The Untouchables 1920s

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Reality and fiction within the film industry are often misunderstood by the audience. A lot of the events that happened in the film ‘The Untouchables’ never actually took place in real life, Elliot Ness never met Al Capone (scarface) and the courthouse scene never happened, and so the list goes on, but despite this the director Brian De Palma’s still gives the audience an excellent depiction of 1920’s and early 1930’s America during Prohibition.

Prohibition also known as The Noble Experiment was clearly a failure, innocent people suffered; organized crime grew into an empires; the police, courts, and politicians became increasingly corrupt; disrespect for the law grew; and the per capita consumption of the prohibited substance-alcohol-increased dramatically, year by year. “Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve” (Thorton, pg15).

The streets of Chicago became a war zone ,as gangsters from rival gangs riddled each other with bullets, and deftly defied the law through slightly, less-than-honorable techniques, the 1930s were plagued with corruption on the municipal scale. “Many bootleggers secured their business by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status” (Bowen, pg160). Many law enforcement agencies were brought into suspected areas of illegal alcoholic activity to put a stop on these banned doings.

Untouchables Real

Director Brian De Palma portrayed one account of these actions in his 1987 movie, The Untouchables.

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The film centered on straight-arrowed cop Eliot Ness’s obsession to end the infamous Capone crime syndicate in Chicago. Recruiting the help of a group of law enforcement officers who were unable to be bribed, and thus ‘untouchable,’ Ness finally stopped the gangster boss on the grounds of income tax evasion. But was this movie as historically accurate as one would expect?

By examining some of the elements of the movie, the true historical colors of the film might shine through. Through the use of cinematography, setting, as well as knowledge of actual events, the accuracy of this ‘historical’ movie can fairly be judged. Brian De Palma’s use of period specific sets really helps the viewer get the feeling they were there in the 1930’s, this is achieved by filming on location and showing the eccentricity of 1920’s and 1930’s through architecture.

One fantastic scene is where there is an overview shot of La Calle Street Canyon in Chicago when Sean Connery’s character, Wallace, leads Kevin Costner’s character, Eliot Ness, to one of Capone’s booze cellars across the street. The scene displays huge, almost monolithic, buildings and rows of period cars. This was important in setting the stage of the film thus giving the viewer a sense of realism. Another important scene includes the descending of Al Capone and his men in the hotel that he considered being the headquarters of his gangster consortium.

Almost everything in the scene has a golden aura to it, sharply contrasting to the prevalent power of “Scarface” himself. Overall, the amount of money they spent to surround the actors with scenes and memorabilia of the 1930’s really paid off and made for a great film visually historic. When you see Capone leave the hotel, it’s almost like he was an iconic figure, the media gave him the attention as they would a movie star. Children would mimic him in the streets; many other gangsters and outlaws held this iconic status, mass murderers such as Billy the kid would also get similar media attention.

Al Capone himself enjoyed a celebrity status in Chicago and was a master at public relations, Capone saw to it that the press was friendly to him and never missed a chance to play up his donations to a charitable group. To the people of Chicago he was a hero who saved them from the oppression of the people for prohibition. Al Capone’s popularity was incredible; this is because he was providing a banned alcohol for an alcohol hungry people, oblivious to the atrocities being caused by the underground mobs.

Normal everyday people were becoming criminals, “criminal groups organize around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as consuming alcohol” (Thorton, 13). Because alcohol was no longer legally available, there was a sudden increase in crime, the public turned to gangsters to obtain alcohol, as a result the amount of money to be made caused massive rivalry between gangs, the Untouchables gives you great examples of this rivalry, by giving the viewer graphic scenes of gang violence. “The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders a year in Chicago alone” (Bowen, 175).

One of the most gruesome and remembered gangster shoot-outs of all time occurred on Valentine’s Day, 1929, which was portrayed excellently in the film, because of business differences, Capone had his henchman, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn plot the murder of the O’Banions, led by Bugs Moran. McGurn staged a delivery of alcohol to Moran at a warehouse and had his gang members impersonate police officers and pretend to raid the transaction.

With a sweep of machine gun fire, McGurn killed all that were inside. Capone had a solid alibi, being in Miami at the time, and no convictions were ever made. This event is an example of how prohibition fueled gang warfare and increased the crime rate in America” (Bowen, 175). While the film is based on a real aspect of the hunt for Capone in Prohibition-era Chicago, the writer and director deviated from the subject’s historical accuracy. While they got the major concepts of ‘the untouchables’ correct, there were facts altered to benefit the storyline. First off, Eliot Ness is portrayed as a family man and didn’t come from Chicago, whereas he was actually from Chicago and had no immediate family, yet both were key elements to Ness’s character.

Another important fact altered for the film was that Ness’s original 10-man team of ‘untouchables’ suffered no causalities and the fact that two of the most beloved men of the group were killed in the movie which adds to the idea of dramatizing history. Perhaps the biggest flaw of the film comes at the end. In the very climax of the film, after Ness’s rooftop chase with gangster, Frank Nitti, Ness pushes Nitti over the edge of a building ending his life in another of De Palma’s notoriously bloody scenes and, as expected, followed up by an aerial view of the impact. The flaw in this series of events is that Nitti was not killed by Ness.

In fact, Nitti was Capone’s successor and lived a further 12 years as head of the illustrious crime organization. However there were also some almost unbelievable yet accurate historical events as well. One of the most famous and memorable scenes from The Untouchables was the baseball bat attack by Capone upon three suspected traitors, though slightly reworked, added to the portrayal of Capone as a dangerous criminal. So while some events were completely changed for Hollywood, some events were simply shown in their entirety adding to the historical authenticity of the film.

If not totally accurate The Untouchables still gives the viewer a taste of America during Prohibition. The films convey through graphic scenes, the violence caused by prohibition and also the failings of prohibition, “Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve” (Thorton, pg15). The movie also gets across to the viewers the time period. Looking at De Palma’s use of cinematography, setting, and the knowledge of actual events from The Untouchables lets viewers see the film in a new, more historically critical light.