8.4/1090 votes#1 - The Troubleshooter
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 10/12/1961
In the summer of 1934, a new gambling device was sweeping the nation: the punchboards. Even though they were nickel-and-dime games, it added up-- they made more money for the mob than the numbers racket. After Ness and his men smash some of the punchboard manufacturing sites, the 5 members of the syndicate running the punchboards hold a meet at a building by the freight yards: the top mobsters from Chicago (Jake ""Joe"" Petrie), Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit and New York (Max Riegel). Petrie says he can sum up all their problems in 2 words: Eliot Ness.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1079 votes#2 - Power Play
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/19/1961
By the Summer of 1933, a new wave of crime has engulfed Chicago. Due to a public outcry for action, Willard Thornton is appointed as a new commissioner to clean up the town. At a press conference, Thornton arrogantly says his office does not publicly constitute criticism of any law enforcement agency-- while his tone of voice implies he privately does criticize them. Eliot Ness is standing right next to him, looking more dour than usual. Ness and his men go on a raid, they find a shipment of heroin in a hideout.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1075 votes#3 - Tunnel of Horrors
Season 3 Episode 3 - Aired 10/26/1961
August 28, 1933. That night, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables, and some undercover plainclothes police, are staking out an amusement pier on the Chicago lakefront; they are tailing Alexander Raeder-- owner of the pier, and the source of the new narcotics flooding the Windy City. Ness had received an anonymous tip that Raeder was delivering 15 pounds of heroin, half a million dollars' worth, to a syndicate contact.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/1077 votes#4 - The Genna Brothers
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 11/2/1961
In the years following WWI, there was a flood of European immigrants into the USA. In the early 1920s, the 6 Genna brothers, place of origin Sicily, were headed to Chicago. The Genna brothers are nothing but a gang of bullies, and in a few short years they are the ruling lords of Little Italy, an Italian neighborhood in Chicago. One night, as the 6 Gennas are beating up a street vendor, Agent Enrico Rossi whales into them. The leader, Mike Genna, asks if he knows who they are; Rossi says, ""Yeah, the Genna brothers-- one rat with 6 heads!"" Mike Genna says that Enrico Rossi is Italian, just like them; Rossi says he's ashamed.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/1080 votes#5 - The Matt Bass Scheme
Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 11/9/1961
In mid-June 1932, Eliot Ness, having compiled a list of Frank Nitti's breweries & distilleries, began a series of raids designed to break the back of the Capone empire. This puts the pressure on Frank Nitti, Capone's lieutenant. Nitti calls a meet with Seth Otis and Phil Grier, who jointly own the biggest speakeasy in Chicago, the Hotsy Totsy Club.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.9/1098 votes#6 - Loophole
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 11/16/1961
Chicago, January 1933. Ness and his men raid a speakeasy owned by gangster Mikhail ""Red Mike"" Probich, and run by Connie LaVerne. At the trial, Probich is represented by his crooked lawyer Morton Halas, who grew up in poverty. The trial drags on for 5 days. Finally, Ness is ready to call the last prosecution witness, Connie LaVerne, who ""is 80% of their case."" Morton Halas objects, on the grounds that a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1074 votes#7 - Jigsaw
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 11/23/1961
September 14, 1932. At 11:30 p.m., Eliot Ness goes to the Odeon movie theatre (not the Odeon Burlesque theatre used in several episodes); he gives stoolie Marty Wilger an envelope with cash for his tips. Those tips had led to successful raids by Ness against Nitti's speaks: booze, girls, gambling tables; also 2 warehouses and a distillery in the last week. Nitti's plenty sore.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1079 votes#8 - Man Killer
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 12/7/1961
Chicago, July 1934. Anonymous phone calls have been tipping off Ness and his men to narcotics activities; they do a bunch of raids. On August 4, even though sales have fallen off, Frank Nitti is ordering 15 kilos of heroin*, the biggest single shipment ever. That night, one of Nitti's boys makes the trade: dough for the H. He gets into a car driven by another of Nitti's boys, Manny Kravitz.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.7/1067 votes#9 - City Without a Name
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 12/14/1961
1933. Violence and corruption were at an all-time high in Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City-- virtually every city in the U.S. The lone exception is an Eastern seaboard metropolis, referred to as City Without a Name, in which the voters had used the ballot box to vote corruption out of public office. And Federal agent Arnold Wainwright had kept organized crime out-- but on October 22, he is blasted by machine-guns while in a coffee shop.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.9/1068 votes#10 - Hammerlock
