works
night out. They introduced the Saint
Jude's. It's really nice.
It's better in the move than it is in the screenplay as well.
They don't talk about that in the screenplay.
There's just an awkward moment where a waiter tries to give
them grappa and they all thin him out.
And then and it's and it's, and this is like a it's probably the
only clunky bit of David Amit writing in the screenplay is he
just says, Malone says to Elliot Ness.
Once he's thinned out the weight, he goes, you're all
right. I like you.
It's like you would never see that.
No, he would not. He would.
He would deny liking anyone.
I'll tolerate your Prince. He he he Emmanuel, proper song.
So once. Again, I've talked loads, so
that's the first little bit of the movie.
Any any of the thoughts bubbling up.
So we'll get the sequence sort of when.
Like they're introduced and stuff like having the work, but
when they have the works night out and having a nice photos
taken and stuff after that is them is is the next bit when
they just head for the border and they do this crazy operation
in Canada. Yeah, the only thing that's in
between. Is Capone's baseball bat speech
Yes, yes, that is brilliant. I was I was watching that.
Obviously I know what happens in it with MRM.
Like wait, in fact the shoe would drop and she's just kind
of like just ex just chilling watching it.
Just the scene when just there's that explosive violence and he
just raised the shit out of him with a baseball bat.
It's fantastic. It's man, Bobby De Niro is he's,
he's got that dog in him for just controlled bursts of
psychopathy, you know? Yeah.
Love the whole. Sequence.
It's going to bring up there. This is another little rabbit
hole I went down under for Capone because it's like I've
granted my distance in relation, but people were family was
saying like he did, he didn't do things like that.
He'd he didn't shoot up the wall of people.
I know that that scene, they were saying that that real life
incident was potentially not done specifically by him and
they were trying to blame it on his like other people that
worked for him because they they did in fact die from gunshots,
not just a blow to the noggin. So, but yeah.
There were other marks. That suggested that they weren't
just beating by bats. So take that for what it's
worth, but there's a lot of myths around Capone and whether
or not he actually did those very violent acts.
And he was the family was like he was set up.
OK. He was a simple.
Business bot are. We in business the.
CIA did it. They set him up.
Yeah, so there's a. So I think related to that,
there's that. So the the rounds table dinner
pieces is a fiction, I think. And then what they've talked
about is the potential real life incident is that there's a
couple of lieutenants that were looking to unseat him that he
then executed. And then there's a there's an
argument whether it really happened, But like there's one
argument that he did hit them with baseball bats and kill them
that way. And then, as you've alluded to
talk about, they were executed maybe at his word or maybe not
at his word, but by other people and then shot them up.
Yeah. So it's really interesting.
Yeah. And this is a thing we're going
to keep coming back to. Is that this film over eggs, how
violent the Kippoons organisation was in lots of
ways. They don't want to spoil it too
much. They didn't go out of their way
to like kill cops or certainly not federal officers.
They did do some of the bribing, but they didn't do the violence
so much because that would have got there.
They would have brought them too much heat and it would it would
have got the organisation shut down a lot quicker than it it
being. But yeah, no, really good point.
Really good point. John, Mike, you mentioned
looking at. The the shots from that scene
when the cameras like looking down and you said it looks like
there's like a knife stuck in his neck or something as well.
And you thought maybe that being cut out of him.
I haven't got a chance to rewatch that bit.
But yeah, so I looked at that and I couldn't find.
Anything about it in the screenplay either as the shot
then goes into an overhead and then pulls out classic Brian De
Palma Crane Jot. And as he's doing it, it looks
like he's got like a, a knife, like like a brown wooden handled
knife, which is like at odds with the silverware on the rest
of the table, like sticking up his neck.
You don't see anyone stabbing or anything so.
It's kind of like, yeah, weird. I don't know.
I thought that was his cigar. There you go it probably.
Looks good. Myth busted myth.
Busted myth busted live on Clear and.
Present dudes, but I'm getting it.
I'm going to keep it in. I'm going to keep it in.
Do not. Yeah, man.
Yeah.
Man, do do not delete it because like I said this, this level of
integrity, investigation and deep thinking is why we boast
10s of listeners and then Speaking of things that didn't.
Happen, they go to Canada, it's best.
Yeah, so they. Never they.
Never.
Did this. It's an invention, but I like it
because it it again, hops onto this, you know, like it's a
Western vibe because they're on horseback and hats and leather
jackets. It's really cool.
Yeah. It felt like we switched.
Genres. For a second I was like, wait,
what? I'm like you guys just wanted to
do. Horses and guns and ride around
I. Just remember watching.
That bad good there are horses now there are horses now.
I love how the all adapt horseman as well, even like the
little like nerd guys like able to ride a horse and it's like, I
mean, I guess you only other options from like riding pillion
behind, like Sean Connery with his arms around his waist or
something. But but but like, I mean, I just
love how these guys are just so absolute super cops.
The course I can ride horses. Of course, this is they have
this operation to coordinate with the Canadians, right, and
the Canadian Mounties, like do they like go before?
They shouldn't just ride in and start like shooting like like
they're just like start. Laying down fire.
Right. And it's like the age of the
officer leading them and and the time this film set in, he was
definitely in the Canadian Forces in World War One during
war crimes, right? I mean, that look at his eyes.
He's like, yes, back at the saddle.
He doesn't approve of the methods.
Yeah, yeah, back at the. Fucking saddle lads.
He's just like painting German faces mentally over all these
Americans he's shooting. It's like, yeah.
So I think the. Canadian The Royal Canadian
Motor Police get a bit of a raw deal in this movie.
They're they're kind of shown to be a bit silly and that that
particular captain is shown to be a bit of a buffoon, isn't he?
Yeah, like he, he just. Goes goes in and starts shooting
stuff. He doesn't.
He doesn't listen to the I mean, he's brief on what to do and
then almost immediately doesn't do us.
Yeah, and he also briefs. As well, that surprise is half
the battle and then he gets shut down by Kevin Costner.
There's only less who's who's like, I don't know what, I don't
know what his credentials are, but he was like, lots of things
are half the battle, losing's half the battle.
I want to think of all that I saw.
It's like that doesn't mean anything good.
Like what you've just said, it's.
Words, they are words. They don't mean anything though.
So it's a coherent thought. Like that's not written.
That's not written in Sun Tzu. That's not like I was I, I was.
About to say, Elliot, that's talking like he's read The Art
of War a couple of times. That's when you're close.
Not, not, not taking anything in from it, really.
Yeah. Yeah.
But you're right. So the Monty officer fires from
a pistol at range, at massive range.
He's. He's, he's just, he's just happy
to be involved. I mean, he's the opposite of the
polite Canadian. He's just an angry, heavyset,
moustachioed man who's just popping off needlessly.
He's not going to hit anything. He's just having a good time.
Speaking of members of the Royal Canadian.
Mountain police who had involvement with the City of
Chicago Constable Benton Fraser, would have done this South.
That's the way I'm going. Jen, Jen, if you've heard of the
TV. Series due South maybe?
So my so my wife is American. And, and she wasn't familiar
with it either, but I thought maybe that's because she's from
Texas and it's the South. But it turns out, turns out,
guys, that's like a British and Canadian thing and Americans
don't have it even though it's set in America.
Chip mammoths. Wild.
Yeah, so it's ATV Series I. Just pulled it up.
In the I I've never heard of this.
Yeah, it's epic. So yeah, wow, is it worth
talking about it very briefly? That's a Royal Canadian Mounted
Policeman. His father is also a still
active serving mounted policeman.
Gets murdered by some people who or a person who's trapped going
back to Chicago. So therefore he gets us a
comment Chicago so we can solve his dad's murder.
He's helped by the ghost of his dad throughout and a death wolf
that he owns. And he teams up with a local
Chicago PD detective called Ray Vecchio, who's a bit of a
sleazeball, but it's great. There you go.
That's it. Brilliant show.
Watch it if you can anyway. Back to an early I.
Know when you first mentioned that?
I thought you said, I thought you meant Brandon Fraser.
I was like, wait, what? Yeah, I know.
The character's called. Benton Fraser.
Benton Fraser, Yeah. Played by Paul Gross.
Canadian actor. Anyway, right, But they have a
big shoot out. Our guy Oscar is brilliant with
goes mental with the riot gun. So a good man he goes.
On just this absolute fucking I love the trope of like the
little guy starts kicking off and he just does this mad
virtually suicide run across the bridge shooting from the hip,
dropping people left and right runs out of ammo and then just
you know, incredible God bless him in the screenplay in the.
Screenplay after that happens, he pulls out a pistol and shoots
a man out of the back as well. Oh, that's absolutely class,
man. Honestly, it's like, wow, that.
Should have been in the film He. Should have switched to a side
armour. Just mad dumped some guy in the
back. Oh beautiful beautiful.
So they capture a guy called. George, who is carrying a Ledger
and they go to interrogate him in their little cabin, but he's
a hostile witness or he's not cooperative but before.
That he didn't mention. It but before that there's
another guy that gets tries to seek refuge in that that Hut
that Elliot has to kill so there's a dead body outside and
during the interrogation it gets a little bit heared Sean Connery
slaps around a little bit gets told to go outside and then he
does some improv just. Absolute.
I mean, that's like offence wise, that's abuse of a corpse,
right? I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I mean,
that's like Eve even in the 1930s, that's probably like lose
your job territory when he just picks this guy's dead body up,
interrogates the bit and then blows it's already dead brains
out over the window. It's a good grief And that now,
now that's the Chicago way. So, Pauline.
Kael, the film critic, yeah, said that this film was a bit
bland because the good guys were too good and there wasn't any
grey like morality in there. But I would argue that that is a
little bit dodgy and there's a bit towards the end of the movie
where LA Ness pushes a man of a building.
Yeah, for due process is taking place.
I would say that's also a little bit morally grey.
Would possibly the. Pauline Kale.
Didn't watch the whole film, possibly.
I like Pauline. Kale for a lot of her work, but
I do disagree with her on this film and I disagree with her
tremendously on readers. The last arc as well, which
didn't. Yeah, yeah.
I know it's like. Yeah, I mean, Sean Connery's
entire character is like he may as well be wearing a sandwich
board over him, which is like things are grey and by will not
black and white, you know, like he's he's do what he's like a do
what you need to do a get home safe kind of thing.
And if this means blowing the brains out of some dead body,
fine. You know, it's it's it's it's
brutal as well. It it goes to the most gory
thing he can do as well, which is like, you know, blown his
freaking brains out. A very, very quick diversion of
TV in the TV series RIP our street in one of the first
episodes the first season, there's a plot when this this so
river streets like people haven't seen it.
It's like a police procedural set in London shortly after the
track the river killings based in the same like police kind of
precinct, I guess, which was involved like specifically, I
think H division, which was a specific specific like area on
white like the specific precinct, I guess station house
in in in white travel, which was involved with the cases.
And this is this is kind of character gets arrested in a
brothel and he kills himself out of Victorian shame.
And there's this like other case going on and like this guy said,
kill himself in the cells. But like the main guy whose name
I've forgotten the actor and it's like sidekick Jerome Flynn
have to interrogate this other dude.
So Jerome Flynn gets this guy's dead body, fucking hangs it up
by its wrists from the bars in in the cell and just beats the
shit out of it, just beats the brakes off this dead guy.
And and it's like I don't. Have blowing a dead.
Boy's brains out is worse than it probably is because it's like
you're a because I mean, you're making that a closed casket at
funeral, right? I mean, I don't know what's
worse. Just like chinning an already
dead guy or just permanently, irrevably disfiguring a dead
guy, right? So.
