You know who finally killed Eliot Ness? Capone? Nitti? Moran? Nah...it was Mitch "Sing Along with Mitch" Miller. The astonishing ratings success of The Untouchables in its second season was matched only by its equally spectacular long walk off a short pier...with concrete overshoes...during this third 1961-1962 season. And that's too bad because the writing stayed strong and the killings mounted, giving action fans plenty to chew over this go-around. CBS DVD and Paramount have released The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2, a three-disc, 12-episode collection that features terrific turns by guests stars such as Lee Marvin, Patricia Neal, Frank Sutton, Victor Jory, Vic Morrow, and Martin Balsam. A must-have for fans of the series and vintage crime TV enthusiasts.

I've written at length about this classic Desilu production, so I won't retread too much of my take on this important series. As well, it's difficult to gauge what a season of a particular series "is" if you only have half the episodes to review. We didn't receive the first volume of this third season here at DVDTalk, so, it's really guess work here as to the show's continued evolution. With that grain of salt, the comic book aspects of The Untouchables I discussed in that previous review, remain prominent again in these 12 episodes, with a host of cosmically-eviled villains constantly assaulting Ness and his Untouchables not only out of aberrant criminality, but also for the almost mythological jolt they hope to receive in toppling the virgin, impossibly clean (morally, ethically, even physically) Ness. While some of the criminals - often the female lawbreakers or the weaker, older men - are given superficially "layered" excuses for their behavior, such amelioration is rendered meaningless when stacked up against Stack: there is purity, and truth, and justice embodied by Ness...and everyone else falls somewhere behind that ideal, regardless of circumstance, or good intentions, or Fate. Ness is Olympian in his ability to resist even the most persuasive temptations by the bad guys (and girls) in exchange for just a crumb, even just a show, of humanity on his part. In The Monkey Wrench, beautiful, slightly wacky Dolores Dorn makes it clear she could fall for Ness, that she would do anything for Ness...and then...nothing. Not a budge from the lawman. Sorry, but you're tainted goods, honey. In Downfall, Ness is implored by kindly Stefan Schabel to look the other way for sick, lonely railroad magnate/prodigy Steven Hill...an entreaty Ness blows off, telling him the Federal Pen will still be better for Hill than cement shoes in Lake Michigan. And in The Case Against Eliot Ness, in one of my new all-time favorite lines, kneeling down next to a lovin'-yet-lyin' moll who's crying over her just-ventilated gangster husband, Ness blinks inexpressively once and says, "Real tears taste different, don't they?" The very definition of "heartless."

I find real exhilaration in The Untouchables' callous, pitiless moralizing, particularly when viewed in context next to today's wishy-washy palpitations concerning "morally equivalent" villains and heroes. Eliot Ness' unyielding adherence to a notion, a nation of laws, not men, has an almost primal feel to it today when we realize we live in world where laws are now decidedly secondary to their supposedly "wise, empathetic" practitioners. And that genetic DNA of honesty through the law that forms the building blocks of this character, is further set in relief by the crude, base perversions of that ideal manifested by the criminals on display in The Untouchables. And to that end, the violence never stops. When the ratings took a nose-dive this third season, efforts were made, apparently, to keep the violence in check. But not yet, not here. In this last half of the third season, we're treated to fiery car bombs, numerous pluggings, by pistol and chopper (right in close so the camera can get it), a couple of hit-and-runs (again, close-ups of the victims screaming their last breaths), death by high-dive (Ness gets to push someone down a stair shaft), death by elevator plunge, knifings (some poor schlub gets it in the belly on the subway), and, in a shockingly graphic depiction, a hanging. The mayhem just will not stop. I recently reviewed Mannix, and it was a common joke at the time that Mannix was one of the most violent shows on television. We must have forgotten about The Untouchables. While no comparison to the borderline porn-torture sickness of some of today's police procedurals on family-friendly network TV, the violence in The Untouchables is deliciously crude and more importantly, elevated by myth. The outsized nature of it only reinforces the series' atmosphere of fantasy (unlike many of today's morally murky procedurals, that seem to wallow in grotesque approximations of "realism").