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/21/1961
New York, middle of 1932. The Syndicate-- headed by Joe Kulak, Louis ""Lepke"" Buchalter and Dutch Schultz-- has the city's huge garment industry organized and under control. Now they are setting their sights on bakeries; there are 500 independent wholesale bakers in the city. They give Bull Hanlon the word: get the biggest independent baker, Adam Stone, to sign up and all the rest will fall in line.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/1065 votes#11 - Canada Run
Season 3 Episode 11 - Aired 1/4/1962
November 1932. Big-time gangster Joe Palakopolous is playing a dangerous game-- he just had his hitman rub out Danny Kugan, the biggest supplier of Canadian whiskey that Frank Nitti had. And Nitti's plenty sore. Kugan was the only guy who could import Canadian Gold for Nitti. The phony stuff is no good; Nitti quips that bottled rotgut is so bad, ""it peels off the labels from the inside."" Eliot Ness and his men investigate Kugan's killing, and try to find out who will take over the operation.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1061 votes#12 - Fall Guy
Season 3 Episode 12 - Aired 1/11/1962
October 1932, Chicago. With Capone in the slammer, other bosses are biting off chunks of Capone's empire. One boss is Frankie Gruder, head of a group that is the forerunner of Murder, Inc.; Gruder wants control of all the Canadian imports and exports. Gruder and his boys go to a warehouse, Gruder shoots a longshoreman. Ness and his men show up and start blasting. There's a shoot-out. Gruder manages to escape.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1070 votes#13 - The Gang War
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 1/18/1962
1932. Chicago is a thirsty town, consuming 86,000 gallons of booze a day; that's 32-million gallons a year. Almost all this booze is beer and rotgut, but 1% is the finest Canadian scotch. Nitti's boys, armed with tommy guns, shoot up a rival speak, the Blue Lion, that's serving the Canadian scotch. Ness and his men investigate; 2 people dead, 3 critically injured.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.9/1069 votes#14 - The Silent Partner
Season 3 Episode 14 - Aired 2/1/1962
Chicago, March 2, 1932. The hottest nightspot in town is the Club Tunisian, owned by gangster Pete Kalik, who built it up from a small speak. Ness and Lee Hobson show up, but not to see gorgeous singer Mavis Carroll-- they had gotten an anonymous phone tip earlier. Lee Hobson is tired, he is due to take his vacation leave starting Friday. Ness and Hobson get contacted by the club comedian Eddie Paris, he is the one who phoned them. After his show, he meets with Ness and Hobson at the Denton Street wharf; Eddie wants Pete Kalik put away behind bars, he says Kalik is working out a big alcohol deal with the Partner, the mysterious man who had backed Torrio and Capone.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1064 votes#15 - The Whitey Steele Story
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 2/8/1962
New York City. July 23, 1934. The Underworld, which had long made big money by covering bets on horse races, wants to get their hands on a new invention-- the racewire, which can speed the results of horse races to bookmakers everywhere. That rainy night, Michael Barrigan and Frederic Withers (who, along with their partner Douglas Barrows, own and run the Trans-Pacific News Service) receive an urgent call from Barrows-- but Barrigan finds Barrows dead in a bookie joint (the back room of Hayes florists) when he gets there.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.2/1090 votes#16 - The Death Tree
Season 3 Episode 16 - Aired 2/15/1962
Early November 1931. On West Madison Street, there is a wonderfully diverse neighborhood made up of gypsies of Romanian, Hungarian and Czech descent. The area is flooded with Capone's rotgut, being distributed by Janos Colescu. There are many colorful characters, including the chestnut vendor with his singsong voice: ""Get your red-hot che-e-estnuts, the wind is cold."" When the rotgut leads to a drunken knife-fight that leaves a gypsy dead, the 8-member gypsy Senate, headed by Victor Bartok, with his brother Fedor Bartok, convenes. Eliot Ness shows up to offer his help to end the bootleg booze; they decline his help, saying they will handle matters themselves.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/1074 votes#17 - Takeover
Season 3 Episode 17 - Aired 3/1/1962
Chicago, October 1932. The only ""beer"" allowed to be served during Prohibition is ""near-beer"" or ""Near-O""-- which is 0.5% alcohol, as opposed to real beer which is 4.0% alcohol. And so, a lot of legitimate beer producers wind up ""spiking"" the barrels of near-beer with pure alcohol, to get it up to strength. A northside brewer named Woody O'Mara wants to smash all his competition; he tells his girlfriend Amy Gratzner, a rather plain-looking 23-year-old secretary for rival brewer Franz Koenig, to blow the whistle on her boss.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1063 votes#18 - The Stryker Brothers
Season 3 Episode 18 - Aired 3/8/1962