So yeah. So it's interesting.
Great. Immorality.
So this. Is like right?
The act of it certainly is. I don't know if the film treats
it like it is. There is the this is like the
midpoint of the of the script, right?
And it gets. A bow tied.
On it, when the Canadian officer goes, Sir, do not approve of
your methods and he goes, well, you're not from Chicago.
And it's like, this is them saying right, this, this, this
untouchables, these guys, their unit is set up, they're fully
embedded and they've had to take the fight to Capone's guys on
their terms. Like their violence.
You know, it's a bit like in my favourite films, the life and
death is Colonel Blimp, where there's an incredible speech
between Theodore Christian Anderschildorf and Clive Candy
where they say, like, if you want to beat Nazis, you have to
use Nazi methods because if you try and do might is right And,
and be good and respect the rule of law and everything, you'll
get beaten because they, they don't care about that.
And you've got to meet them on that level to wipe them out.
And that is in the script and this as well.
So like when, when Ellie and S is making that case to the judge
right at the end, he's like, I've become that which I've
beheld and I need, you know, and this man's a killer and he will
kill again and I, I need to stop it kind of thing.
That's what he's that's what he does.
So the component parts are there.
So this bit happens at the big point, and that bit is where it
gets to at the end of the movie after he's killed Nitty throwing
off the the building. But the vibe of the film doesn't
really reflect it. Like the we're still kind of on
a roaring high here after like this successful raid.
And then the next thing we get is like a Capone kicking off
about it and being like, really annoyed about it.
But like, there's no inner turmoil with any of these
characters. They all fully believe in what
they've done and what they're doing is right.
And we as the audience been expected along going.
Yeah, fuck yeah. Sean Connery should have shot
that guy in the heads to make the other guy talk, because this
guy needs to be. Those guys need to be stopped,
and these guys are the good guys, even though they're doing
the exact same stuff. Think as well his oral.
Context of when the film came out and what's in the media and
stuff. And and we're seeing films when
cops are going to massacre everyone and get away with that
kind of thing. So, so yeah, like it's watching
it and like a 2025 mindset. It's like, oh shit, that's
that's actually a bit fucking shitty that that's kind of like
that's, that's that's abuse of a corpse dude, that's messed up.
But in in like a nightly 7 by instead take, you know, the the
the police should massacre everyone to see and then kill
them again once they're dead. So it's it's weird to think
about it. So.
This this movie came out in 1987.
We'll see now it's been like 92 years, 90 odd years since the
the events of this movie took place in 1987.
It was like 4550 years. Yeah, that's something I was
just thinking that they're. Like people?
Yeah, then. People like alive.
At that point, who'd been involved in that?
You know, it's a bit like, you know.
Exactly, exactly. There were guys on set who, who
were there involved who were like technical, you know,
advisors and so on. It's a bit like, you know, the,
the comparison now would be something like Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood or something like set like late 60s, early 70s,
you know, so it was much closer to people's living memory at the
time. Because that's a weird thing.
I think the other thing as well is because it's the 1930s and
it's like a foreign country to us like that everyone, even the
hoodlums, even the worst criminals are coming around in
these like incredible Giorgio Armani suits and stuff.
It doesn't land for us the same way as it is now.
And because. And even though, even though
again, it's really, you know, white Catholic versus like
Italian American story essentially that that's never
really brought into shop relief too much.
There's a couple of scenes where they talk about it.
But really if we if we're if we're watching it, there's a
bunch of white people in a room talking about it.
We're watching a bunch of white people shoot each other.
Yeah. When there's obvious kind of.
I mean like there's a. Time when like Italian American
people wouldn't considered white by some people at the time kind
of thing and like yeah, but in this movie.
It's Robert De Niro who's like the.
One of the most. Renowned.
Actors of his age at the time, you know, I'd be interested to
see how this movie would have done, how to come out in 1992 or
something, you know, like immediately after Rodney King.
I don't know if it would have been that much of a difference
because it's so different looking than and people might
not have drawn the same equivalences.
But end of the day, it's a bunch of cops go around shooting
people, like without any, any blowback on that server, you
know. Yeah, no real sight.
Probably overthinking this a little bit.
I. Don't know, maybe it's all kind
of movie, but don't know so. The next thing we get is.
Can you kick it off? I want him dead.
I want his.
Family den I want his house. Burnt down.
I want to piss on the. Ashes, one of the greatest crash
outs instead of history. Yeah, it's all timer crash out.
All timer, now is a good time to talk about.
Elliot Ness's wife, we've mentioned it already that she is
basically not a character. Yeah.
This was like AI see a golden age in in scare quotes time for
like the wife of the main character being a thing and just
not getting any, any characterization She has a like,
this is Patricia Clarkson's, like, first cinema debut in
feature film, but it's an utterly thankless role, isn't
it? Like she's a great actress
capable of so much more. And she just gets to be like the
sort of mooning and like, oh, I miss you and oh, you're great.
Maybe you could come back into my room and wash brush my hair.
This is like I'm I'm I'm I'm in this.
Films like so powerfully Catholic that he gots a pregnant
just by her saying, do you still have some energy left?
And then like about like 20 minutes later, there's a baby,
you know? No, it's like she she.
Has done dirty. I mean, she's barely done at all
by the scriptures, hardly in the film and and it's and it sucks.
Is that you said really, really good actress, you know, so it's
kind of up there with a this is the first film we've done a
thing when she's just said credited as the wife, right.
I mean, it's actually just credited as Nessa's wife.
That's what. Credit is so we've had two.
Films now when the president of the United States has credited
as just the president, and this is my first one, when a major
protagonist's wife is just Nessa's wife.
That's kind of messed up, man. We shouldn't keep a running tell
you of this because it's a bit sad.
So the. Next thing we get in this.
Sequence is the brutal slaying of George, who agreed to
testify, and Oscar Wallace in that service elevator.
Yeah. This is probably I don't.
Want to put words in anyone's mouth here, but this is probably
one of the more violent sequences.
I think it's probably the one that's most shocking to me, but
I'd like to hear anyone else's thoughts on that.
It's. It's pretty grim second film in
a row when there's a very fatal firefight in a lift slash
elevator because obviously smokiness as well had that
amazing one which which which wasn't A1 sided firefight.
It's like this one is you just see brutal executions carried
out by Frank Nitti shooting that poo and nerd lad in the face,
man. It's it's, it's cold and it ends
in just the absolute violent desecration, blood on the walls
with touchable and stuff. And it's the way it shops like
just in general, the camera work at like the opening of that
scene, like, and like the camera shows you that it's front Nitty
who's got into the lift and he's got a police uniform and he's
the T1000. I mean, sorry, he's the.
And yeah, they just, they just get utterly erased.
It's brutal. They really enjoyed it.
I mean, yeah, yeah, I see this. And then, like, at that point,
it's like, well, you guys are apparently no longer
untouchable. And it's like probably more real
for them that their teams get now getting taken out,
absolutely thinned out. Appearance.
Hey, Loki. Let's look at him.
Oh dude, am I the only one here without?
Access to a cat? Yes, Amanda.
Thus, that is outrageous and this.
Is unfair. You are missing.
Great joy in your. Life.
They should let me keep cats. In the barracks you need a
barracks cat man. You literally need a barracks
cat like the Navy cat from like. Was it during World War 2 they
had the cat and they made him like, oh, they made him his own
little paperwork. Was it George the One?
That was rated. As an electrician or something?
I think so, yeah. That's all the funny little
jokes in his paperwork. Yeah, yeah.
It's like. Oh my God, Incredible.
Oh yeah, I would generally. Get a barracks cat dude.
Yeah, I would just just. Mike.
Generally not recommend for the Royal Navy to to take on board
any German cats. Why have you?
Not heard of Unsinkable? Sam.
Yeah, what do you should tell the tale at this point?
Tell the tale of. Unsingable Sam spin the.
Dead. So that was if I'm not.
Mistaken the ship's Cat of Bismarck which was rescued after
the sinking and put on the next best British vessel which then
proceeded to be sunk and once again the cat was rescued and
put on another Royal Navy vessel which in turn again was sunk and
once again the cat survived. They did it like.
Trauma. 1/3 time but. Eventually they gave him like a
shore post in Gibraltar or something and they're like we,
we, we are not letting this cat on anymore ships because what
the hell. Asset Jubila.
They should. Have named him Midshipman.
Holland. Incredible.
Scenes. That's what it means.
So good, yes, so the. Untouchables are now touchable.
A little historical note here as well.
So the the beginning of the movie, an Alderman from one of
the districts in Chicago tries to bribe Ness and he's when he
says, oh, you guys untouchable. Is that it really?
They were awarded their name from a journalist called Charles
Schwartz of the Chicago Daily News who coined the term
untouchables. So just just a little bit of
history there. This is kind.
Of where I guess start as. So this kind of way like it
starts like infer more about like the kind of corruption
that's involved in like the kind of police sound of isn't it as
well? Because in first of all, like
you say, like someone looks out and says one of the cops has
been killed, which is then Loudon Nitty and I said Nessie
Nitty to get the uniform and stuff or whatever.
And that then like it's sort of like they're all kind of like
homes and on the chief of police and how he's dirty.
And then we'll have this like kind of showdown between between
him and between him and Sean Connery's character, which I
think is meant. I think it's a great scene.
Yes, exactly to say so, Mike. Dorsett is the chief of police
and his employees, it's a lot more clearly inferred in the
screenplay that that Malone and and Mike came through together
at the same time. Yeah.
And that that Malone's obviously kept his morals and is put him
back in the police. So he's still walking the beat
as a beat cop 30 odd years into his career, whereas this guy has
made himself up to a chief because obviously he's played
the game and he's looked away when he's had to and all that
kind of stuff. He's also revealed, however, to
be the source of information for like some of these raids.
So he's obviously like goes back with him a long way and he's
trying to help him out. But at this point now it's gone
a bit too rich for his blood. He doesn't want to be involved
anymore. And now he's now he wants to be
out and he doesn't want to help out Malone anymore.
And he says to Malone, you know, maybe maybe don't get involved.
Me maybe got a town for a bit, maybe, you know, just keep it
out of trouble kind of thing and.
That's no good for. Malone So the inciting incident,
I guess, is that the DA doesn't want to continue with the trial
because they've lost a key witness.
Even though they've got other. Physical evidence to to tie it
together, which is not strictly true.
Well, there's two bits that aren't true.
So in real life at the IRS investigation came to this, they
preserved the witness didn't get killed.
So he did testify. The the keeper did testify and
to the DA was never against it for reputational damage reasons.
He just always wanted to do it. But for dry effect here they've
made it. So they need to get another
civil bullet in order to get it. So they're going to get the
actual bookkeeper, this of a guy, Walter Pace, I think he's
came. Walter Payne, sorry, Malone
needs to get the information about how he's going to find out
where he is and he's going to get it from his mic.
And that's why they have that that brawl in the alleyway.
And it's a great fight and I know you want to talk about it,
Rory said. Tell me about that fight.
I'm just to be honest. I've said really all I wanted to
say I, I like the fact that it's Sean Connery showing the fact
that he does know how to throw hands, that he's like
believable. I mean, I always said that in in
like the con, like the Connery Bond films, he plays an
excellent third. He plays an excellent brawler.
And most of the films when he has to kind of slap it around a
bit and give people a bit of a beat.
And I think he's really believable at it.
And it's and it's class to say it's a character of a great
pathos for me. So again, it's it hinted that
more clearly in the screenplay, but he carries his dad's police
badge and has the same number as his dad.
He's living up to that, that memory of his dad.
