The Untouchables (TV Series) The Jamaica Ginger Story (1961) User Reviews

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[searchanddestroy-1 · 8/10 · 30 September 2019]

That's precisely the kind of UNTOUCHABLES episode I love above all. It doesn't focus only on Ness and his crew, but on the contrary tells a supporting topic; here the romance between Keith and the room owner he rents. I don't find it out of the story, that doesn't annihilâtes the darkness nor violence of the scheme, on the contrary, you feel this way more empathy for the hired killer, whom Brian Keith's character is supposed to be. And that leads you to "suffer" even more when the character dies...IF HE DIES....

I DID NOT SPOIL ANYTHING HERE !!!

Some good acting but a poor ending

[pensman · 8/10 · 8 May 2017]

James Coburn, Brian Keith, and Michael Ansara—You have to be of a certain age (I mean old like myself) to appreciate those names. All fine actors who bring their A-game to this episode. James Coburn plays a hit man, Dennis Garrity, with ice water in his veins, if the price is right. At 5K a hit here, the price is good. Brian Keith plays it "type" and against "type" at the same time. Keith frequently played a sweet good natured guy in spite of his build. You see that image on display when he first comes on screen. He is bowling with a friend who a little short and needs Keith (Jim Martinson) to spot him 20 bucks. Not a problem. He then gets a call in the alley from gentleman gangster Rafael Torres (Michael Ansara). Torres says he's a friend of Frank Nitti (Al Capone's enforcer before he replaced Al), and he has a contract. Fine. Now Martinson returns and asks the guy for the 20. As he doesn't have it, we see Martinson real nature as he picks up the guy slamming him into the alley and into the pins.

Torres has made a considerable fortune running what is referred to as Jamaica Ginger. But he has a clean reputation. Even Ness can't find anything on him initially. Torres seems clean by running a stable and building up a solid reputation as a horseman. But a rival mobster, Jerry LaCava, is moving in; LaCava wants half the business. Torres contracts Martinson and Garrity to take out the competition.

This should be a simple job but the writers take advantage. They have some great actors here not to be wasted. Martinson takes a room in a house run by an old gabby arthritic lady and her plain-Jane spinster school teacher niece. Martinson takes an interest in the niece and it looks like a potential romance. He even suggests a possible engagement. But business is business Martinson takes out LaCava and a bodyguard in a diner; Garrity takes out the other two bodyguards who were waiting outside the diner. Everything "looks jake." But the waitress recalls the one shooter had a scar on his hand and had a bowling bag.

Ness and boys track down Martinson because he used his own name when he won a local bowling tournament. When Ness questions Martinson he claims he was with his girlfriend. Ness goes to talk with her but she's not in her room. Martinson calls Garrity and tells him to find his girl and convince her to alibi him. But she refuses; we are to assume Garrity did away with her and burned her body.

Martinson comes to see Garrity, he says he told the girl to lay low until the problem with the law blows over. Martinson seems to go along with the explanation; but now Garrity needs a favor. He just got a new contract for 20K and needs a partner. They have to off Torres. Martinson is cautious. Torres is big, he's connected to the New York syndicate. Garrity claims the hit came on orders from New York. Martinson is in.

Ness find what he believes is the body of Martinson's girl. He accuses Martinson of killing her. He says she's with her mother in Wichita. But when Ness shows Martinson an emerald ring that didn't burn, he is in shock. He loved her, he says, they were going to get married. It dawns on him what happened. He calls Torres to warn him about the hit.

In the interim, Ness has taken some soil samples in for analysis. In a bit of scientific hocus pocus that Abby Sciuto (NCIS) would have taken Cafe Pow for, the local police labs identify to the foot where the soil came from: Torres horse ranch.

Martinson and Garrity arrive at the ranch to take out Torres. Also, to pick up their fee for taking out LaCava. Garrity gets shoved into a horse stall with a skittish horse, and Martinson riles the horse and it stomps Garrity to death. Ness arrives as Torres, Martinson, and a body guard are barn. Ness and the boys start shooting with machine guns and Torres, Martinson, and the bodyguard die in a hail of bullets cueing the voice over by Walter Winchell.

Sorry, but a bad conclusion. Ness has nothing on Torres. He has no search warrant and no reason to be there. Obviously 1920's policing was a lot easier than it is in 2017.

Watch this to find out what 'Ginger Jake' is....

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 29 February 2016]

"Jamaica Ginger," also called "Jake." Tri-ortho cresyl phosphate(TOCP), also called tricresyl phosphate, was the neurotoxin responsible for the paralysis associated with "Jake Walk." Wikipedia

When this episode of "The Untouchables" talked about Ginger Jake, I looked it up and found that it was an artificial alcohol sold by the mob. I also learned something NOT said in the show...that the paralysis was caused when the government began deliberately adulterating the alcohol in order to discourage its use!! In this show, however, there's a different sort of Ginger Jake...one made with very toxic wood alcohol...which causes death!

In this episode, Torrez (Michael Ansara) is the big boss in the Ginger Jake business and it's thanks, in part, to his hiring killers to do his dirty work. Martinson (Brian Keith) and Garrity (James Coburn) are the killers...and Martinson is an odd one. While he kills, he seems like sort of a nice guy and loves to bowl...and does this with his new girlfriend. But, when he's killed someone he claims that he was with his girl...and his 'friends' find her and insists that she lies for him. She won't...so Garrity kills her! What sort of mayhem does this lead to? See the show.