March 3, 1932. It's the great train robbery, on the southbound express headed for Chicago. The Stryker brothers steal mail sacks containing 750 grand in payroll money. During the robbery, a baggage man and Lippy Carson (an associate of the Stryker brothers, who had worked as a mail clerk) are killed, and thrown from the speeding train. Since mail robbery is a federal offense, Eliot Ness and his Untouchables are called in.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/1074 votes#19 - Element of Danger
Season 3 Episode 19 - Aired 3/22/1962
Chicago, August 29, 1934. That night, in the Haymarket district, special agent Daniel Gosden, a policeman on loan to the Untouchables, goes through a skylight and finds an opium laboratory in the top floor of a rundown tenement hotel. Just then, drug lord Victor Rait and 4 hoods (Gus, Sully, Max, and Trapp) show up, carrying crates of supplies into the place. Rait spots Gosden and gives chase; just as Gosden phones Ness for back-up, Rait blows him away with a shotgun. Then Rait blasts 6 bullets from his gun to disperse the crowd of tenants investigating the noise. Somebody phones the cops, because within minutes Eliot Ness and his men and some policemen are on the scene.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.6/1070 votes#20 - The Maggie Storm Story
Season 3 Episode 20 - Aired 3/29/1962
Chicago, after the Repeal of Prohibition; (so this would be around 1934). With booze legal, the racket czars step up their dealings in narcotics. Ness and Lee Hobson are chasing 2 dope-pushers, one of them is Benny Rivas. After the shootout, one hood is dead; Benny moans, ""Get me a priest."" Ness finds heroin on him; wanting to die with a clear conscience, Benny says, ""808"" and dies. That leads Ness to Maggie Storm's 808 Club.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/1066 votes#21 - Man in the Middle
Season 3 Episode 21 - Aired 4/5/1962
November 7, 1933. Slot machines are big business; 2,000 of the one-armed bandits rake in $100,000 per week; ($50 per machine). One night, ""Moose"" Tobin and 3 other Bomer hoods drop in on Porker Davis' upstairs gambling joint. Tobin tells Davis that Bomer wants to teach him a lesson; the hoods chase everybody out of the joint. Then they start throwing the slot machines out the 2nd story window; when one of Davis' employees tries to stop them, the hoods throw him out the window.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.2/1059 votes#22 - Downfall
Season 3 Episode 22 - Aired 5/3/1962
Chicago. Pete ""The Persuader"" Kalmisky, former bodyguard of Al Capone, accompanied by Syndicate business manager Alan Sitkin, have a meeting with Joey December, president of the debt-ridden Great Lakes Pacific Railroad. They form a crooked alliance; Joey agrees to transport their illegal liquor on his trains, in exchange for ""20% off the top."" After Kalmisky leaves, Sitkin talks privately with Joey. Sitkin gives Joey $100,000 for 10,000 shares of Canada Central stock, now worth $10 a share;
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1066 votes#23 - The Case Against Eliot Ness
Season 3 Episode 23 - Aired 5/10/1962
March 4, 1933. The Windy City is getting ready for the Chicago World's Fair, also known as the ""Century of Progress"" Exposition. The 3 wealthy Endicott brothers, who jointly owned franchises at the upcoming Fair, are all rubbed out in short order. Restaurant owner Gus Dmytryk goes to the Licensing Committee, and it seems he will get the former Endicott franchises: 3 nightclubs at the Midway, and 5 other concessions. It will mean big bucks, since the Chicago World's Fair is expected to draw 50-million visitors.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.2/1065 votes#24 - The Ginnie Littlesmith Story
Season 3 Episode 24 - Aired 5/17/1962
May 17, 1932. There are many free soup kitchens in Chicago, but one of them in the skid row section is really a front; upstairs, gangster Chiz Gosher, twice convicted of white slavery, has his office. His partners in crime are the powerful, nationwide vice ring known as The Group, represented by hood Vic Cassandros. Chiz's niece is Ginnie Littlesmith, who runs the soup kitchen, and she is not involved in the rackets. Downstairs, Enrico Rossi is working undercover-- he's dressed in dirty old clothes, and phones Ness; Eliot tells him the raid is set for 12:45.* But Vic is soon tipped of Ness' impending raid; Vic goes upstairs and demands the ledger books from Gosher.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1063 votes#25 - The Contract
Season 3 Episode 25 - Aired 5/31/1962
New York City; February 4, 1934. 3 months of intensive investigation is paying off for Ness and his Untouchables; they have ""Smiley"" Barris cornered in an upper floor of an Eastside tenement. With the aid of local police, and some tear gas, Smiley is apprehended. But somebody wants Smiley dead; a sniper with a high-powered rifle, on the roof of a building, shoots at Smiley-- he accidentally kills the cop beside Smiley.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of The Untouchables Season 3
Every episode of The Untouchables Season 3 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of The Untouchables Season 3!
Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptible agents battle organized crime in 1930s Chicago.
Genres:DramaCrime
Network:ABC
Season 3 Ratings Summary
"The Troubleshooter" is the best rated episode of "The Untouchables" season 3. It scored 8.4/10 based on 90 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 10/12/1961. This episode is rated 0.4 points higher than the second-best, "Power Play".