And he's like, he's in that think that has been his moral
compass going forward. He's thinking like, what would
my dad have done? My dad wouldn't have went to bed
with all these Italian Americans.
And their organised crime. He would have told me to better
get off. So you can see that he's been
married but isn't married any longer.
And we don't know that story. We learn precious little about
him. In fact, Ellie Ness doesn't even
say his first name in the whole movie.
So he's he's Jimmy Malone, but you never get a James or a Jimmy
out of the Ness. So we, we learn precious little
about him really, just that he's been around the block a bit and,
and he's a. Hard man and he's.
Probably got quite a lonely life and he obviously lives in a
quite a austere apartment on his own, you know.
So when he's doing this, you know, he's put himself out on
the limb and he's agreed to do it and he doesn't care about the
consequences anymore. And then now he's having a fist
fight with the chief of police in his alleyway, bathed in his
red light. And it's like this.
This is like his final kind of, we don't know because we haven't
seen him get killed yet. But this is his final big
hurrah, really. This is his final big
contribution to the to the war effort, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, so he has this fight.
It's really physical, really brutal, you know, they both take
lumps throughout of it, Yeah. That guy bring pulls a.
Bit of loose wood, starts hitting him with a bit of wood.
All about the. Wood being used on him.
Shit, Connery fights dirty as well.
He kicks. The guy in the pods to get the
other hand, he's a brawl like he's a brawl out.
As as as you know, he is wanted to do so and he's like, are we
going to keep? Going around the houses.
Here he's going to give me what I want, basically.
I was genuinely. Worried in the?
Scene and was like, is he gonna kill that guy?
Yeah, I thought it was gonna go there.
Hell yeah. Yeah, and you?
Know and like. If if there's any character in
this movie that could have done that, it would have been, would
have been Malone, you know? Yeah, 100% no.
But nobody. Else in the film is a big people
of death kind of guy. Well, so Nope, Nope, nobody in
the police side of things is a big people from the guy who we
see. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Malone's death comes shortly. After this, doesn't it?
It does, yeah. So.
Malone leaves a message for Elliot and S to go and speak to
him straight away because he knows where the bookkeeper is.
But before Ness can go and see him in person, Malone is
assassinated. Essentially, Yeah, that
fantastic sequence where department has used a steady Cam
operator, but instead of it just been like an ethereal presence
floating through a space like. And this is a good thing.
Like it was used. In The Shining, really, really
well, instead of that, it's, it's a person walking through
space and we're looking through their eyes.
And he does this a few times in different movies and it's
really, really well done here. And the way he hammers at home
is that you see the hands like manipulate stuff.
And I don't know how they did that.
If that the camera operator was doing that himself of the Palm
was operating that camera and doing it himself, which might
have been the case. Yeah, it's it's almost.
If the scene's been ripped from a different style of film, it's
it's just these these moments when it deviates a bit from like
like detective movie kind of thing.
This is one of them. That's fantastic.
Just as kind of the kind of slow and sinister pace of this like
home invasion and it's excellent.
Sit down and silence. Watch this happens.
Fantastic. It's it's really menacing.
As well, like you do generally. Again, it builds attention.
This one builds tension in lots of different ways.
Yeah. But yeah, that's one of the one.
Of the more. Exciting ones.
It went to the film that came out by Steven Soerberg last year
called Presents. Didn't you guys see that?
It's like a ghost story about a family who moved into this
house, but the house is being occupied by a ghost.
And Steven Soderbergh operated the camera himself, a lot of it.
And it's just him walking around the house basically.
And people are having conversations and stuff, but
it's not shot as if it's not like a bunch of different
setups. It's like, it's like it's all
through the point of view of this ghost walking around the
house. It's it's an OK movie.
It's a really interesting experiment.
That's cool, man. But it's a whole movie.
Basically of this sequence. And then you get the guy who
thinks he's got the jump on Malone or relate to believe he
has and Malone pulls out. He saw no shotgun and chases
chasing of his house. But sadly that's the trap he's
walked into. Yeah, that's that's the setup
and the. Gets a significant amount of
shots to the to the chest from the front Knitty's Thompson gun
and down man gets gets gets gets sat on the pathway to beat Saint
Jude personally. It's funny because the whole the
Chicago wave thing, right? He pulls a knife, you pull a
gun. Malone's got a shotgun in his
hands. And this is the one moment when
he give you it from the Chicago wake is from all of Malone's
character. You should you should think
there's some guy in his house with a knife.
Malone's going to give them both barrels And then, you know, just
say come and get a van to take away this body and then just do
do a few Hail Marys or something.
But this is the point when like he kind of deviates almost from
like the way he talks about like living his life and working as a
cop, you know, and this ends up with his destruction, which is
which I think it's interesting kind of writing.
Not sure I fully like understand what's going on with him.
Like the character, because like the character that was shown of
him is, is just going to give the guy both barrels and then
maybe reload and shoot him again because you know.
Yeah, it's it's almost. Like a a necessary sacrifice for
the state of the screenplay, isn't it?
Because it's Oh yeah, yeah, back end of Act 2.
Kind of. Everything's gone bad.
I get that. But I think from the first time
I saw this movie when I was like in my probably early teens, the
image of Connery crawling along the floor, Yeah, leaving that
massive blood trail behind is is that that's the indelible image
that that that that this movie like was in my brain until until
I started re watching it again on the regular in my 20s because
I love this movie, like until that.
Happened like that was the. MY1 core memory of it and then I
picked it up again. But yeah, yeah, horrific.
I don't know if a human being would be able to do that, take
that many rounds and then make it that far.
And I mean, I mean. Ripped to everybody else who's
eaten half of a Thompson Gunn's drum mag at least to the chest.
But Malone's built different, right?
But they have to have this scene when he's bleeding out and dying
in a strong Irish Marran coated fashion, which is and which
witches and jokes opposed to Al Capone going to the opera and
crying at Pagliacci in the weak girly Italian American mode.
You know, it's like, it's like this film has opinions until
he's told about it and then he starts laughing.
And it's like, oh, it's yeah, Grim.
Yeah, yeah. That is.
That is, that is.
Grim Ness and Stone. Finding Malone's body, Yeah.
As he's still alive, he's he's still alive.
Yeah, and he's going for the. I think he's going for the.
Saint Jude puts it in his hand. And he just throws out of his
hands and he's actually dull. He's final.
He's final act. He's final act.
Just telling them where the where the the bookie was going
to be. Yeah, that's.
That's enough. And his final?
Words as well. He kind of barks them up.
The music's swelling really, really high at this point.
So you don't you don't probably hear and he's coughing up loads
of blood and stuff. But he he but he gets his final
words are what are you prepared to do?
And then he dies and it's like, and that course that is like the
the big theme of the movie, isn't it?
For for the Untouchables. What are they prepared to?
What depths are they prepared to sink to again?
I think you get to lost a little bit in the hi ho silver kind of
fun of it all. But yeah, a more artsy fartsy
film. I've linked more on that.
I wonder if like David. Mamet, Kind of.
Workshop having his last lines to be sheer end of the lesson.
There's a lot of yeah, so this is a classic.
Mamet thing isn't there's lots of repetition of different
little phrases throughout the movie.
So we, we have that and then the next thing we get is one of
probably the greatest, most iconic bits of cinema that has
occurred purely because of a budgetary constraint, which is
the Odessa steps homage in the in the Chicago train station.
So just to I'll, I'll let you guys run with it, but I'm going
to, I'll set it up by saying that in the screenplay, there's,
there's two sequences that I will cut out.
And the first is there's a whole frankly ridiculous sequence
where they look for the bookkeeper because the
bookkeeper is betting on the ponies and the ponies betting on
is called Paymaster. And they decode that and realise
they're going to go and find the race where Paymaster's running.
And they go to this place. Turns out it's all a big set up.
There's a giant gunfighter that happens.
Most people die, including what they think is the bookkeeper.
Turns out it's a decoy and they discover it by ripping off a
fake moustache of him. So they don't that's not in the
movie. And then the next sequence not
not my not. My missed opportunity.
Of the movie Wait a minute, this is a.
Fake bookkeeper pulls up a little boustache.
Come on man. Yeah.
And then? Malone's like looks.
Like we're back to square one. It's actually all is lost.
But you can, yeah. And this is like, yeah.
That doesn't need to be there. So that's like 5 or 6 pages you
can get out. The other bit, the big climax
where they get the real bookkeeper was meant to be
taking place on a moving train. So Ellie and S in stone like
rush ahead and park their car in the middle of the tracks and
then hide it back further along the train.
I guess this doesn't make much sense.
And then they hop onto the train as it's moving and fight their
way through the carriages to get to the bookkeeper.
And on the train is like a priest and some of the
civilians, like a like a small child and stuff.
So it's not quite the same. Neither of those sequences I
don't think would have worked quite so well as what we get in
the final movie, which is this single location, really clear
geography of what's going on. Amazing sequence in the train
station, you know, as our marriage is barshit Percentkin
with the the baby stroller going down the steps.
Yeah, Rory, this is this is definitely your your wheelhouse
shoot outs. So I'm going to I'm going to
hand to you and everybody, please.
Yeah, this is this is so my wheelhouse.
This is, I just watched this scene just earlier before we're
sort of recording just to kind of remind myself of it.
It's, it's 9 minutes long and it just, it packs so much in that
didn't need to go as hard with this, that didn't need to make
it this good. And yet it is.
It's incredible from the opening beats of it, from the angles,
it's shot at the echoes of Stone's footsteps through,
through the through the building.
And that's getting himself and that kind of.
Like essentially kind of Overwatch position and then you
start to see people coming out and then there's sod and, and
then there's a old woman with the baby thing and it's like,
ah, he's, he's, he's got to be the crusading good guy.
So he's got this fucking shotgun under his jacket.
He's just bringing this kid up slowly, slowly.
And like the mom's like, oh, wow, you're so nice, you're so
nice. And he's just not seeing a
fucking thing because like he's like, this is bad.
This is really bad. Why the hell am I doing this,
man? Why the hell am I being a
gentleman at this point? Just and then when you start
seeing the kind of filtration in of the bad guys and they're
coming through when like there's no clear like frontline of kind
of contact in in in the scene. There's no like the white hats
on the left and the black hats on the right kind of thing.
It's obviously you've, you've, you've got both of our.
Heroes. Are in like kind of odd
positions for the for the gunfight, right, Because Ali and
S is essentially like around him right pretty quickly and then
storm kind of runs in from from go on.
I was going to say Ness. Is almost essentially in what?
You'd call like a kill corridor, basically, yeah, he's put
himself. Into the like because he's.
Enclosed on either side by higher, higher ground down a
straight line funnel and he's blocked by the bollards on the
yeah, his side of the so the the stairway is is broken up into
three lanes essentially with two sets of bollards going down them
hand rails, even footballs and yeah.
So he's, he's stuck there like trapped on like one side of a,
of a, of a Yeah. And then just.
He gets the carriage. Almost to the top of the.
Stairs and then that one guy he'd previously beaten up who
comes out and it's like it's on. There's one he like literally
one more step for this thing. He turns round and just just one
handed tags on the shotgun and it's off and it's crazy.
And I love the mom's reaction. I just love how ape shit she
goes because you would and it's like you're watching her whole
arc, whole development is all this is a really nice guy who's
who's who's who's helping me with the baby characters.
Oh, you're so gentleman, you're so nice.
It's so cool. And he's not said anything like
be cool, but I'm a federal agent and run a job kind of thing.
He's he's just been stoic and stalwart.
Maybe he doesn't like talking to women that much.
