User Reviews

Though Harold J. Stone's character of Pops Felcher never existed don't let that bother you or keep you from watching one of the best Untouchables episodes out there and a grand start for season two.

The one to really watch out for is Elizabeth Montgomery playing the title role in The Rusty Heller Story. Rusty is one foxy looking jazz baby who keeps trading up in men of the criminal type. She's got Capone accountant Norman Fell on her hooks as well as Stone who is an eastern mobster looking to take over from Al Capone should he be convicted of income tax evasion. Topping that all off she's also got David White, the future Larry Tate and boss of her husband Darrin in Bewitched just drooling after her.

When Stone is forced to take back a sable coat that his wife Allison Hayes found out she got that sets in motion Rusty's revenge where she settles accounts like a southern fried Corleone. She even makes a play for straight arrow Eliot Ness. By the way Allison Hayes best known for playing a 50 foot women who also got even with some two-timers in that movie has one biting scene with Stone and Montgomery.

Far from the all American witch Samantha Stevens, Liz Montgomery is both wonderful and as far as you can get from Bewitched as you can.

I do NOT call women 'broads'...but that is the best way to describe Rusty Heller (Elizabeth Montgomery). However, while she looks and acts a bit like a floozy, she is an incredibly scheming lady...with a love for the vendetta. Early in the show, she is slighted by a mob boss (Harold J. Stone) and spends much of the show working to destroy him...and kissing up to his second in command (David White) is just part of her plan. The other part involves trying to play Elliot Ness as well!

Apart from some slight overacting from Montgomery, this is an excellent and enjoyable episode. Plus I loved seeing her and White in the clinches--kissing as Samantha Stevens and Larry Tate NEVER did on "Bewitched"! I also appreciate the epilogue and the way that Rusty got revenge on everyone...including an angry and spiteful wife!

By the way, in this AND the next episode, Ness slugs the snot out of people who in no way resisted arrest! Not exactly realistic, but fun to watch.

Many people will know her only from the popular, long-running series, Bewitched. But here she shows her versatility as an actress: she is flirtatious, charming, ruthless, and very, very sexy. As usual with this series, this episode has good, hard-edged action and fine performances from all guest actors. Elizabeth Montgomery's magnetic character elevates this one. She is a true siren here; one feels that even Eliot Ness is not insensible to her charms.

When I commented ROARING TWENTIES several years ago, I mentioned the two series, very close to each other, in the term of atmosphere and topics: cabarets, twenties, gangsters. There were some differences though. And in this episode, starring Liz Montgomery instead of Dotty Provine, I could not prevent myself to comare tose two shows, but in the reverse way. Among the best of the whole series.

In the long list of film noir femmes fatales there's a pantheon of actresses usually headed by Jane Greer, Barbara Stanwyck and Gloria Grahame. To this illustrious list I think you can credibly add the name of Elizabeth Montgomery even though it is based on only one performance in one episode of a television show. In the "Rusty Heller Story" she plays the eponymous sexy Southern firebrand as she schemes and revenges her way up the greasy pole in the world of the 1920's bootleg era gangsters. She can charm the pants off any male shmuck and even has straight-arrow Eliot Ness watching himself. Its a bravura performance and she dominates the screen.

... it being rather odd that Darrin Stevens' boss, Larry Tate, in Bewitched and Darrin's wife Samantha - actually the actors who play them - are shown being romantically involved in this episode, four years before Bewitched premieres, but I'll get back to that.

This episode has a very beautiful girl, Rusty Heller (Elizabeth Montgomery), deciding that using men is the best way to get to financial independence. Actually, she probably decided that a long time ago, but in this episode of The Untouchables, she puts her plan and wiles into action. One night at a private party she meets gangster Charles Felcher and his attorney Archie Grayson (David White). She wisely starts from the bottom - Grayson - and works her way up - Felcher - and beyond - the Capone gang. She is playing every man she meets, but she has so many balls in the air - pardon the mental imagery that last phrase invites - can she keep them and all of her double crosses straight?

As a secondary plot, Rusty meets Elliott Ness at a speakeasy raid one night and indicates that she has information he can use to nail Capone - she is also playing Capone's bookkeeper. Rusty seems fascinated by Ness because he "hears her music but does not dance to that tune". Perhaps Rusty has never met a man with integrity before Ness. It's a rare opportunity to see the personal side of Ness and to see someone try to reach out and touch this Untouchable.

It's also an early TV role for Elizabeth Montgomery, oddly sporting a southern accent, with her character's own greed and zest for revenge ultimately being her undoing.

Strangely Elizabeth Montgomery never got a status of great actress before "Bewitched" often got roles on the several series, even having plenty flair for such and also physical attributes, in this episode she rules charming and sexy outright, even the coldest Eliot Ness almost caught at his feet with secret meeting in mountain's cabin in a weekend.

Meanwhile the trial of Capone, the mobster Charles "Pops" Felcher (Harold J. Stone) from New York came to take up an empty chair dully escorted by his bleak attorney Archie Grayson (David White the same of Bewitched) Rusty Heller is a dazzling bombshell always cherry-picking their male companions, powerful gangsters are her penchant, after got a romance with al Capone's bookkeeping, suddenly she moves towards to get Archie's fondness, shortly thereafter she gave a hint to Pops about a slaying at bathhouse, hence the scheming Rusty gets involve with the major boss, now she has all them at her pocket, when arrives Eliot Ness asking for one way cooperation, a word which she never dared spell.

It was shot at sixty, Elizabeth was thinner and sexy, with a flamboyant outfits, I've wondering myself how she could kiss those ugliest guys as David White and Harold J. Stone without batting an eyelid, Ugh!!!

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5