The Untouchables - The incorruptible

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Movie
German title The Untouchables - The incorruptible
Original title The Untouchables
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1987
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Brian De Palma
script David Mamet
production Kind Linson
music Ennio Morricone
camera Stephen H. Burum
cut Jerry Greenberg , Bill Pankow
occupation

The Untouchables - The Untouchables is a detective film by Brian De Palma from the year 1987 . Sean Connery won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role .

action

Formation of the group

As an official with the Treasury Department's Prohibition Authority, Agent Eliot Ness takes on a new position in Chicago, where he works with the local police to fight the Al Capone- controlled illegal alcohol trade. In his fight against organized crime, he quickly makes numerous enemies, and as the Chicago police at the time of Prohibition of corruption has permeated his first will raid a failure. When the press and his colleagues do not save with malice, Ness doubts the success of his work. But shortly afterwards he met the pragmatic police officer Jim Malone, who taught him the first rule of being a police officer:

“Make sure you come home alive when you finish work. End of the first lesson. "

Malone refuses to work with Ness at first because he thinks he is ten years too old and twenty pounds too heavy and it has become more important for him to “keep on living”. However, Ness gets help from the auditor Oscar Wallace, who tries to prosecute Capone for tax evasion, and Malone finally joins Ness and offers him his assistance. First, he asks him the central question:

"What would you be willing to do?"

Ness explains to him that he is ready to do anything the law allows. Both are aware that they cannot rely on anyone else in their campaign. Malone wants to recruit more comrades-in-arms, although he has little confidence in other police officers.

"If you want to be sure that you won't get a bad apple, don't get it from the store, get it straight from the tree."

The incorruptible find their third husband in the police school. The young police candidate George Stone is introduced to the two as one of the best shooters in the training class. Malone provokes him as an Italian-born " Kanaken " and is then taken with his hot-blooded reaction. He offers him admission to the prohibition authority.

During their first joint action, Malone pushes a pump gun into the hand of the auditor Wallace , thus completing the team of the four incorruptible. Thanks to Malone's knowledge, the first raid was a success.

Capones whiskey

However, they land their greatest success on the Canadian border, where they manage to acquire a complete whiskey shipment for Capone. The film quotes at this point the Western - genre , because with the help of a Canadian unit of Mounties bring Ness and his men the gangsters on horseback to the track. A high-ranking member of the Chicago outfit and a coded cash book fall into their hands; However, this gangster does not want to reveal the real names that are hidden behind the aliases in this book.

Ness, who shot his first human on this mission, prevents Malone from whipping the truth out of the prisoner. Malone then uses a dirty trick. He interrogates the gangster who has already been shot by Ness on the veranda for pretense, with his back to the prisoner, and shoots him through the head because he (of course) does not answer. As a result, the deeply intimidated prisoner collapses and is ready to become a key witness .

Capone is now charged with tax evasion. After the press conference, Wallace is supposed to bring the key witness to safety, but both are shot in the goods elevator by Capone's killer, who is disguised as a police officer. With Wallace's blood, the murderer writes the word “touchable” to make it clear that “The Untouchables” can be reached by the Mafia are. Ness doubts again, but Malone does not give up and learns that Capone's accountant is supposed to leave town by train. When Malone, who was shot through by a machine gun in front of his apartment at night, fell victim to an assassination attempt, he dying asks Ness a third and last time what he was ready to do. Ness and Stone are now all the more relentlessly pursuing their task. There is a bloody exchange of fire in the lobby of the station. The accountant arrested in the process finally testified against Capone in court.

The process

During the trial, the public prosecutor and Ness are irritated by Capone's apparently good mood, although his accountant has just given evidence against him and a conviction seems certain. Capone's confidence, as it turns out, results from the bribery of the twelve jurors; Confirmation of this is given to Capone by Frank Nitti , the murderer of Wallace and Malone, during the trial. When Ness notices this, he draws the attention of a clerk to Nitti's gun possession. He asks Nitti outside, and with the help of Ness he can be searched.

However, Nitti has a valid gun license and you would have to let him go. However, when Ness lights a cigarette with Nitti's matchbook, he notices that Malone's address is written on it. He now knows that he has his murderer in front of him. When asked, Nitti shoots the guard down; in the subsequent pursuit, Ness then takes Nitti down. (This is where the fictional film deviates most obviously from historical reality, because the real Nitti was considered to be the successor to Capone and committed suicide at a later date.)