You know, I mean, we're all a bit on the spectrum here.
He he, he could have that going on, but then he just whips out
with emotional support. 12 gauge.
It blows this guy away. The bomb is just screaming, just
going fucking nuts. And straight away, there's just
this massive amount of gunfire as Buddy Stone runs over with a
pistol in each hand. You see some excellent
headshots. There's those bits when those,
those poor fucking sailors just try to help, man.
Those poor guys, poor guys, they're.
In a. Peacetime Navy that didn't
expect this shit to happen on the streets of the streets of
Chicago. They didn't expect it to happen
at all. And, and, and they get zapped
and it's kind of like this is the point when it goes so slow
emotionally, so balletic. It's brilliant.
And you notice how Elliot Ness was like ambidextrous in this
film, right? Like, like, like, like, like,
like he shoots with his right hand, his left hand.
I saw that because he the first shot.
He takes is with his right hand, isn't it?
Yeah. So he's yeah, yeah.
So. He's so he's using a shotgun
right-handed, he drops that, he switches with side on which he
pulls out from the cross draw holster like on Razam Pit.
And then when Stone gives him as as as well a pistol, he's using
his left hand because he's holding the baby carrier with
his. Right hand and stones holding it
up with his Yeah, feet but but but.
In but in the raid. Scene at the start of the film,
I'm sure you see him holding as 1911 in his is it 911?
I think it might be in in his in his in his left hand.
So I'm I'm incredibly autistic about guns.
I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, there's, there's just,
it's merciless. The violence.
There's there's not just blood, there's, there's, there's,
there's gore. There's bits of as, as my wife
pointed out, brain matter splattered around.
Then it gets to the real. Climax, the real, real
culmination of it, when Elliot Ness and Stone managed to stop
the baby carriage. And there's that one guy who's
like, I'm getting out of here with with, with the bouquet
Baron. The amount of sweat that's
pissing off the guy. It's, it's, it's, it's
incredible. It makes Tom Sizemore look
positively dehydrated. You know, like, like, I mean,
I've read this segment of references now, but that video
when Papa John Schnatter was like having this crash out and
he's like, these people don't know pizza.
Like I know pizza. I've had like 31 pizzas the last
28 days. And, and, and he's just more
sweat than man. There's that fantastic scene.
There's a fantastic combination that everyone knows that it's
one of the fucking best parts of film when.
It's like you. Got him.
Yep, I'm going to countdown 1, take him bang blows his fucking
brains out and then there's just a significant amount of gore on
the wall. The guy falls down dead.
Mike, you were saying in the screenplay, doesn't it say that
his head just erupts? Stone Roses, his gun and.
Fires and the bodyguard's head disappears in a shower of blood.
That's what it says in the screenplay.
It's like, that's pretty horrible.
That's actually that's like, actually more gory than what?
Happens on screen. Yeah, that, that's the the.
Tarantino version of Rambo, isn't it?
Holy craft? Yeah, it's pretty.
That's. Crazy.
There's nothing in the arsenal it's going to make someone's
head completely disappear unless it's like a 12 gauge at fucking
incredibly close range. 2 There's two really cool things
like the. Sequence ought to raise.
The 1st is when Elliot Ness knocks eyes for the guy who's
got the bandage on his nose. Yes, Yeah.
So that's the one, the screenplay.
Don't think. And that's the bodyguard that he
punched in the face, in the stomach.
Who's? Coming down to.
Stop him when? He goes to Lexington to to
confront Al Capone and he's like, because he's like, you
killed my friend. And like, I was like, I don't
care. And he punches him in the face
and goes, do you think he cares? Now?
That's that guy. So that's a really cool bit of
like, that's him going right. It's on now.
Because I know that guy. These are these are these are
his guys. I know that guy, so that's
really cool and that guy knows him as well more.
More the point, that guy, like, it's like the boat.
You're the guy punched me in the face.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like. The both.
Aware of each other at the same
time. And that's when everything
changes and it's fucking go time.
That's why he's got to make the hard man making a hard decision
thing of letting the fucking baby go.
Emma, by the way, it was like shit, shit, shit, shit, shit the
whole time with that baby carriage.
Yeah, the way that how? Brutal.
This video or movie was, I was like, that baby's not making it
out of this video too. They're not afraid to the
carriage takes fire. It gets shot as a whole, Yeah,
at least, at least, at least. Once it takes one hit, right
like towards, it's like real, real, real.
Yeah, difficult. Thing I want to point out was we
get early exposure to the weapon that Andy Garcia throws to
Elliot Ness. So because if it if it if we
hadn't seen it earlier in the movie, it would have been a
cheap trick to go. By the way, I know you'll say it
just happens to have two guns. But when Sean Connery is trying
to goad him at the beginning of the shooting range, he doesn't
pick up the pistol he's just fired with.
He picks up a second concealed weapon that he's got on his
person, which is a really small, some of those, yeah, like Silver
1. And that's the one that he
throws to LMS. Yeah.
It's like, I love that this guy's going through police
Academy, right? And he's got a fucking backup
gun for his, for his literal training sessions.
It's like this is this is this is the guy that you want.
It's like, it's like he's like, listen, 2 was one and one is
none, right? But but I.
Love, obviously the. Because because it's like, based
on, like you said, the really iconic scene of the Odessa steps
and battleship attempt. And, and I don't think the baby
survives in that film, by the way.
It's I watched that scene earlier and yeah.
And I think it's, well, it's will, it will, it's inferred
that, you know, like the whites wipe out pretty much everyone in
those steps, including the the baby.
Brutal. You've got like these, that kind
of interesting scenes. Well, it's obviously like the
scenes in a battleship attempt in the the baby's looking so
distressed, like incredibly distressed.
And in, in, in, in the Untouchables 'cause there's only
so far they can go. The baby isn't looking that like
agonised. You know, that step scene is is
riffed on and it's a little trope of itself and it's got ATV
tropes page. And so France had a quick look
at other things in which it's been kind of sent up.
So in films, I don't agree with 100% of these 'cause it's like
all these really homages. In the film 71, Gary knocks over
a woman pushing a pram while being chased by Ira gunman.
That doesn't sound right. In the film Brazil, there's a
short sequence that remakes the three most iconic shots, but
with the baby carriage replaced by a vacuum cleaner.
That's probably legit because. Rob De Niro's in both Evil
Easter 3. Ozu shooting the Nazi ape in the
eye recreates the famous eye scream from the scene, which is
incredible, but something. Something that made me laugh
here can't. Speak to that.
One it references a film called. Fantazzi Fantazzi There is a
film in the film in this Italian work.
No, I've never heard of this film, but it sounds actually rad
in the. 2nd installment of the movie.
Series The titular white collar worker Hugo Fantazzi is forced
alongside his colleagues to watch a much longer parody named
version of the movie as a routine ritual demanded by his
boss. It is during the Odessa step
scene when the protagonist snaps and yells to me Battleship
Katyompkin is nothing but crazy bullshit.
Then the narrator, Fantasi himself and first person remarks
in an epic tone. 82 minutes of applause ensued.
This film sounds bonkers. We also have the French
Connection has two and we're not pushing a baby card being shot
and so listening it. Plus a shootout down a
staircase. No, I wouldn't see the stack you
see in the French Connection isn't a March to the battleship
attempt and seen at all. I mean, it's no, no, this is
this is like there's a lot of reaching done on on TV trope
stop if stuff stuff happens on the.
Stairs like John Wick 4 is a really long fight on the steps
up to Sacre Kurd as I count. Probably not it segment, just a
moment I saw. Ellie walking down the step, the
stairs. So that's that's my cats now in
her own little battleship Potemkin scene.
So that's wild to me. I think apparently there's like
a homage to it in the second season of Andor as well that I
haven't seen yet, but I'm trying to think where that would be do.
You want us to pull it up? I'll tell you.
What it claims it is.
In season 2 episode 8, a contingent of storm to us
descends a set of broad Plaza stairs by the firing of a crowd
of Israel protesters assembling. Yeah.
I mean, if it's so, so, so was it like the steady of like
marching steadily down and shooting at them kind of thing?
Yeah, Like, yeah, that bit, that bit, that bit.
Yeah, that bit. 'S accurate.
And then they're kettling. What is it?
They're kettling a lot of people into a big courtyard.
Yeah, so. Yeah, that, that sound kind of,
yeah. I mean, because obviously again,
iconic thing about the that's a step scene is the fact that the
the like white troops are kind of marching in like lying down
the steps and just shooting, marching and shooting again kind
of things anyway. Yeah, that, that.
Was a that was a clear and present diversion like about 5
different films before we move on from the.
Train station sequence. I just want to for the flow over
to Sanya and Jen, if they've got anything to add.
Yeah, why not? I was just the.
I need. To rewatch that scene.
Because I don't know where the those Nate, where the Navy men,
where they came from, they just like popped up and were shot to
do that. Crazy.
Yeah. OK, I thought I was imagining.
That I'm like, I need to go back and watch that because I don't
know where they came from. The steps were completely
emptied like almost the whole time and all of a sudden now
there's people getting shot and then they're just taken out by 1
bullet and then poor Malone's like taken out by like 50
bullets and still walking or not walking but I was like I.
Just found that fascinating. So that's the power of an.
Irishman It's the power of Irish Catholicism, those those
sailors, Protestants, that explains it.
Lutheran's just one shot. Done.
Funny if you got anything to. No, at this point, no.
OK, cool. I will say one thing here.
The bookkeeper is played by Jack Kehoe.
I don't know anyone knows this guy.
I know primarily from being in Citico.
I just want to get that mentioned for the third time in
three podcasts. I love that movie.
So with that, they have the silver bullet they need to take
Capone to court. So the final bit of the movie is
this trial, I guess. So we get, we cut straight
pretty much to the DA, the bookkeepers on the stand.
And the DA is saying, we're going to have you decipher all
of these entries into Ledger and we're going to have you say
where all the money is going. And he's like, he's kind of
bullying him a little bit. He's like, yes.
He's like, oh, louder. I didn't quite hear you.
So you've got Ness is in stone and they're sat right behind the
the where the DEA is sitting and they look at a cross over to to
Al Capone and Frank Nitti and his defence.
And they're all looking pretty happy with themselves.
And they're getting a bit riled up like this guy, you know,
we're we're we're hammering the nails in this guy's coffin and
he's smiling like, what have they got?
What's going on there? And they notice Frank Nitti is
packing, packing some heat. He's strapped in the courthouse,
so he's like that guy's got a gun, gun in the courthouse.
Get the get the bailiff of her. So they want to escort him out.
And so they do. And you see, you see, for the
like final time, you see his wife, like that's his wife in
the back of the courthouse watching I'm.
Also here. I'm also here.
Yeah. It doesn't explain what they do
with her. They pack.
Her off in the night at the beginning of the movie, you
don't really see her again for ages in the screenplay.
So that she's been her off to have a baby.
Yeah, it's. Like it's like, it's like, it's
like it's almost if we're taking an unwanted pregnancy of like a
Hollywood Starlight or something.
And it's like, you know, they in the screenplay, she's in a.
She's in a prison in Wisconsin under protective custody.
Anyway, they get Nitty outside into the hallway.
And this would be a callback to the very beginning of the
screenplay, but it's it's a scene that's cut from the
screenplay. But what happens is the guy says
I've got a permit and they empty his pocket's out.
And it says, and he has, he produces a small note that says
that used to be afforded all the protections and whatever he
wants signed by the mayor of Chicago.
And he uses. That in the.
