The death of Frank Nitti...

In The Untouchables, Eliot Ness murdered Frank Nitti by pushing him off the edge of a tall building. Is this really how Frank Nitti died?

I believe that Frank Nitti actually blew his OWN brains out. Suicide.


Don Cardi

Nitti was facing some heavy prison time after the Chicago mob "turned on him" and expected he take the rap for some others (along with himself) who were indicted on charges of shaking down movie studios. Rather than face prison he shot himself.

Frank Nitti was a good shot.

Thank you for your help.

SC, I've also read that besides the possibility of him going to prison, it was rumored that he had terminal cancer and that may have also played a role in his decision to kill himslef.


Don Cardi

Thats a popular theory, too. Its just too incredible to think that he (Nitti) waited until after he was indicted to kill himself, though.

He was the only Don in history to Kill himself
NObody would have believed it if there wasn't a witness

I heard that Elliot Ness was an alchoolic and a womanizer, and that he was a huge peice of crap compared to how the movie portrayed him

The Untouchables movie is in large part fiction. About some of the only factual parts of the movie were the fact that Elliot Ness, Frank Nitti, and Al Capone existed and Elliot Ness was trying to put Capone away.

With that said, it's cool to go by some of the places where they filmed the movie. Every Sunday night when I took the train back from visiting my fiance (now wife) in Bloomington, IL, I'd walk up the stairs at Union Station.

The bar in the opening of the movie has changed a lot. It is now covered with rusting metal plates and is now called the Twisted Spoke. It's at the corner of Clark and Roscoe under the 'L'.

I cant stand the untouchables. The whole clean cut image they give elliot ness has me rooting for capone and nitti through the whole film. though i guess thats for another thread...

thats one of the pictures that is shown in the godfather when the five family war begins

Is it?? I never noticed.

There's a lot of truth in that. Ness truly was "untouchable" as a government agent during Prohibition in Chicago--he could not be bribed. But he was a jerk: a publicity hound who blabbed so much to the press about what he was doing--and when he was going to do it--that Capone had little difficulty in dodging his raids. And yes, he was a heavy drinker. He resigned from the federal gov't in 1935 and became police chief of Cleveland. But he had to resign in 1942 after he got involved in an auto accident while drunk. He served on the board of the Diebold Safe Co., but failed at that business and several others before dying of a heart attack in 1957.

thats one of the pictures that is shown in the godfather when the five family war begins [/b][/quote]yeah i recall seeing that, from a different angle though i think