How perversely ironic, then, was the nature of The Untouchables' demise: the fantasy of mythical violence brought down by television at its most innocuous: Sing Along With Mitch. In The Untouchables' second season, its 9:30pm Thursday night time slot got a considerable boost in the ratings (8th for the year) due to its two immediate lead-ins: The Real McCoys (hitting its series' high of 5th most watched out of all shows in 1960-1961) and debuting My Three Sons, which immediately charted at 13th in the Nielsen's. With no heavy competition on the other networks, Thursday night seemed like a solid build for a series that was getting tremendous ink. Unfortunately, a bit of successful counterprogramming from NBC - and the addition of failed ABC sitcom bumping The Untouchables to 10:00pm - severely impacted the ratings. Lighting on some kind of magical alchemy, NBC managed to corral three new series - Dr. Kildare (the girls loved the dreamy Richard Chamberlain), Hazel (older viewers loved Shirley Booth), and Mitch - into a powerhouse "must-see" night. Mitch Miller, the head of recording for Columbia, adapted his sing-along records into a similarly-structured TV show the previous spring (they chromakeyed the lyrics so the viewers could sing at home), and scored a massive hit that was turned into a weekly series this 1961-1962 season. Mitch tied Lassie for 15th for the year; Dr. Kildare snagged 9th, and Hazel blew them all them away with an amazing 4th place out of all shows for the year. And The Untouchables? It sank to a pathetic 41st place. It didn't help that The Untouchables's time slot was bumped up to 10:00pm by new lead-in Margie, a sitcom also set in the Roaring Twenties, which failed miserably. The big audience that still watched My Three Sons just switched over to Hazel when Margie came on and then just rode out the rest of the night with Mitch, leaving The Untouchables largely forgotten. In my previous review, I wrote that maybe audiences had had enough of The Untouchables' message, and simply moved on by this third season. That's entirely possible...a decision aided by the allure of other new hit shows on other networks.

Here are the 12 episodes of the three-disc collection, The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2:

DISC ONE:

Takeover (March1, 1962)
The New York syndicate sends a new man to Chicago to take over the beer market, upsetting rival gangs and opening old wounds between a father and son.

The Stryker Brothers (March 8, 1962)
A gang of brothers who rob trains have to destroy a letter that incriminates them, so they hire a retired arsonist to torch the basement of the Federal Building.

Element of Danger (March 22, 1962)
Eliot Ness uncovers a million-dollar operation that converts opium into heroin, but a hot-tempered psychopath keeps complicating the plan to shut it down.

The Maggie Storm Story (March 29, 1962)
A torch singer hosts a nightclub where you can bid on contraband from your table, and notorious gangster Lepke Buchalter wants a piece of the action.

DISC TWO:

Man in the Middle (April 5, 1962
A former big shot finally gets his revenge on the two hoods who put him out of business. He secretly pits them against each other and rats them out to Ness.

Downfall (May 3, 1962)
A corrupt railroad czar makes a deal with gangsters to allow them use of a spur line to transport booze. To cover his crime, he resorts to blackmail and murder.

The Case Against Eliot Ness (May 10, 1962)
After Eliot Ness accuses one of Chicago's leading citizens of murder, he finds himself slapped with a lawsuit and has to prove that he is telling the truth.

The Ginnie Littlesmith Story (May 17, 1962)
After her gangster uncle is gunned down, a spinster takes possession of his books and tries to sell them to a vice ring -- whose main enforcer sets out to seduce her.

DISC THREE:

The Contract (May 31, 1962)
The mob puts out a contract on a small-time hood who might talk to the Feds. Later the contract is canceled, but then given to his best friend as a test.

Pressure (June 14, 1962)
When Ness learns that a mobster's son is in love with the daughter of his father's rival, he uses this Romeo and Juliet scenario to save a school from being bombed.

Arsenal (June 28, 1962)
Now at war with Bugs Moran, Frank Nitti hires a Polish immigrant to make automatic rifles, but the gentle gunsmith and his wife crack under the pressure.

The Monkey Wrench (July 6, 1962)
An attractive mob widow develops a crush on Eliot and feeds him information about Nitti's latest operation -- smuggling German brewmeisters into America.

The DVD:

The Video:
The ful-screen, 1.33:1 video transfers for The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2 on the whole look quite good; individual scenes within episodes, though, vary as to grain and clarity. One shot can look crystal clear, with razor sharp edges and beautifully gray-scaled tones, while the next shot can look soft with heavy grain. I can only assume this is inherent in the original film elements. Overall, though, The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2 looks quite good (the standard Paramount warning about possible content editing has been included on the back of the keepcase, but I didn't see any obvious editing).

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio mix accurately reflects the original broadcast presentation - unless Paramount made some changes to the mix (either music cues or bumper announcements) - which I'm unaware of. All dialogue is cleanly heard. There's a Spanish mono mix available, along with English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles.

The Extras:
There are, unfortunately, no extras for The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2.

Final Thoughts:
The violence never stops. The next-to-last season for The Untouchables keeps the choppers spitting lead while a grim, wavy-haired Angel of Death Eliot Ness hovers over the smoking ruins of Chicago: untouched and absolutely unmoved. Unfortunately, America had its fill of Tommy guns and gangsters getting drilled: they wanted to sing along with Mitch Miller, and The Untouchables' ratings imploded. Only one tentative season left. I highly recommend The Untouchables: Season 3, Volume 2.