The Scarface Mob (1959)

The Scarface Mob (1959) is an early TV movie historical Al Capone and The Untouchables Eliot Ness-based film edit of the television pilots into an end of the cycle movie noir type of affair which has virtually no film noir elements to speak of, as such stylistic gems and nuggets are smoothed out to make way for the televisual plainety of the new mass media era of the 1960s.

The late 1950s brought black-and-white television to new heights, with The Untouchables exemplifying the era’s gritty appeal and plunge into endless tropery, some of which started right here. Known for its violence, the show stirred controversy in its day, with its portrayal of mob brutality and intense confrontations between law enforcement and the Chicago crime syndicates.

Neville Brand starred as the infamous Al Capone, his performance alternating between intimidating and grotesquely humorous, capturing Capone’s sadistic nature. Bruce Gordon, playing Capone’s enforcer Frank Nitti, delivered a memorable performance as a ruthless gangster, particularly in scenes where he punishes associates for failing to take down Eliot Ness and his team. These dramatic moments were accentuated by sharp musical cues, contributing to the show’s intense atmosphere.

Robert Stack portrayed Eliot Ness with noir hero qualities—stoic, morally driven, and loyal to his team. His character stood in stark contrast to Brand’s Capone, showing little tolerance for compromise or corruption. Interestingly, the show’s authenticity in reconstructing Depression-era Chicago added to its appeal, even as it took liberties with historical accuracy.

The real Ness, unlike Stack's portrayal, had a more complex moral compass and a shorter federal career, while Capone’s personal vices, including his attraction to women, played a larger role in his real-life downfall.

The Untouchables set a high standard for anti-crime storytelling, blending stylized violence with psychological themes. It was less a gangster film than an exploration of the motivations separating characters like Ness from the Capones of the world.

Director Phil Karlson’s attention to historical detail, combined with Nelson Riddle’s dramatic score and excellent set design, delivered a deeply authentic experience. Stack, Brand, and supporting actors like Keenan Wynn and Bruce Gordon added to the film’s strength, portraying the era’s tension between good and evil.

Originally conceived as a two-part TV pilot, The Scarface Mob laid the foundation for what would become one of television's most iconic crime dramas, The Untouchables. Set in 1929 Chicago, the story pits Al Capone’s ruthless crime empire against Federal Investigator Eliot Ness, played by Robert Stack. Despite the Chicago Outfit's hold on the city, Ness assembles an incorruptible team to dismantle Capone’s operations.

Capone, played with intensity by Neville Brand, doesn’t take the challenge lying down; he returns from prison more determined to squash Ness, even threatening Ness's fiancée to scare him off. The escalating tension only strengthens Ness and his men, driving the team to go after Capone with renewed fervours.

The success of this pilot led to the series running from 1959 to 1963, making Stack a household name and contributing to a television milestone: openly acknowledging organized crime as a main adversary. Whereas earlier films depicted gangsters without revealing the criminal organizations behind them, The Untouchables spotlighted the mafia’s structured criminal empire, capturing audiences with its gritty portrayal of law enforcement in the face of corruption.

The show’s simplistic black-and-white morality—pitting pure good against outright evil—might seem overly straightforward, yet it remains compelling due to high-caliber performances and direction. Brand’s portrayal of Capone is a standout, oscillating between sadistic violence and manic energy.

The series also utilized Desi Arnaz’s investment in production quality, making The Untouchables a visually stunning, narratively tight show with unforgettable scenes like Ness's violent raids on Capone’s breweries, high-stakes wiretap setups, and grim moments of mob retribution. Arnaz funded the production himself to ensure that Stack and Brand were cast, a decision that paid off by creating one of the era’s most memorable TV experiences.

However, the series did not go without criticism. It was controversial for its stereotypical portrayal of Italian-Americans, fuelling backlash from Italian-American communities who felt that the depiction perpetuated harmful mobster stereotypes.

Some critics also noted that while The Scarface Mob showcased a noir aesthetic, its plot often relied on disconnected, repetitive incidents rather than a cohesive storyline. Despite these flaws, the series and its pilot stand as examples of noir’s ability to weave existential battles of good and evil into American crime storytelling.