Ness can now convince the judge to bribe the jury. However, he uses a trick to achieve his goal; because he claims that the judge himself can also be found on Capone's payroll. This then swaps the jury , and Capone loses his temper. His attorney now pleads guilty and Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion . Ness eventually leaves Chicago, leaving Stone to continue fighting crime.

production

The film was produced by Paramount Pictures on a budget of $ 20 million. The special effects were implemented by EFX Unlimited and Associates and Ferren , and Oscar winner Allen Hall was also involved .

Filming

Chicago Union Station, after 1935

Filming began on August 8, 1986 and ended in November. The thriller was recorded with an aspect ratio of 2.2: 1 on 35mm film .

The Untouchables was filmed primarily in Chicago . The scene in which Al Capone kills a gangster with a baseball bat was filmed at the Blackstone Hotel . The recordings of the front entrance area and the lobby of the Lexington Hotel in which Al Capone lived were taken at Roosevelt University . The Chicago Union Station was also the station in the film. The Chicago Cultural Center served as the courthouse where Eliot Ness hunts the hit man Frank Nitti . The scenes were filmed in Hardin and Great Falls , Montana when Ness and his allies seized the Canadian whiskey . The Hardy Creek Bridge served as the handover location. Further recordings were made in downtown Chicago.

The fashion designer Giorgio Armani was responsible for the sometimes very elegant suits and clothing for the main characters in the film . Robert De Niro worked here several times with the tailor Richard Bruno .

occupation

The most difficult task was to cast the lead role Eliot Ness . Director Brian De Palma met with Tom Berenger and Nick Nolte to find out if they were interested. Giorgio Armani told De Palma that his muse Don Johnson , who had already worn his suits in the television series Miami Vice , was a possible candidate. However, Johnson declined, as did Michael Douglas , Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford . Even Jack Nicholson and William Hurt were considered for the lead role into consideration. De Palma had also spoken to Jeff Bridges and Gene Hackman about the roles of Ness and Malone .

Although De Niro was first choice as Al Capone De Palmas, the director also met with Bob Hoskins to discuss the role. When De Niro accepted, Brian De Palma sent Hoskins a check for £ 20,000 marked “Thank You”. De Niro's demands: his role should be given an extra scene and his engagement in the Broadway production Cuba and His Teddy Bear should only be over; he also required sufficient time to gain an additional 14 kg of body mass. De Palma agreed. What worried De Niro most was whether his face shape would even match Al Capone.

Patricia Clarkson made her film debut with the role of Catherine Ness . Valentino Cimo took over the role of Frank Rio, the bodyguard of Capone, and he later impersonated him in the television series The Untouchables, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1994. Billy Drago played Frank Nitti, Al Capone's henchman, who is portrayed as a hit man in the film.

Influences

The screenplay was written by David Mamet based on the book The Untouchables, published in 1957 by Eliot Ness and his co-writer Oscar Farley . Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Andy Garcia received special tactics and weapons training from the police, which was used in the 1950s. Robert De Niro didn't have enough time to gain body mass. So his suits were padded so that he looks more like Al Capone in the movie. As a consultant for the film, Al "Wallpaper" Wolff was won, who in 1986 was the only living member of the real " incorruptible ". Until then, he kept his membership secret - even from family members, friends and acquaintances. The shooting in the Chicago train station with the baby carriage rolling down a large flight of stairs pays homage to Eisenstein's classic film Battleship Potemkin , in which a baby carriage rolls down the Potemkin Stairs in Odessa . Brian De Palma and Art Linson unanimously report on the DVD that Sean Connery had the idea that the two police officers' blood oath to hunt down Capone could only take place in one safe place - in a church.

Differences from the script

The scene at Union Station was supposed to take place on a stopped train, according to the original script, but Paramount Pictures found it too expensive to find and transport a train from the 1930s. Therefore the scene around the accountant was moved there.

Publications

The Untouchables premiered in New York on June 2, 1987 , and the film opened in US cinemas one day later. In Germany, the film about Al Capone and Eliott Ness was released in cinemas on October 15, 1987. The thriller was shown at the Venice International Film Festival in August 1987 and at the Deauville Film Festival in France (September 1987). On October 13, 2006, the film was shown again in Italy, this time at the Rome Film Festival , before it was shown again on March 8, 2011 in Italian cinemas.

At the cinema screenings for The Untouchables - Die Unbrechlichen, 1,139,955 viewers were counted in Germany. In the US, the film grossed $ 76.27 million.

reception

Reviews

The Untouchables received a positive response from the critics. On the Rotten Tomatoes website , 80% of the 56 reviews counted were positive. The overall consensus is that the film takes a "sharp look" at organized crime in Chicago and includes "excellent" performances and a "first-class" cast. Metacritic gave a score of 79% based on 16 reviews.

