October 22, 1959
5118-04
January 16, 1935. Oklawaha, Florida. Eliot Ness, along with Bill Youngfellow and Martin Flaherty, are closing in on Ma Barker, who is holed up in a house along with 2 of her sons, Lloyd and Fred. Ness says they are wanted for everything from bank robbery, kidnapping, to first-degree murder. Now that Ness has found where the Barkers are, he contacts half a dozen state troopers and local police for backup.
From a distance, Ness yells at Ma Barker and her boys to surrender and come out with their hands up. Ma Barker goes to a closet, and inside is an arsenal of weapons-- machine guns, pistols, hand grenades, etc., enough for a small army. She fires a chopper at Ness; he jumps behind an 8-foot long wooden flower pot that gets riddled with bullets. Ma Barker throws a hand grenade that almost blows up Bill Youngfellow. Ma Barker is the most vicious outlaw they've ever faced.
In a flashback, we see how it all started in Tulsa, Oklahoma years ago: Ma Barker was a church-goer, but always making excuses for her 4 boys who were committing petty crimes, which escalated into serious crimes. In 1927, while the 4 boys were looting a store, Herman got shot by a policeman. Pa Barker finally had the guts to walk out on the bunch. Ma and her 3 boys committed bank robberies, and killed a bank guard; also a kidnapping. They committed crimes in a 10-state area. In 1935, Pa Barker tipped Eliot Ness, and Ness almost caught the Barker gang in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then the Barkers kidnapped a millionaire's son and got $200,000 ransom.
Arthur "Doc" Barker and his fiancée Eloise left the gang; Arthur took his share of the ransom and went to Chicago, but all the serial numbers were recorded with the police. Around the first of January, 1935, when Arthur spent a $10 bill, the grocer informed Eliot Ness, so Ness knew Arthur was in Chicago. Ma Barker stupidly sent a birthday cake to Arthur (who was using the alias Clarence Tillman), and enclosed a postcard, "Greetings from Oklawaha, Florida." Arthur even more stupidly picked it up at the post office (January 8), even though there was a "Wanted" poster with his photo on it in the post office lobby. Bill Youngfellow tailed him; Arthur was soon arrested by Ness and his men.
Back to the present: January 16, 1935. Ma Barker lobs a hand grenade at Flaherty and almost blows him up. Ma Barker throws another grenade at Eliot Ness, crouching behind a large, fallen tree limb, and the explosion almost kills him. Ma Barker is the most malicious outlaw they've ever faced; she keeps firing her machine gun and screaming defiantly. Eliot Ness, trying to give them every possible chance to surrender, brings Arthur to the scene, hoping they will give up. Lloyd decides to surrender, and walks outside and throws down his chopper; his own brother Fred shoots him in the back. Lloyd manages to crawl back inside the house, and dies. Ness lets Arthur walk all the way to the house; he tells his mom they don't have a chance. Then Fred, shot up badly himself, dies. Ma Barker calls Arthur "scum" for surrendering, and points her chopper at him; nevertheless, she lets him walk back to Ness. Arthur couldn't get Ma Barker to surrender, and she finally gets shot inside the house. Thus ended the threat of the Barker gang. (synopsis by: kdh)
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[facts: The Barker-Karpis gang rampaged across the Midwest from 1931 to 1935. Their career spanned the entire "public enemy" era of the Depression and included murders, burglaries, bank robberies, mail robberies, train robberies, and 2 kidnappings. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, in his book "The FBI in Action" wrote, "Ma Barker and her sons, and Alvin Karpis and his cronies, constituted the toughest gang of hoodlums the FBI ever has been called upon to eliminate."]
[deaths: The first to die was Herman Barker, he shot himself during a gunfight with the police on August 29, 1927. After a shootout that lasted for hours, Ma Barker and her son Fred were gunned down in the Lake Weir, Florida, resort on January 16, 1935. Arthur "Doc" Barker, captured on January 8, 1935, was found guilty of the Bremer kidnapping, and was sent off to Alcatraz to serve a life sentence; 4 years later, after an ill-advised escape attempt gone bad, Arthur was gunned down by the prison guards on June 13, 1939. Finally, Lloyd Barker was shot and killed by his wife in 1949; she was committed to a mental institution.]
[trivia: producer Desi Arnaz, of Desilu Productions, had once thought of casting himself in the role of Eliot Ness.]
Taken at face value, this one is exciting though not only is it historically innacurate - it hardly really needs the Untouchables to drive the story. hide show
Ma Barker and her boys face a bloody end to their criminal spree of terror.
I can see how Hoover might have burst a blood vessel after seeing that "The Untouchables" series gave Eliot Ness credit for the demise of the Barker gang, but still, as a story, I find this one entertaining with a chance to see the human nature of villains in a little more depth than usual.
There's a nice use of a building evil here, with good use of long flashback sequences that paint the picture. Claire Trevor chews some good scenery here, enabling her sons' nastiness, belittling her husband, and despising the women who compete for her boys' attention. Her mental illness is well-illustrated when she absolutely must send a birthday cake to Arthur in Chicago, exposing her location in the process. In a way, the plot device illustrates her delusions and misplaced affections just about as well as an hour of television can muster.
So, though Ness and his men pass in and out of the story without driving much of the plot, in the end I think this is a story well-told in terms of drama and layered suspense.
Inconsistent episode hide show
This episode ticked off FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover because it concerned a case which involved his FBI and he wrote a letter of protest to executive producer Quinn Martin. From then on the show never used real-life villains who had been captured by the FBI although it did use thinly veiled versions of George "Machine Gun" Kelly in The Lily Dallas Story and Bonnie and Clyde in The Doreen Maney Story.
The episode itself is very inconsistent although we do see one technique here that is never used again in the series: a flashback sequence. Claire Trevor is way too over the top as Ma Barker. Her performance appears to have been parodied by Shelly Winters as "Ma Parker" in an episode of Batman. Future Oscar winner Louise Fletcher does have a nice bit as the moll of one of the Barker boys and Vaughn Taylor does a nice job as right thinking Pa Barker but those are the main highlights of the episode. It also marks the only time in show history that the Untouchables would kill a female.
Mad_Buck
Editor
kdhaisch
Retired
boechsner
char2renee
Gislef