As usual, Ness and his men show up at the end but generally have little to do up until this point. Mostly it's the usual...mobsters wiping out other mobsters and the Untouchables need to mop up at the end.

An unusually poignant episode of The Untouchables

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 3 March 2022]

At first it looks like it is going to be a Gangster Vs Gangster episode. Kansas City gangster Rafe Torrez is selling the dangerous alcoholic beverage "Ginger Jake", a high alcohol content alternative to other alcoholic beverages during Prohibition. Another gangster, Jerry LaCava, is trying to muscle in on Torrez' business, so Torrez hires a pair of out of town hitmen - Jim Martinson (Brian Keith) and Dennis Garrity (James Coburn) - to kill LaCava and his gang.

From there the episode takes an unexpected turn. Martinson comes to Kansas City and rents a room in a private house. Martinson starts to take up with the niece of the owner, shy and rather plain schoolteacher Louise Rainey. At first I wondered if Martinson was using this woman as some kind of cover for his intended hit. But no, he really does love her. He plans to do this last hit, retire, marry Louise and go straight! But his two lives - hitman and soft spoken fiance of a schoolteacher - tragically intersect.

You have some good scenes here - a crazy horse as an instrument of revenge, a police lab technician solving a mystery for Ness, a semi pro bowler who has an interesting way of dealing with deadbeats, and a waitress who recognizes a particular kind of scar by knowing about a similar one on a rather private part of her boyfriend. There is a murder in this episode that is so violent that it is not shown only discussed, which is saying lots for The Untouchables.

True in the bowling lanes

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 9 April 2014]

This episode of The Untouchables finds Robert Stack and his team in Kansas City. Oddly enough no mention of the Prendergast machine which was at its heights during this time, nor even of a Jackson County Judge named Harry S. Truman.

What's going on is that a brand of alcohol from the Caribbean called Jamaica Ginger which can be lethal is being used in the bootlegging industry. Said industry is also having a shooting war between gangsters Michael Ansara and Alfred Ryder. Ansara imports some contract killers for said war who include Brian Keith and James Coburn.

It all goes wrong when Keith who is also bowling hustler meets school teacher Jean Inness at an alley. After that it all goes horribly wrong and everybody winds up dead in a truly bloody episode.

With these kind of guest stars this is not an episode to pass up.

Lots Of Wild-And-Crazy Things In This Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 10 September 2011]

As explained up front by narrator Walter Winchell, "Jamaica Ginger" (a.k.a. Ginger Jake) was a "lethal alcohol" that people would drink and could die from it.

Here, competing mobsters in the Kansas City are after the stuff. One has it, so the other steals some from him and things escalate after that to the point in which one of the guys is murdered.

This is a violent episode, yet it has a strange romance in the middle of it. One of the hit-men in the story falls for a very plain local girl. It hardly makes sense but it's an okay diversion from the tenseness of the story. Veteran TV actor Brian Keith plays the hit-man, bowler and romantic who is ready to settle down after he meets a local school teacher named "Louise." Neverthelrss, the major part of the story is Ness and his boys trying to get this "Ginger Jake" off the streets and stopping whoever has it, which turns out to be "Rafael Torres," played by another familiar actor of his time: Michael Ansara.

This episode was really intriguing, different from most in that it had so many odd side-stories, such as bowling,romance, an untamed racehorse who stomps a guy to death. Oh, and did I mention James Coburn, playing the other hit-man?

Yes, there is plenty of interesting material in this episode.

The poisoned booze Jamaica Ginger in highest deadly stakes!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 20 December 2023]

Between The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape James Coburn made this small role in The Untouchables already relishing his new status as actor closest to enter in stardom, he plays a hitman called Dennis Garrity together Jim Martinson (Brian Keith) a skillful bowling player as hobby, both are hired by the King of Jamaica Ginger booze Rafael Lopez (Michael Ansara) smuggling to Kansas City due the mobster Jerry LaCava (Alfred Ryder) hijacked their shipment aiming for enforcing a partnership of this profitable niche, on the corner Rafael demands killing him and their cronies.

Actually the so vaunted Jamaica Ginger has high content of ethyl alcohol, its constant use has some collateral effects, letting to death their shoppers, a sort of poisoned booze, then Eliot Ness awares of sudden deaths enter in the circuit to track down in Kentucky the Mob's smuggler to try find out the mastermind, meanwhile Garrity and Martinson accomplished their assignment as piece of cake, however let behind some hints whereof Eliot Ness's squad sniff at once, henceforth focusing on two famous hitmen to reach in the supplier mobster of poisonous Jamaica Ginger.

This story the writers overreacted in the amount of booze, on final sequence when a small wagon is burning fire Walter Winchell states such nonsensical quote "Now the smuggles have lost a million dollar of profits" common its took place in early thirties a load cargo of booze is assessed in high sum, one wonders how much is a swig? What kind stuff we have stand to hear, it somewhat remembers such old saying, better hear some foolish things instead be deaf, what kind of fool they think we are?

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.