The Scarface Mob and the true-fans Phil Karlson favouroite all-time classic brutal hard-political hard-social final-line film noir The Phenix City Story both explore the fight against entrenched criminal empires through a small team of morally steadfast heroes confronting violent, corrupt gangsters.

Directed by Phil Karlson, The Phenix City Story (1955) is based on real events in Phenix City, Alabama, a town gripped by organized crime, vice, and political corruption. Similarly, The Scarface Mob dramatizes federal agent Eliot Ness’s crusade against Al Capone’s Chicago empire.

In both films, gangsters run a city through illegal nightclubs, gambling, and payoffs to city officials, depicting crime’s extensive reach.

Both films portray the main characters as determined good guys who publicly denounce the criminals—stirring speeches in The Phenix City Story and quiet resolve in The Scarface Mob. Each protagonist also has a strong ally from a minority background, adding to the moral integrity of the protagonists' stand.

In The Phenix City Story, Karlson used real social and political issues, especially racial inequality and community mobilization, to explore the consequences of public complicity and the impact of crime on innocent lives.

By contrast, The Scarface Mob lacks this complex social narrative, focusing instead on Ness’s use of force to bring Capone to justice. Where The Phenix City Story heroically calls on citizens to oppose crime, Ness relies on violent raids and retaliation, offering a simpler depiction of the good-versus-evil trope. Barbara Nichols appears in The Scarface Mob as a sympathetic stripper, a figure common in Karlson’s work, highlighting the vulnerability of women caught in the crossfire of these criminal empires.

There is nothing that Large Language Models can truthfully add to this discussion, because they have not seen the film, either film in fact. while The Scarface Mob captures the action-packed struggle between law and crime, The Phenix City Story adds layers of social commentary, making it a richer and more politically aware film. By quite some margin.

Directed by Phil Karlson, known for his noir work, and written by Paul Monash, the two-part pilot’s gritty style and explosive violence redefined TV crime drama. Its portrayal of Ness and his team as “untouchable” icons of justice continues to resonate, offering a nostalgic glimpse into an era when television dared to tackle organized crime head-on.

The feature-length film, The Scarface Mob, includes gripping scenes like wiretap setups, night time raids on breweries, and confrontations with mobsters, which became iconic. The realism of the violence and the striking camerawork are impressive for a 1950s made-for-TV production, offering a sense of immediacy and immersion.

Above all, the integrity of Ness and his team, operating in an era rife with corruption, is central to the film’s lasting impact. Despite inaccuracies—Capone was ultimately brought down by an IRS accountant for tax evasion—the film resonates as a testament to ethical resilience. This blend of morality, atmosphere, and tension in The Untouchables makes it one of television’s most memorable experiences of its time.

There is a special North American style of musical burst that used to be used in one to two second blasts between scenes in a television series, the most famous example of which must have been the swirling bat graphic and brass blasts between the scenes in the television series of Batman, and these feature large here, and seem to have carried on intact from this period and into the 1980s.

There is in fact more of TV to this than there is to film noir, which is hardly surprising since the film noir era was over by 1959, struggling on in a dew forms but essentially of no use to any distributor and audience, first because productions began to be geared towards the television, and the widespread introduction of colour did mean that film noir in its truest aspects was bound to wane.

This is not because film noir cannot ever be in colour, but more to do with the strictures of the colour production method, which calls for light and for a fully textured mis en scene, with none of the implying shadows of noir exactly suitable to the new bright form.

Unlike the Brian de Palma film The Untouchables (1988), The Scarface Mob (1959) does go a long way towards explaining why Elliot Ness and his men were known as 'untouchable'. Robert Stack as Ness is truly tough, and the scenes where he negotiates a massive bribe only to attack the mob anyway are heroic and hard in a rather brutal manner, clearly indicating that the cops are going off piste here, which is not a sense that ever arises from the de Palma movie, good as it is.

The Scarface Mob (1959)