Screenplay. He uses it in the very first
scene right after he's put the bomb in that pub and blows up
and kills that child. You get stopped by a bike cop as
he's driving away and he produces that note and the bike
cop salutes him and drives away. But they cut that from the
movie, and I think that's probably a good thing because it
hammers in that they've placed a corrupt too early.
I think that needs to be like a trickle in, like you need to
realise it as the movie's going. What happens though, is Ness
steals his packet of matches and then wants to light up a
cigarette when he's outside. And he sees in the match book
that it has Malone's address written down.
And he puts one-on-one together and goes, you're the guy who
killed my friend. And he flees and starts to
chase. Excellent.
I love it. I really like that through this
film, when there's like there's there's they go like double
action revolvers used right. There's a lot of like close-ups
on on on the revolvers shown that they are correctly in like
the hammer back position. When when when like the the
triggers like pulled further back, like a shorter pull and
like Emma, Emma, look, you see, that's how it works.
Something works, you see, you know, like fucking demonstrate
and do I succeed? This one's really accurate.
It's like 4 years married hasn't killed us yet, right?
It's great. I love I love a good rooftop
chase and stuff like that. There's one bit.
I thought might have annoyed you, but you haven't identified
it. Which is when they run out onto
the rooftop and Nitti shoots at Ness and he rolls over the side
and lands on that little platform by pure chance, rolls
on that platform as Nitti keeps running away.
He turns around and tries shooting at where Ness is and
gets like a dead man's click. Yeah.
And then the next thing we. See is.
A mess actually getting up off that, panelling off that
platform and then climbing back over the roof again.
So like, what was he aiming at? Yes.
What? No, it didn't piss us off,
actually. I also was quite impressed to
see Nitty reloading as well because obviously that's the
next thing he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's like. It's, you know, it's the 80s,
they're often kind of getting guns wrong in films.
And it's nice to see, you know, buttons being handled by people
as if they know how to handle them.
It's also period film, so I don't need to get mad when
people aren't doing correct trigger discipline because
apparently it wasn't a thing according to all the historical
photos to say, you know, like, like people run around with the
fucking booger hooks on the bang switches and it's like, come on,
man, I am. I am terrible to walk past like
film like kind of post us with with a Max uncle finger finger
fucking booga hook off the bang switch son.
I want to call out. Maybe we should do it in
casting, but I'm going to do it now anyway.
Billy Drago, who, who plays Frank Nitti is, is phenomenal in
this film. And I don't know, he's he's
looking his career. He's been in lots and lots of
stuff in small rules. And when you know it, he plays
like an evil bad guy in most stuff because he has a pretty
like, almost quintessential evil grin, Right?
Yeah. Yeah.
But he's really menacing in this.
And he's of a known for credits on on of the calibre of this.
Like it's like Delta Force 2 with like Chuck Norris or like
Tremors, Tremors 4, you know, he says the last thing he did was a
yet another remake of The Hills Have Eyes in 2006.
Yeah, but but this is brilliant. And he's really good in this.
And he he's really menacing, properly menacing.
And I say that because, like, for all the moral ambiguity that
goes on in this film, it is still genuinely like, super
satisfying when he gets through that building.
You feel bad. I feel bad as a human being.
But like, when you when they love offering, he's like, he's
like, you know, but your friends screamed like a like a like a
stuck Irish pig. Think about that.
When I, when I, when I beat the rap and he's like, fuck, you're
going to beat the rap. I'm going to kill you.
Yeah, man. Where's Nitty?
He's in the car. Oh man, bars.
What a lane. Hold up.
His writing is this fire. Yeah.
So that that's. Really cool.
And then I'm just going to I'm going to barrel through the the
end of the movie because we've been out of there Stone.
Finds through looking. Through the belongings that was
taken out of his pockets and left before the the chase
ensued. That one of the things he's got
is the list of all the jurors and the bribes that have been
paid. Are they sidebar?
With the judge. To try and get the a mistrial or
get a new jury. The judge doesn't want anything
else to do with it. He's like, oh, this is this
doesn't there's no evidence for this.
And it's like, mate, it's so obvious and it's really obvious
that he's, he's obviously, he's obviously been paid off as well.
But he tells him, doesn't he? Like he says.
After the fight, Oh yeah, SWAT told him he was on the island.
I mean, sorry, on the list in the lecture in in the Epstein
book, I mean, I mean the Capone lecture, Yeah, absolutely.
And then there's a line. Actually, in the screenplay that
is not in the film and it's it's it's probably like almost too,
too fine a point on it because it's pretty obvious what's just
happened. But it quotes that bit from the
Bible in Proverbs. Where is it?
Here we go. The evil flee where no man
pursueth. That's what that's what Ness
says. Again, more bars.
But but the the point being that the guy, the guy's got a guilty
conscience and even though we have no evidence he was in the
Ledger just saying it was enough because he knows which is done
wrong. So yeah.
So they swap out the juries with a with.
A with a divorce. Case.
Yeah. Are divorce cases heard by
juries in America? Because that's wild.
I don't think anymore. Because it's a civil action,
right? You don't have a jury for a
civil action. But I don't know what happened
in 1930. I I think it's.
Just like you go through a lawyer and send off a shit tonne
of paperwork to a judge and they sign off.
As far as I know, yeah. I wonder if it was much.
Harder to get a divorce in 1930, probably.
You know, like women. When a lot of bank.
Accounts. Were they back then?
No, that was. Not allowed until like the 70s
because I work for a financial institution and we always have
to do. Tests and quizzes.
To make. Sure.
We're up to date on everything and that is in there like women
not allowed to have bank accounts and need to be a have a
cosigner if they wanted loans and things like that.
So yeah, I'm going to doubt that a divorce was easy in recent
30s. That's terrible.
OK, cool. So.
We're right at the end of the movie and the judge has now been
shamed or is afraid of the what, what, what truths might come
out. So he switches the juries.
This. Finally puts.
The wind on Capone's defence on Capone's like, what are you
going to do about it? What do you do about it?
He changes his plea from a not guilty plea to a guilty plea.
But the music swells in this. Is it?
Either way, he's going to be going down and they'll be
seeking the maximum a sentence possible.
And it just turns into absolute pandemonium in the courtroom.
And I love this bit. Just everyone's crowding around
the the reporters are trying to get in their nests.
Doesn't want any of that. He wants to go and confront
Capone. It's just really, really
brilliant movement. It's tremendous.
It is absolutely. Meant it's great.
It's like just when, when, when you say finally the legal system
is doing the right thing after after everyone being gang fucked
by like the law for like significant amount of the film,
even even fragnity with us, like get out of PE letter that he's
got, you know, like just just going to lay off this guy.
You know, it's like I'm on the mayor and shit and it's like
finally you see civil society doing like the right thing at
the end of the film. And it's like all it took was
like the deaths of some of the most beloved carrots in the
films and also a lot of like extraneous people who didn't
have to get killed. Little girl at the start, those
two sailors who were only trying to help if being Catholic that
was survived the shots, but the Lutherans that done and and and
it's just yes, it's like the payoff is tremendous.
The payoff's tremendous. The swell of the music.
It's mint. Yeah, you get the you got.
Another callback to another David Mamet esque through line
for the movie as well. So one of the things that keeps
coming up is, you know, you don't call a fight until the the
prize faces from the punch and the other guys, one guy's down,
the other guy's standing up, but it comes back again.
You know, you keep fighting. You keep fighting until the last
man standing here endeth the lesson.
So yeah, that's cool. So that's really, that's really
gratifying. It's a really good pay off and
the music again sells it. That's that big triumphant
fanfare again that I mentioned earlier.
And then you got the final a little bit, and I wasn't sure if
this bit would have made it in. If you've just read the
screenplay, this might have got cut.
But actually it does kind of work.
Is Ness back in his office clearing all down all the press
clippings and put them away in files, reflecting on all the
violence that's happened over the last, like however long he's
been doing this for years, I think.
And the final little line of the movie is the reporter that I
think it's the same reporter, that first spokesman when he
first arrived and took the iconic photograph and all that
kind of stuff, he says. You know, I hear.
They're going to repeal prohibition.
What are you going to do? And he goes, well, think I'll
have a drink? The crowd goes wild.
Bro it goes wild because it was never.
About It was never about drinking.
It was about the law of the land.
Yeah, very cool. Oh, nice.
Well, it's just just to. Explain to.
Everyone who's listening and not watching what what that is just.
So my. Kitchen is essentially.
A theme, Pablo. It's a crazy crap on the wall
and I have pulled from it postcard of some people
protesting prohibition. Bunch of guys in these gob
marching down the street holding little American flags and big
signs reading We want beer. So for all of you who are doing
this theatre of the main, that's what I've just pulled out.
Tremendous cool. Well, here end of the lesson and
here, end of the movie. Yes, I do.
Give me that action. Always stopping.
And pounding. Come on under.
Arrest. Hey this.
Isn't right, Hey. There's no good.
Final warrant Oh, here's my warrant.
Or what? Welcome back.
I was going to talk through. Some categories of the movie, as
we often do, first one we often talk about is casting and
normally of the smaller bit players in the movie, whatever
stuff they've been in and their rule in this movie.
So in that in that we all know who Kevin Costner is, although
at the time people didn't necessarily.
This is the same. He has his big breakout through
No Way Out. The first movie would be covered
very much like a guy in his rookie season pretty much
getting a shot at the big time. And this, this, this movie
catapulted him into stardom, I think.
But again, surrounded by seasoned actors the likes of
Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, but some the normal first in
this movie. I mentioned earlier on Patricia
Clarkson's first role was in this movie.
A lot of people know her now for being one of the cool parents in
Easy A. But yeah, great.
Or Tammy Wan from Parks and Rec, I mentioned earlier Jack Hew,
who is a great that guy actor, but his most known for roles.
He plays one of the Ben Coppers in Superco who's the 1st cop who
tries to get Frank Silico to take a take a bribe.
He's in The Sting as well. He's here a kid, and he's also a
Midnight Run with Robert De Niro as well as Jerry Geyser.
Midnight runs a fantastic film. I mean, we should cover one day.
We should indeed. God damn.
He has done a lot. He has done a significant amount
that would go Serpico. Obviously thermal TV's is once
again another one of the the that guys who was in Quincy, MA
Twilight Zone. It's done a lot of great things.
He got out of acting in 1997, but he but he only passed away
in 2020. Guess he was just.
Resting on some. Resting on some royalties and
residuals. Good for him.
Someone we didn't mention, but we don't.
Need to because he's not he's he's famous enough Andy Garcia.
I forgot to mention him yeah, a lot of people will know him from
oceans 11. I mentioned last week that also
he was in I'm a Mia here I go again.
But and and the Garf all that Part 3.
That was a big one. And here's a one that you're not
going to be expecting. Do you guys know who John
Barrowman is from Doctor Who? Captain Jack from Doctor Who.
So he is one of the policemen in the line up doing the the firing
range. No fucking way.
Well. He really has.
Been around for a while then. Very good.
Yeah, that was my most. Interesting 1 of Castig anyway.
Yeah, cool. Any any of those I was.
Going to. Mention Billy.
Drago's filmography because like you said, this guy's done an
insane amount of work. Does he second a bit parts and
tiny things and then you'll like do do like just major kind of
films like this and like with which have budgets, you know,
and then like a few years later recent like fucking walk at
Texas Ranger. So you know what?
This is sad, but. I feel like you kind of fell.
Off a little bit after this film because he's done like like you
did I mean he did like pale right our own stuff you know
and. Christ, he was in trouble.
John, MD. Brilliant mush.
Mush yeah, after. The Untouchables, he does kind
of fall off, which is a shame really.
