User Reviews

Frank Sutton of "Gomer Pyle" fame stars in this episode about four criminal brothers, the Strykers. The oldest (Michael Strong) is clearly the leader and the youngest, Benny (Sutton), is either mentally challenged or treated as if he is...it's hard to tell which. Fortunately, Sutton's performance wasn't over the top and he was just fine as Benny.

These Strykers are an unsavory lot...even for "The Untouchables". This is because in addition to stealing, they have a habit of killing off their associates because they just don't feel like sharing the loot with folks who aren't kin. Nice, huh? With such goings on, it's not surprising that Ness and his men would come to investigate the brothers. The first thing they do is use a search warrant to confiscate the Brothers' tax records...which creates a problem. To handle it, the Brothers decide to do something really crazy...hire a torch to burn the Federal office where the tax records are being stored!!!

In addition to Sutton, Nehemiah Perfoff stars as the arsonist...and his performance is, thankfully, a bit more subdued than his other recent "The Untouchables" characters. Overall, well done and worth seeing.

... as he didn't really have a type at this point. This was two years before he would become famous as Sgt. Vince Carter, for whom Private Gomer Pyle becomes his comic foil in the TV series Gomer Pyle USMC. There he was the easily riled consummate career soldier, blowing his stack at private Pyle in just about every episode. Here he is a mild mannered somewhat mentally challenged youngest brother to three ruthless gangsters - the titular Stryker brothers.

The brothers rob a train, kill the baggage handler with a silencer to avoid detection, and then throw another man off of the train because they do not want to split the proceeds of said robbery. In fact, the brothers have a reputation of killing people outside of the family that they employ or partner with in their crimes, just to keep all of the money in the family. Even with no internet or google reviews, you'd think word of this would get around, but apparently not.

Frank Sutton died rather young at only fifty, and there is not much out there showing his range as an actor. Watch this episode to see that Sutton could do much more than be pushed to the edge of sanity by a certain marine who would try the patience of a saint.

This episodes concern for The Untouchables are the Stryker Brothers who after a stretch in prison are back and looking to reclaim their little crime kingdom in Cicero. Which they can if they can raise the necessary capital. When you're a criminal that's solved by pulling a robbery in this case on a train. They kill a guard on the train and two accomplices. These brothers are a murderous lot and don't like to leave potential witnesses.

There are four brothers Joseph Bernard, Michael Strong, Buck Kartalian, and Frank Sutton. The last is the idiot brother and quite frankly if they had shot him it would have been better than getting rid of the others.

Anyway Sutton leaves a piece of evidence that the Feds seize, but don't know they have. So Sutton comes up with the idea of getting retired torch Nehemiah Persoff for an arson job in the basement of the Federal building where evidence is kept. I imagine a few other cases went up for Robert Stack and his squad.

Persoff and Sutton stand out in this Untouchables episode.