by Mugurel Stejar

Created on: April 24, 2008

I remember the time I was still living in the Old Country, when it was ruled by a mad man. It was in the early seventies. Although it was almost twenty years overdue, somehow the "Untouchables" the famous Elliot Ness series starring Robert Stack, found its way on the local television. Being a young man, I was attracted to the ideal of the movie and I liked the way it was produced, although at times it seemed clumsy and the credibility of some actors let a lot room for improvement. Well, it was a different era and people made films in a strikingly differently. I personally was attracted by the beginning of the movie, the few seconds, or maybe a minute or so, in which Walter Winchell was telling in his distinct voice Elliot Ness' story having as background scenes shot in Chicago in front of the Wrigley building. Even today when I drive North on Michigan avenue and I see the building in front of me, especially during the night, I expect to hear his voice introducing the "Untouchables"... Little did I know about him at that time. His voice though stuck to my mind as a stereotype of a "typical" American speech... Did I mention I was only twenty at that time?

Any way, after a visit to China, the president decided that the movie was too violent and that it was dangerous for the population to see so much blood and lawlessness even in a fiction movie. He said that it may give people the wrong idea and may influence the young generation in the wrong way. Somehow he did not see that the young generation could be influenced by Ness fighting the bad elements, he assumed that the bad elements fighting Ness will have a better audience... So one day he gave a speech about the decadent societies and next day when Ness was supposed to show up at eight at night finishing a story that was left over as in "to be continued", the Untouchable was replaced with a local lame show that was supposed to be educational...

I could not explain how come that he survived a public upraising, similar to the one that toppled him roughly twenty years later, but the mood in the country was not really uplifting... I was the lucky one who could see the ending of the story. My father was working for the television station at that time, so I had access to the reels...

Almost twenty years after the man got what he deserved, a few hundred bullets in his chest from a firing squad, and after watching violence and lawlessness on American shows, I wonder if he did not have some sanity in his insane decision

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