I mean that kind of sucks. He's he's he's busy.
He does a lot. He was in, for instance, secret
games, straight to video gun crazy death ring in a three lady
dragon 2 the outfit, deadly heroes, Cyborg 2 glass shadow.
He also did the adventures of Briscoe County junior.
A lot of this stuff was like straight up like like a cut out
bin at blockbuster. But he's he's he's he's putting
in the work. I mean, as you said, he's a guy
who who plays the villains, but so many of these films that he's
done and shows, I will tell you one thing, have fucking really
cool names, really cool titles that I want to watch.
For instance, one of these things, one of these ones is
called Blue Devil. Blue Devil.
I want to watch that like now because that sounds class.
And then he said something called Soccer Dog the movie.
So so this guy who I think could have played a really good T1000,
I was only partially joking when I said he was T1000.
It's up in a film called Soccer Dog the movie playing the dog
catcher. He was also in that monkey
business film. Is that the one when like I have
to be very careful what I'm saying with this film?
Hold on, I won't be sure I'm doing yes it's the one I'm
thinking of. Two ex cons tried to frame the
good guy detective who sent up a gaol.
However, a group of kids shut the gangsters operation down
with the help of some friends from the animal Kingdom.
These films don't sound real. The sound like something from
Bojack horse but it's ridiculous.
He was a Nash Bridges will you fuck sorry while you were going
for that extensive. List of his filmography.
I was looking at Charles Martin Smith, who played Oscar Wallace.
Yeah, little guy. Yeah.
He was in it. And I.
Didn't know this existed. They made another TV series with
the Untouchables in the 90s. Yeah, it had. 42 episodes.
In 1993 and he played like a a judge in like 1 episode but
Ellie and Ness was played by a guy called Tom Amandez.
A guy called Paul Regina played Frank Andini.
The only two people who I know from other stuff are in it.
John Reese Davies by Gimli. Yeah.
Salah from Jones. Yeah, I played Agent Michael
Malone, right? Yeah.
And Michael Horse. Who you might.
Recognise from Twin Peaks. Get in.
He is agent. George Steelman.
But yeah, that's it. Really weird.
Sorry, just just threw that in there.
I have. I have.
The vaguest memory of watching the The Untouchables ATV series
that you mentioned on Sky One back in the day sounds about the
kind of thing I have. One of the vaguest.
Memories of it also have a second weird Mandela effect with
some of the and this kind of ties into the series thing.
We had Mandela effect with with with Sean Connery because I was
convinced there's a scene in the film and after after Malone's
been killed, you see his body in like the Mortuary and like the
kind of like lifting up the the kind of like, you know, sheet to
show his face and stuff. I was convinced that was in the
film. And I wonder if that is is in
the TV series, maybe because because in hindsight, it's not
going to be in the film because Sean Connery won't learn another
accent. He's not going to sit for five
hours to have people put dead guy makeup on him, right?
You know, he's like. No more, there's.
Dead guy shit, you know, he's fine playing a dead guy.
Well, a dying guy, but he's not going to like sit there and get
the deathly power shit put on him.
So I think that's where ME went. Mandela Effect on that comes
from. I tried to see if there was any.
Redemption for our poor little girl in the beginning.
Her name is Aditra Cole and no, that was the only movie she was
ever in and so she was traumatised.
Like I was blown up in this movie.
Never again, man. I just have this idea of like
sure, show his parents push never to be the kid that gets
exploded and afterwards she's like, that was actually shit.
I wanted more lines. You're a terrible momager.
And then she just quits and then she does off Broadway stuff
after that. Shall we proceed to quotes then?
Yeah, yeah, OK. I'll let you kick off already.
Since you have an interesting quote you want to do so I.
Love the scene when Malone's like Italian detected racism
activated. So it's it's when he started
giving Stone shit about his names.
What's your real name? That is my real name.
What's your before you change it Giuseppe Petri.
I knew it. That's all you need won't even
whop on the team. I had the weirdest again Mandela
fact about this. I was convinced in the film he
called his name an Ellis Island. Hand me down right.
I was convinced that line was in the film.
And you know what? That line's from An episode of
Malcolm in the Middle. Now this.
This. This right is.
Maybe a tick in my wife's got a running chart.
I think of does Rory have CTA from quite a few bunks on the
head. I wonder how I'm getting fucking
CTA. Might I tell you what?
Because like I was convinced our some Ella silent hand me down.
That's your real name. Like no, no, it's like literally
it's like a racist old lady in an episode in Malcolm in the
Middle says says someone's name is an Ellis Island.
Hand me down, yeah. Just that.
Whole scene is eminently, eminently quotable.
Your long term memory was like. I'm going to put that in the.
Same bit of the filing cabinet that Sean Connery lives in.
Basically it's like I. Say that you're a lying.
Member of a no good race. Much better than you, you
stinking Irish shit pig. I like him.
Incredible. But it's like, did we just
become best friends? Yup.
Brilliant. Absolutely.
That's great all, my favourite. Lines in this movie all come
from Jim Malone as well, when he first meets Nest and he's got
the the night stick and he's like, OK, pal, why the Mahaska?
Why are you carrying a gun? So what's the origin of the the
word Mahaska? I love it.
Yeah, Mahaska. What the fuck's amazing?
Why are we still saying that? Why are we saying?
Straps and packing it little bit.
I'm carrying. I've got my mahaska.
I've got bahaska. Yeah, Bahaska, the word Mahaska.
At all it's sake like it's like the Dollar General version of
ayahuasca, you know like it's like you want you want to really
trip balls and purge some black format out.
You go for the mask on me. Come on.
And then he's. Like, wait a minute, what the
hell kind of pleats when you go to this goddamn city, you just
turned your back in an armed man, secure treasury officer.
How'd you know that? I just told you that.
Who would claim to be that? Who was not like, like a wise
old Yoda, I was gonna say. He's like violent Yoda and it's
like. We would claim to be that who
was not? Yeah, that's like that's like
turn. My.
Body Cam off I will. Resistant, you must stop.
A badge you carry. A gun you must, officer.
Prone Isness. Reporting for duty.
Oh my God, right. I've got 2.
So 1 is is the one I wrote you guys earlier, which is just this
is amazingly out of context. Like is this the guy that can
finger Capone? It's like, OK, guys, this is
taking a weird turn now. I mean, this is very, this is
very liberal for a prohibition film, but what?
With this consent? With this consent what?
Is going on in that top floor of that hotel.
You know what? And the.
Other one is just just one. It's just that moment in the
train station where when SS take him, that really shows the
change from that. I want to get him, but I want to
get him like legally and cool and I don't want to do anything
that is like too extreme. He sort of has to get convinced
to even shoot someone, and then he's just like, take the shot.
Yeah, He's like, shoot that guy. Yeah, explode.
His head explode his head with. Your 30 head calibre extra
special I think I know we. Mentioned this at the beginning,
I think You pull a knife or you pull a knife, you pull a gun.
He sent you the hospital, you send the one to the morgue.
It's the Chicago and it sets the it's just like very extreme.
It's just badass bars. That's iconic.
Isn't it? Yeah, yeah, that's one of those
clips I'll dig out on YouTube around again just to just to
enjoy that scene again. Yeah, get yourself pumped
before. You don't have you or something?
Yeah. That's the Chicago.
Way. That's the Chicago way.
Hell yeah. You pulls a knife, you'll pull a
gun. Yeah, so good.
And there's a there's a there's a behind the scenes little
featurette that I watched today where they talk about some of
the stuff in the production of the movie.
And Sean Connery is just giving an interview and he quotes that
entire monologue just in the interview and it's just as good.
Let's try and find it. I'll turn it to fucking
treasure. I like the bit where they're
interviewing. They're trying to find the the
two new recruits and the one they they talk to before they
get to Andy Garcia. Yes.
And he he like just can't. Talk.
He's like, why? Do you want to be a police
officer? He's like to protect the to
protect the. I'm not looking for the.
Yeah, book answer. Why do you want to join the
force? The force?
Yeah. Why do you want to join the
force? Because I I think it could help.
I think you think you could help with the force.
Thank you very much. You've been most helpful.
There goes the next chief of police.
So good. Absolutely brilliant.
That's also not in the screenplay.
Like the screenplay really. Like needed some work to make it
funnier. My favourite one, of course.
Jim Malone firing his gun to stop a suspect from running from
away from him in the Canadian countryside.
Right? Enough of this running shit. 11
people found that one helpful and I maintained that might have
been an ad Lib because I think, I think Sean Connery probably at
this point had a, there was like a ticking clock and how much
he'd run in a film. He's not going to exhaust
himself for these people. He's Sean Connery at this point,
man. He's like, I'm going to run a
bit, then I'm going to stop ticket, you know, But he's
kicking off for that guy. As well.
Back in the cabin and he's like, you're mucking with AG here pal.
You'll hang as high as payment unless you cooperate.
Yes, Hag as high as. Him and love that.
Oh, that's so good. I'm sorry, I'm dying, Needle.
Drops we talked about. Enya Morricone's incredible
score earlier on. Somebody got labour on this.
There was a couple of Duke Ellington pieces in the movie as
well. Oh, and obviously Pagliacci as
well. Trivia.
OK, right. So.
Ordinarily on trivia I would just go up to the list of IMDb
and read through that, but I've got some other trivia as well
that I found for this movie. Looking for a list of the
inaccuracies that I detected from my Internet research that I
did today. Capone never stored any of his
booze in a federal building, so the he never stored A1 in a post
office, for instance. Ness predominantly hit locations
where the booth. Was made or sold.
So he wasn't. He wasn't tracking shipments or
going to customs yards. He was going to like speakeasies
and like breweries and distilleries.
There were up to roundabout 10 guys in the Untouchables at any
one time and a sort of a bit of a bit of a rotating door.
They had different jobs. There was a guy who was like a
handwriting analysis experts. There was like a a wiretap guy.
There was they were doing lots of their own rules.
So it wasn't just like 4 guys with guns like kicking down
doors and and shooting people. It was.
It was a pretty sophisticated operation, which isn't really
shown in the movie because it's not as fun the whole way that Al
Capone. Got.
Stitched is totally different in real life.
So the tax evasion was proved similar to the screenplay, not
so much in the movie, but they discovered of all the different
companies and that were feeding his organisation, one of them
was a dog track. And the Ledger from the dog
track hadn't properly encoded his entries and was making
payments to just Al, which is like really obvious if if, if
everyone else has got like all these fake names.
So then they got the handwriting from that Ledger and linked it
to to another Ledger in the organisation and made the
connection that way like a legitimate thing, managed
something like that. And that's how they did that at
the bookkeeper. Lived testified at Kapoor's
trial. Ness and Kapoor only met at the
trial and not earlier. Ness wasn't involved in the
trial really. He was just spectating at the
trial. He wasn't like sat right at the
front talking to the DA or anything.
This is all the IR SS investigation and his was just a
bit of a side piece. And I mentioned that Frank Nitti
isn't killed like he was in the film.
He survived. He took on Capone's operation
for another 12 years after this and didn't die until he killed
himself the eve of his own trial when he was getting done.
But one thing that is true, which I was surprised that after
all that was that the juries were really bribed and they and
they were really switched like in like in the movie, which is
pretty cool that as well. So that's so that's that's the
history bit. Have you got any cool trivia?
I have some great. Trivia, especially based on
actors in the weird shit to do so.
So Sean Conway turned up with the shoot in his golf clothes.
They did a close up and Sean was dismissed for the day.
Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith grabbed them after the
scene and said that was very clever of you, you just got back
from golf, turn up for 5 minutes and do your scene and that's it.
