Tune Tuesday -The Untouchables

65 years ago today, The Untouchables premiered on ABC TV starring Robert Stack as Eliot Ness.

The show fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness as a Prohibition agent fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s. Ness does this with the help of a special team of agents. He handpicked them for their courage, moral character and incorruptibility. This team was nicknamed The Untouchables.

The show had one of my favorite theme songs. It was composed by the great Nelson Riddle. In a biography of Riddle (written by Peter Levinson) it says that the theme song “was one of the most fitting and identifiable weekly television themes ever written.”

When the show won four Emmy Awards, Capitol Records decided to put out an album of music from the show.

The liner notes from the album describe Riddle’s effort as: “tabloid-headline music that evokes and reports on a bygone era of irresistible appeal,” including several tracks devoted “to the vintage jazz that punctuated the gunfire.”

I always loved this tune!