Vincent Canby called the film in the New York Times an "overwhelming" work that was sometimes "breathtakingly beautiful". The performances by Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner and Sean Connery were particularly praised. Roger Ebert praised the action scenes and locations in the Chicago Sun-Times , but criticized the script and the direction. Ebert found the scenes in which De Niro appeared as Al Capone to be the movie's biggest disappointment, while positively highlighting the portrayal of Sean Connery. The lexicon of international film saw a “spectacular city westerner who presented the actual events as a sequence of mythically exaggerated cabinet pieces from the history of the cinema”. The film is “opulently furnished and staged with virtuosity”, tending “towards a striking shock effect, the fascination of which, however, is not questioned”. Prisma described the film as a "brilliant, in places quite bloody police film", Cinema as a "gangster epic with force and size".

Awards

Academy Awards

Golden Globe Awards

British Academy Film Award

Further awards

Further nominations

Trivia

  • Every policeman who is shown drinking alcohol and thus breaking the prohibition law dies in the course of the film.
  • Jimmy Malone's saying “Isn't that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gunfight. "(In the German translation:" That can only be a spaghetti eater. Comes to a shootout with a knife. ") Has been quoted many times, including in the song Takeover by Jay-Z .
  • In the film, Eliot Ness is portrayed by Kevin Costner as an honest husband and a loyal father. In reality, he was married to his first wife, Edna Staley Ness, at the time of the plot, but had no children.
  • The aria that moves Al Capone (Robert de Niro) to tears is called Vesti La Giubba from the opera Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo and is sung by Mario del Monaco .
  • Although the real Frank Nitti has in all likelihood never committed a murder himself, he is portrayed in the film as a cold, psychopathic killer who dies. The real Nitti succeeded Capone and later committed suicide .
  • At the beginning of the film Die Nackte Kanone 33⅓ , the station scene in the film is parodied.
  • In addition to spectacular “real” tracking shots, cameraman Stephen H. Burum also manages “synthetic” ones: when the camera looks into the flying plane from outside or accompanies the gangster Nitti when he falls from the skyscraper.
  • In the German dubbing, actor Heiner Lauterbach speaks the voice of investigator Eliot Ness.
  • The episode Der mysteriöse Bierbaron (German first broadcast: November 1997) of the animated series The Simpsons (8th season, episode No. 171) deals with the topic of Prohibition, in this episode of the Simpsons a police chief inspector named Rex Banner appears, who has both clothing style and strongly reminiscent of the character Eliot Ness in terms of behavior and investigation methods. In the Simpsons episode Homer at Uni (German first broadcast: April 1995 / 5th season, episode no.3), nuclear power plant owner Mr. Burns tries to get a baseball bat in a respectable gentlemen's round, just like gang boss Al Capone in the film Killing a university professor sitting at the table, however, fails because of insufficient muscle strength in the arms.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b The Untouchables - The incorruptible. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 5, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ A b Gene Siskel: De Niro, De Palma, Mamet Organize Crime with a Difference. In: Chicago Tribune . ProQuest Archiver, September 21, 1986, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  3. Eugene Kennedy: CAPONE'S CHICAGO STIRS AGAIN FOR 'THE UNTOUCHABLES'. And Richard Bruno from New York designs all his clothes. January 4, 1987, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  4. locations in Illinois: MovieUSA . Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  5. ^ Actual Chicago and Montana locations of historical buildings used in The Untouchables. Retrieved September 21, 2012 .
  6. FILM VIEW; DE PALMA BREAKS THE MOLD. The New York Times , June 21, 1987, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  7. a b c d e The Untouchables - Trivia. IMDb , accessed September 21, 2012 .
  8. ^ Bob Hoskins paid not to play Capone. Metro Newspapers, March 19, 2009, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  9. a b Vincent Canby: The Untouchables (1987) FILM: DeNIRO IN THE UNTOUCHABLES . The New York Times , June 3, 1987, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  10. The Untouchables - The Untouchables on DVD - Making-of.
  11. The Untouchables - The incorruptible at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  12. The Untouchables - The incorruptible at Metacritic (English)
  13. ^ Roger Ebert: The Untouchables. Chicago Sun-Times , June 3, 1987, accessed September 21, 2012 .
  14. The incorruptible. Prism , accessed September 21, 2012 .
  15. The Untouchables - The incorruptible. Cinema , accessed September 21, 2012 .
  16. IMDb