Con returned to them and said this is not my first BBQ.
That's brilliant. So De Niro wanted.
To wear the same kind of silk underwear as Al Capone, the same
style of silk underwear as Al Capone wore, I would never be
seen on camera. But.
But the producers, knowing De Niro's reputation as a method
actor, gave in. There's a limit, right?
I mean, I guess at least his method acting isn't the kind of
oh, I'm going to be a menace to my to my colleagues, like like
Jared Leto playing the joke. All right, Like, like that's
just been a bad fucking Co worker.
But it's like, I mean, I'm, I mean, I'm not going to argue
Robert De Niro's acting chops, but do you think he asked to
keep the underwear if you were in a position if you.
Were Robert De. Niro and you were in a position
to make that kind of demand. But if you would, right, like if
you had the, if you had the choice to to wear Robert De
Niro's, Al Capone's underwear, yeah, I would do.
It I'd do it. Yeah, definitely full.
Heartbeat. Yeah, and Bob Hoskins was
initially signed on to play Al Capone, but then Brian De
Palma's first choice, Robert De Niro, became available.
Hoskins still received a $200,000 paycheck from De Palma
for being a great standby. By God, Hoskins late.
I used to tell the anecdote that he asked De Palma by there were
any other movies he didn't want them to be in.
It's so good, isn't it? I love that one.
Yeah, a bit of a casting. What if he had?
Don Johnson was offered the role of Eliot Ness, but declined.
Can you believe that? So this is.
This is 3 years into his Miami Vice period.
Yeah. I don't think he would have fit.
Like the sort of Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, like good guy role
that that that's required because he barely hangs it
together in Miami Vice. He's like a he's like a deadbeat
dad in Miami Vice, pretty much. Yeah, he just doesn't have the
same energy that Costner brought to the role.
I think. I think a lot of I think a lot
of what Costner brings to the rule work with us here.
A lot of what Costner brings to the rule is that there's not a
lot of Costner like like not a crazy out there guy.
Like like the players are very kind of mild and kind of dull
character really. Like I mean Ellie Elliot S
wouldn't be a good hangout. Like you know it would be cool
do to hang out with, you know rest of the team would be a
great hang. You know, it would be great to.
Go on the piss with. Malone, you know, forget about
it. He's fighting everyone.
Be amazing, you were saying. I was just thinking about a
similar rule. That he had in terms of his type
of character, is when he plays Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams.
Yeah, where he's he's just got. Like a wide.
Out of optimism. And there's just like a little
Boy Scout, which is the same kind of rule he's doing here,
except he's a Boy Scout with a gun here.
But he taps into the same energy in No Way Out.
But he makes that work because of the twist at the end, right?
Yeah. But he's not this corn.
Fed Iowa boy. He's actually like a, you know,
but he's also a corn fed Iowa boy.
He does. We had shit like eating bugs off
a windscreen. Elliot Ness wouldn't eat bugs
off a windscreen. Elliot Ness wouldn't do any of
this stuff. You know, he said quite a
dispassionate guy. I mean, the only that kind of
real passions he has is there's a little bit of violence,
there's a bit of vengeance in him and there's the holy that
tells his wife he's going to have sex while then she's
pregnant and then she's got a baby like a year later.
So, yeah, like there's there's there's not a lot of like Pzazz
and vim and vigour and verve and Costner's performance.
And that's what makes him he's a good guy palette that you can
kind of like put your own opinions of what he would should
be on kind of thing. You know, like he doesn't have
like complexities that someone like Don Johnson might have
brought The rule is what I'm saying, I guess.
Yeah, man, I agree with you on that.
Yeah, because Don Johnson comes with his own a baggage.
You're absolutely right. Because he has like he's just,
he's carrying a lot more personality in his face.
Yeah, we're actually discussing. Like a family function where
we're discussing Kevin Costner's acting last night, and I was
told, what's Yellowstone? Because Kevin Costner is not
very like Kevin Costner in it. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with that. Another actor who could have
been like him, I think is Gary Sinise.
Yes, he also has a similar. Kind of.
Like every man could could just be a really bland, yeah, blank
slit kind of character as well. Probably got market corrected by
Kevin Costner. Yeah.
What? I don't know if it's.
Really a lot to. Do well it's Capone but proven
fact not quite movie related that he did start a soup kitchen
in Chicago to try to rehabilitate his image and then
the unproven Not really. They were trying to attribute
the invention of expiration dates on milk to him after his
sister got sick, but that's unproven.
So. But I found that tidbit
interesting. I've kind of related that to the
beginning with the beer being brewed incorrectly.
And I was like, oh, maybe that's it.
But I could not find any evidence that he actually did
responsible for that. It's amazing.
That's wild. Yeah.
That's really interesting. Yeah.
There any more Capone facts? Yeah.
I meant to ask my. Dad about that to see if he
could give me any tidbits and I I did not hear back from him in
time for this so. Too late to for a.
Post podcast but if I find out anything, you know but yeah
yeah, yeah, yeah let's. Learn more.
We'll, we'll wait an update, yeah.
We'll have. We'll have.
We'll have an update from you. Fantastic.
Sounds good. I think the final thing before.
We move on is. I'm singing a good a good double
header for this this movie. If you want to watch a double
bill would have been does you any of you happen to see that
movie The high Women, I think it's called, which is the movie
where, yes, Kevin Costner plays. That's right.
Yeah. the US is it US Marshals, Texas Rangers?
It's the Texas. Rangers go after Bonnie.
And Clyde? Correct.
Yeah, I saw it when it came out. In 2020, I haven't seen it
since, but I remember that being really, really good.
Really good. And it gets.
The guns so right as well. Cool modern machine rifle baby
sat on straight spread hitting vacant man, they're all.
Words, right? Continuing with the categories,
I'm not going to ask Sonia how would actually No, Sonia, how
would this go down? How would this have gone down
in? Germany.
This is Pablon Berlin, right? I guess but.
Can you like? Imagine the concept of
prohibition going down in be a country like that'd.
Be weird. It's like.
Like I. Don't know that that'd be riots
the second someone tried something like that.
You want me to do what? He's drinking, Excuse me, I
mean, I don't know about about you guys, but like drinking a
such a huge part of professional culture as well over here.
Like, I mean, I, I know the Navy things and whatnot.
I know the Americans are a dry Navy now, but we we have like
things where you'll have like a glass of ports on the bridge
with all the offices or like beers after getting into port
with all team on the flight deck.
So bridge, bridge to fridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bridge to fridge. Loud and clear and cold.
Used to get whatever used to. Raft on a NATO trip it was
because to me to send a little pallet across with a shot on to
the ship you rafter begins to yeah yeah yeah send someone a
bottle of. Gin or something?
Yeah, again, like, yeah, light. Line Jack Jack stay with a just
a bottle of Brandy across it and nothing else is a is a razz yeah
so so so even when when we. Bad work in uniform, alcohol as
a thing. So I don't think just banning it
everywhere would be worth something.
Yeah, it's certainly on the decline, I think.
The Roger Nige, it's a long. It's not gone though, but it
used to be. It used to be because they
stopped. Giving out daily rum references.
Since because. Of work black.
Was it it? Was the 30?
1st of July 1971. Yeah, it's the final, the final
tot of run issued in the Royal Navy.
No more. Splicing the main brace, but we
still do that. No, we still do that.
So as you splicing in Bruce, we did it for I've only done it a
couple of times, but it comes through.
So, Roy, I don't know if you know this, but splicing the main
brace comes through as a signal from the the monarch yes to to
to. Theresa Toast and.
We did it, or was his name little Prince George and the
other Princess getting born? We we did it for them too.
My my Uncle Billy joined the. Navy just after Black top day.
She was gutted if he didn't get as dearly tall.
I remember your Uncle Billy. Yeah.
I met your snag. Yeah.
Yeah, some guy. OK, cool, that was a weird
little. Diversion also, you see, you
see. This is like what I said This is
why we are the premier defence military film thriller podcast
man 10s of listeners. Yeah, we are tolerated worldwide
by by two mighty handfuls of people.
I'm going to get to the. Categories now where we ask some
pretty pretty random little questions here.
Jen, I don't know how many of these you've listened to, but we
tend to ask if this movie would be better with a handful of
actors or characters in them. So the first one is a Trimvert,
all played by Horrison Ford. Would this movie be better with
Doctor Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy movies, Doctor Richard
Kimble from The Fugitive or President James Marshall from
Air Force One? Guys, what do you think?
So fun. That is a tough one actually.
Jack Ryan's Catholic enough to be in this film.
He is, well, Catholic enough to be in this film.
Completely salutely. This would be like, obviously
Jack, Jack Senior. I guess what I mean.
The thing is canonically, canonically, Jack Ryan's dad was
a cop in Boston. I think so.
So he could have transferred. There after Chicago, but it's
like but yeah, the fucking Jack Ryan senior would as as dad
would have been there and just just cuff looking up the place.
You know he's he hasn't just got his got his like Saint Jude
thing on him. He's he's got tokens and trick.
It's of all the Saints you know, he's he like makes him always
like a gaoler when he walks. He's got a key ring with like
icons of every Catholic. Say it no to man, you know.
And if it was Jack Ryan, do we? Think he's going to be trying to
take him down for tax evasion or is he just going to try to take
Al Capone out himself? Yeah, just just.
You've got to just act decisively your unilateral that
dream this was depends which Jack Ryan.
It is, doesn't it? If it's John Krasinski's Jack
Ryan, he's going after the money.
Yeah. But if it's Harrison Ford.
'S Jack Ryan. He's probably, he's probably
just taken some names, isn't he? You're not even in taxes.
Anymore, Yeah, he's going to print out a document so.
Fast, that's going to get you in prison for your feet even touch
the ground, it's going to evade. This motherfucker, I'm not sure
how, President. James Marshall would have would
have banned alcohol in the 1st place I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure how President James Marshall would have like
he he would have looked at the vaults that act and being like
get off my plane and just thrown through the documents out of
whatever presidential aircraft I had at the time.
Pry out of the Air Force One thing from call sign, get off my
plane. He throws it out of his little
biplane and then the vaults that act and null and void and get
out of my Senate. Yeah.
He said it. Oh man.
Cool. I think we've answered that
question. Is there a role in this movie
for a weird little guy played by Peter Falk of Combo fame?
We have a weird little guy. Do we need a second one?
Are you referring to? Our friend Oscar Wallace.
I mean, I I don't really see Peter.
Falk with a shotgun. I can see Peter Falk with a
crinkled. Up trench coat good like the the
financial disbursement, yes, yeah, that one.
You know, Mr Capone, I've just got one more question about your
income. Why does this my wife usually?
My wife usually does the taxes but I've noticed that.
I don't know about you, but in my house.
My wife does the Texas could go to your house.
Nobody. Does the Texas.
What's up with that, Mister? Capone, could you?
Imagine if, through some quirk of fate, Peter Falk end up
playing the Malone character, no.
Fucking buddy be so good this load.
Little ruggedy, kind of kind of Columbo esque guy just being so
menacing. I love it.
But yeah, just I imagined it'd be funny if you'd played.
The bookkeeper as well. So his his entire role was just
to be like, Hell's menacingly right.
But I'll tell you what you want. I'll tell you what you want.
Incredible, Incredible.
There's a rule for. Lieutenant Commander Samuel R
Jackson, U.S. Navy in this film.
But there is a similar film that I think we should cover called
Hoodlum from 1997 which stars Laurence Fishburne and it tells
the story of Bumpy Johnson, which was another and.
