MovieChat Forums > 77 Sunset Strip (1958) Discussion > This vs. The Untouchables

This vs. The Untouchables

posted 7 years ago by lima-2
1 reply | jump to latest

Spoiler Alert

After watching the episodes The Girl Who Couldn't Remember and Dark Vengeance, I was struck by the strong similarities between 77 Sunset Strip and The Untouchables.

The scene in The Girl Who Couldn't Remember, when the two hoods put a hit on Silky Callahan using a "Tommy" Gun reminded me of the scene in The Untouchables when Frank Nitti did the same thing, killing everyone in that barber shop. Even the name Silky reminded me of a name that might have used for a hood in The Untouchables.

Dark Vengeance was a pretty stark episode as well. The "hit" in the phone booth and hooking a reformed junkie back on a drug habit to force complicity in the plot. WOW! Pretty uncensored for 1950's television! Just like something I'd seen on The Untouchables.

I know 77 Sunset Strip came first. The Untouchables 2-hour pilot was aired the same week as The Girl Who Couldn't Remember (according to IMDB), and wasn't a series until later that fall, 1959. So ... anyone else who are fans of both shows notice this?

[–] telegonus (727) 7 years ago

I just watched a 77SS episode, an odd one, Reserved For Mr. Bailey, and haven't been keeping up with the MeTV reboot, however I have watched a number of Untouchables episodes fairly recently and have followed it closely in reruns, and I don't see many similarities. SS feels like a product of the Warners TV production unit (which it was), which is to say generic, and it's a good one. However it plays, to me, even at its best like a B movie. The Untouchables feels higher budgeted, has an inky dark ambiance all its own. There's a bravura quality to its best episodes,--heck, even in its opening credits--that 77SS didn't have, however maybe I've missed some of the best episodes of the series. There are often tragic undercurrents and characters on The Untouchables, while SS tended to be light and lively; not a comedy but not stoo serious, either.