The television series "The Untouchables" first aired in 1959 and chronicled the adventures of FBI agent Eliot Ness (played by Robert Stack) in his quest to defeat organized crime during the Great Depression. The show was a huge success, until protests against the rampant violence shown in the series caused producers to water down the scripts. It was the violence which made the show popular and the result of the diluted scripts caused the show's popularity to plummet leading to its cancellation in 1963. Marx, always ready to take advantage of a hit television series, offered it's licensed 'Untouchables' playset in 1961. The set was unusual in that it included two tin-litho buildings. Most Marx playsets only included one building. The 'Revolutionary War' playset had two cabins but they were identical whereas the 'Untouchables' set had two distinctly different buildings -a streetfront, and the West Side Warehouse featured today on Toys & Stuff.
The warehouse is one of Marx's 'shoebox' style buildings fleshed out with plastic accouterments. It's not unusual for the plastic parts to be missing from this building and those you see in the photos are reproductions. Some years back I had purchased the repos in the hope that one day a Warehouse would come my way, and sure enough, about two-or-so years ago I was able to purchase one - and of course it was missing the plastic pieces. Originally, the playset came with two Rolls Royce tin-litho friction-motored cars by Marx's Linemar division and in the last photo I've shown two of these cars along with a Linemar Cadillac. The figures included in the set were 45mm. Even without the gangster theme, this building would look terrific on an O-gauge tinplate layout. Enjoy!
All the cars have issues, The car on the left is missing two hubcaps, the car in the middle has been repainted, and the car on the right is missing its windshield. However, they still look great and I'm glad to have them.