Dutch Schultz as well. Which is about African American
gangsters in Harlem in New York during Prohibition.
So the same time period, different city, different gang.
But that's that's a really good movie.
Which also has Andy Garcia in it.
Well, that sounds class. That sounds min Yeah, that's a
movie That that's. Already on the clear and present
list. It is indeed.
It also has. Richard Bradford.
In it, who was in this movie as Mike, the old Irish cop, a chief
of police. So yeah, there's lots of lots of
crossover sweet cool. Again towards the end last
couple. Guys, I got I got wrong off you
Rory for not including this last time.
So I'm going to include it. Is this movie pro anti Central
Intelligence Agency? This film is.
Entirely CIA neutral. The CIA did not exist, but the
USS didn't exist. I like as the last one, you
know, had the USS kind of involved tangentially.
So while I admit I did give you wrong, for us it was deserved
indeed. Qualifiers.
IRS. Propaganda.
I was going to say it's. The IRS doesn't mention a name,
but you're absolutely right. I think it's federal government
coded. Yeah, fed pilled, Fed pill.
Yeah, fed pilled. Incredible.
Fed pilled in somebody. Else's lane thriving.
Overstepping my boundaries so. I've got the scores now.
I think we're still 6 through against.
OK Rory O'Toole, have you got any notes from the peanut
gallery? Methodical removing of the
glasses says. Yes, and you have notes in the
peanut gallery and they are good ones.
This film's got some very interesting opinions from people
on Friend of the Podcast that are boxed.
Not a sponsor yet. There's a lot of people who were
giving it, like bizarrely weighted kind of scores we have.
3 1/2 stars. Kevin Costner is a bad actor.
Three stars. Not entirely sure what the point
of this was. We've got ones that are really
dead set against this film as well.
One star. This was so bad and costar is so
fucking bad. Every time I see him I get
angry. I give this movie A1 star just
because I have to do it for America.
I give this movie A1 star just because of De Niro.
Robert De Niro's Al Kapoor was amazing, he was incredible, but
the whole movie was trash and boring and distasteful and I
want to punch Costa. He played with my nerves.
I hate him in this I hate him in this. 2 1/2 stars not terrible
but fairly shite. 4 stars just I never knew there was so many
anti Italian slurs. 4 stars. What you say the entirety of the
review. 2 1/2 stars. Dad really wanted us to watch
this film. I don't think it's really my
sort of thing. And also too much shooting.
It is a dad coded film. And 1 1/2 stars.
Yeah, Kevin Costner does the worst possible Chicago accent.
It seemed like everyone is having a who could act worse
off. Also Robert De Niro portrayed Al
Capone as if Al Capone was trying to act as Robert De Niro.
Cool suits though. Some absolute bangers here.
I think Kevin Costner makes every movie is in corny as fuck.
Should have had way more scenes with De Niro.
De Niro's character was really the only good thing about this
movie. 2 stars and so that's one.
If they're not plotting, they're brooding.
No in between and just a three star one.
The extent of the three star assessment is Robert De Niro
looking like Tony Soprano. Yeah.
Fantastic and just a. Great one here.
Five stars. Now that's a fucking film, by
the way. Absolute banger.
Sean Connery is a fucking Why do I?
Think this was. Written by a glass region.
Go on. Now that's a.
Fucking film. BTW, absolute banger.
Sean Connery is a fucking hammer in this film.
Great music too. How mad was prohibition BTW?
That sounds. That sounds glass region in my
head. That sounds with my
father-in-law. And.
Yeah, and just a two star here. That's kind of scaring.
This is the last one we'll end on.
That was not good, mostly because of cost now, but
partially due to some silly scenes in a score that didn't
always fit the tone of the movie.
Fuck you. The story relies on the lead
being able to relate the audience his internal moral
struggles, but Costner plays it far too small.
Also, I just can't portray subtleties or big emotions, at
least not in 1987. I think he's going to.
I think he's grown as an actor since then, but his early work
is so flat. Well, he's kind of flat in this
film. There was, however, some
excellent camera work and directions typical of De Palma
that compelled me to finish the movie.
Also, Connery and De Niro were fun to watch.
But water is wet, fork found in kitchen, etcetera.
Wow. Absolutely.
Divided. Opinion.
Yeah. Here endeth.
The notes Peanut colour. Right, cool.
Final category, and this is where I'm going to open the
floor to you guys completely. Ding Chavez Award for the missed
opportunity in the movie. Jen Fioriuelas.
Ding Chavez is a minor character in the Tom Clancy universe who
gets not enough to do in the film Clear and present danger,
which is why we've called this category that.
But yeah, guys, what did this movie not do that you think
maybe it shouldn't? I mean, what didn't it do?
It went from. Chicago to Cowboys, and that was
a really. Good fight.
Actually it did a. Lot of things, I'll let you guys
give a real answer. Though and.
Missed the opportunity there was.
Mounties getting into full on close combat range with Lancers
and just skewering these guys. Just just just these Mounties
are like we are. We are no longer asking
permission and just getting on the bridge.
Lance's couched. Just skewering, skewering these
Italian Americans, making a real kebab out of them.
It missed that opportunity. Yeah, there's actually that
scene had a. Missed opportunity in some way.
I mean, that's something that has sort of irked me a little.
Like, the entire firm has no issue with blowing up little
girls, getting children into the middle of gunfights, exploding
people's heads and whatnot. And then there's this tight
packed bunch of mounties on a horses on a bridge, and there's
like a dozen people with machine guns firing at them.
Yeah, and none of them. Are dead.
Afterwards, what's going on there?
I like, I refuse to believe that 20 like 12 people with Thompson
guns could like miss that sort of target completely.
Star Wars Stormtroopers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not. I mean that makes it.
Calling that a missed opportunity to makes it sound
like I I would really love to see some some dead Mounties.
That's that is distinctly not the case.
But yeah, that that was a bit off from the rest of the film.
Yeah. So I think I've got.
A reason why that? Happened and because you're
absolutely right, it doesn't tie in with the rest of the movie in
terms of how guns are operated, especially a Tommy gun, which
has incredible accuracy if you pointed at Sean Connery, but at
nobody else apparently, which is when they it's not Irish seeking
ammunition. To have.
That's where the Mr Mouth works. When you're aware when?
They filmed this sequence. Between like what's going to be
the Canadian border. They actually shot it in
Missouri. I forgot the name of the bridge
now, but all the riders on the Mounties are just locals.
They they've drafted in to ride the horses and they had room in
a field adjacent for like 100 or so other people just to spectate
what was going on. I just watched watched the scene
get filmed. But I think because they got
like regular local people from nearby to ride the horses, they
probably didn't have them doing any stunt riding for like
getting shot and falling off for anything like that, in case it
has something to do with the insurance.
That's my theory. But that's how they shot the
scene anyway, so that's apparel to Lord.
Of the rings, really it is with the.
The Kiwis a random and they're hearing horse.
Girls and and putting beards on them horse girls and.
You got some. Incredible scenes of of so my
minor missed opportunity. My serious 1 is the.
Way the really thin. Home life they've got for Elliot
Ness for narrative economy, I guess makes us a very kind of
good guys versus bad guys. Nobody's complicated kind of
story when actually Elliot Ness's home life was a lot more
complicated. You know, he had three wives.
He was a bit of a the Jackal lad and and not the kind of whiter
than white hero is portrayed to be in the movie.
My less serious word is I know we said earlier on we didn't
really want it, but I still would like to see at least in
the deleted scene of the race track shootout where they pull
the guy's fake moustache off. I wanted to be Sean Connery, who
did. Wait a minute lad, there is Sean
Connery. Who?
Does it in the in the. Screenplay as well, I'm going to
find, I'm going to find the line.
So what happens is there's a race track, the race that this
guy's about a bet on is for a horse called Paymaster, and
they're waiting by the bookies, Little kaboosh, because the
final bets are coming in for that.
And the guy, obviously, he's going to want to put a bet on
and he's meant to have slipped his handlers from Capoon's gang.
So that's how they're going to get him.
Turns out he's a trap. A bunch of Capoons thugs pull up
and a big oil truck and and and. Yeah, yes.
Malone shoots a. War Rig.
Yeah, Malone, Malone. Shoots it with a gun, like a
shotgun or something and it bursts into flames and spills
over. But more goons get out of it
somehow and sort of like walking around the fire that's formed.
So there's like the street's on fire, there's like people
running around, these guys come out.
It's a big trap. This is a very different.
Film. At this time, this is a very
different film. This is very much.
Like when I had that deleted. Scene from any of the state we
were talking through. Yeah, so Angle at the front of
the oil truck, Nest and Stone coming around the truck, Malone
in the foreground, bookkeeper between them.
Nest, Malone, Let's get under safety.
Malone and Stone host of their guns.
Stone, Mr Payne, Angle Payne, who has been standing in the
middle of the battle. He takes a submachine gun from
under his arm, pulls the boat on the submachine gun and starts to
level it. At Stone and Malone, Nest takes
aim, his gun clicks on an empty chamber.
He draws another pistol from the small of his back and fires,
killing Pain. Who's the bookkeeper?
Angle Malone, the dead Pain, Nest and Stone a beat.
They advance on the fallen body. They pause above the body.
They turn the body over Angle on the fallen water.
Pain the three untouchables standing above the body.
The men look at each other. Malone bends down to the body.
Malone kneeling by the body of reaches for Paine's moustache,
pulls it off. It's an imposter.
Malone stands. Ness Well, well.
And now we're back where we started, aren't we, Malone I
have a lead. You go back to the store.
The Dai think I know how we can find this guy.
STONE I stopped fighting too soon.
Ness. Mr Stone Yes, you did.
If you get into it, you do not stop until one of you is dead.
Malone I didn't know you carried a second gun.
Ness You never need it until you need it badly here, end of the
lesson. So Ness gives Malone a lesson,
but that that dilutes the impact of him seeing here, end of the
lesson at the end of the movie, though, I think.
And it does, and it and it doesn't.
Make sense when put in context with the big shootout at the
station, because a lot of that, like kind of hinges on the fact
that he's got a shotgun, he's got a sidearm, there's not an
additional. Side on and then Stone comes in
with it comes in clutch with their throws it so yeah, it's a
very different kind of film. I'm glad to talk that out, but
on the. Words here under.
The lesson we hear end of the podcast, I think guys, one bit
of a business before we depart. We talked offline last time
about doing our next movie being a particular film.
I want to change that and I want to posit.
To you a notion. That we stick with Brian De
Palma. Yeah.
And we do potentially, if you guys agree Mission Impossible
from 1996 the first one. Let's do it.
Or a. Christmas film.
But I mean. After you until you want to
watch Die Hard. Not necessarily die hard, but.
Let's do any shit in Black Film, OK?
Call it Mission Impossible One. Yeah.
Yeah, cool, right? All all that remains to be said
is thank you very much Jen for joining us.
I hope this hasn't been too boring with me and Rory
basically talking incessantly. Well, this has been exciting
and. Very first podcast, always look
for those things sometimes, yeah, it'd be cool to have a
podcast. So I'm like, I have nothing to
talk about. I'm really kind of related to Al
Capone, so here we are. It's awesome.
It's been. It's been a total pleasure
having you, Jen. Absolutely.
Thank you. It has and you.
You. Have an open.
Invite whenever you want to come back.
All right, Ashok, Fantastic. That's great.
Any. Whatever movie you're doing
ahead. Of time and I'll watch it.
Awesome. Right.
Well, that is. Left to be said then and we try
and do this in unison every time.
We never once done it, but we have been clear.
President. Dudes, that was the closest.
We've been to being synchronised.