The Untouchables (TV Series) A Seat on the Fence (1960) User Reviews

Kubrick's First Star, Frank Silvera, Highlighted

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 6 April 2011]

Frank Silvera, an actor who successfully played a lot of tough hoods on TV in the 1960s, plays "Dino Patrone," the main criminal in this story about a thug who deals in narcotics. (Note: Silvera also starred in Stanley Kubrick's first or second feature film, "Killer's Kiss").

Well-known actor John McIntire also guest-stars in here. There are a lot of familiar faces to those of us who watched TV in this era.

The story is a good one with a number of angles: the good guys, the bad guys, and one man in particular - an influential media guy - who is trying to be "on the fence" (as the title indicates) and finally has to make a decision who he's going to help.

Another episode of bad decision theater...

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 8 March 2022]

... which all TV shows have from time to time. This episode of The Untouchables is not that compelling, so the logic errors and plot holes stick out like a sore thumb.

Drug kingpin Victor Bardo tells subordinate Willie Asher to kill his best friend and fellow subordinate, Dino Patrone on his way back from Italy for no perceivable reason other than he wants Willie to prove his loyalty.

Dino talks Willie out of this, and tells Willie he will just disappear and everyone will believe he is dead. But then Dino tells a local media guy, Loren Hall (John McIntyre), about a letter he wrote that details the crimes of the boss who ordered his hit. Of course Hall gets on the air and talks about it, of course Bardo hears about this. Of course Bardo now wants Willie dead and of course Willie now wants to finish the job on Dino he did not before. Why?? Why did Dino do this? He was believed dead and now the big boss knows he is not and that Willie lied to him.

And there is a subplot about Bardo being a diabetic who, for some reason, steals his insulin rather than getting a script from the doctor. With all of the prescriptions for insulin nobody is going to single him out for being unusual because of that. But stealing insulin along with the other drugs tips off The Untouchables that the kingpin is diabetic because insulin is not something that ever had street value because it is not a commonly abused drug.

Buried underneath all of these ponderous bad decisions is Eliot Ness trying to find out who has been stealing drugs from hospitals. The unneeded flamboyance by the bad guys in this episode certainly helps Ness out.

The diabetic gangster

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 15 October 2013]

The Untouchables are once again after narcotics in this episode and there's a new wrinkle in the racket. Someone is now stealing legal drugs from hospitals and Robert Stack and the squad want to find out who.

The mastermind is a fairly new face on the gangster scene at the top. It's Joseph Anthony who has a former crony Frank Silvera hit. But Silvera wrote a letter to his much younger sister Arlene Martel spelling out details, a letter she never got. But Anthony and his hoods think she did. Anthony is also diabetic, a fact that proves his downfall.

In the middle of all this sits John McIntire, reporter and local radio commentator who relies on his confidential sources of information. In the end he helps Eliot Ness but probably blows his own career doing it.

This was not one of the better episodes in that the character motivations are really not well thought out or spelled out for the viewer. And Eliot Ness would know better than to press McIntire for information knowing how journalists must protect sources. Today the courts would crucify Ness and even then it was not a good idea.

At least McIntire was a more honorable character than Jake Lingle of Chicago or Jerry Buckley of Detroit a couple of real life journalists who played both sides and paid with their lives.

Not especially memorable...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 1 March 2016]

"A Seat on the Fence" is a surprisingly bland episode of "The Untouchables". I say surprisingly because the previous one, "The Mar of Cain" was amazingly good and about as subtle as a 2x4 upside your head! This one, in contrast, is a bit slow and uninteresting.

The show begins with a mobster, Patroni, about to be rubbed out by his trusted aid. But the two make a deal and that is that...or it should have been. Instead of their deal, Patroni goes to a Walter Wenchell-like radio broadcaster and tells him that he has a letter that will blow the lid off organized crime IF he's murdered. Naturally, he's soon murdered and the radio journalist (John McIntire) refuses to help Ness. This ends up placing the dead man's sister at risk, as the mob assumes she has the letter...a letter which might not even exist. In addition there's a rather uninteresting subplot involving insulin.

Overall, this just isn't that interesting a show--mostly because the writing wasn't up to the usual standards. Additionally, the guest baddies weren't at all interesting--something very rare for this show.