Have you ever read the book?

Rating: Null/10 (9 December 2002)

Just a while ago, I ordered the paperback version of The Untouchables from a company that sells out-of-print and hard-to-find books. There are some differences between characters and scenes in the movie that are featured in the book. For example:
1. Instead of an all-white suit, Frank Nitti wears a blue suit with a grey fedora with a narrow black band.
2. Vito D'Ambrosio's character of Bowtie is called Rudensky in the book.
3. After the speakeasy bombing, Nitti is stopped by a suspicious patrolman. That scene was also supposed to be in the movie, but it was dropped before its release.
4. Ness's daughter is called Cora. Her name was never spoken in the movie.
5. Ness has an informer named Stash Moser, who acts as an undercover agent during the disastrous first raid, but is killed by the mob shortly after.
6. Ness meets Jimmy Malone before the first raid, not after it.
7. The newspaper reporter who follows Ness around is called Ferguson, not Scoop.
8. After the first raid, Ness takes a walk around Chicago and finds himself in front of the Lexington Hotel, Capone's headquarters.
9. George Stone is called by his Italian name "Giuseppe" by most of the other Untouchables members.
10. Every Untouchables member except Oscar Wallace carries a tommygun during the battle at the Canadian border.
11. The Capone member whom the Untouchables nab at the Canadian border is not Capone's bagman George, but his bookkeeper Walter Payne.
12. The Chicago District Attorney's name is Ralph Morgan.
13. When Ness goes to the hospital to visit his wife who's just given birth, three Capone men dressed as hospital workers attempt to kill him. A gunfight ensues and all three Capone men are killed.
14. Wallace isn't shot to death inside the elevator with the witness. He gets killed after he steps out of the elevator at the bottom of the elevator tunnel, and Payne is picked up by Frank Nitti.
15. We find out that Malone was married, but his wife died while giving birth to their child, and the child died too. Also, his father was shot and killed by robbers a few years before he was scheduled to retire.
16. Instead of chewing up Malone with tommygun bullets, Nitti shoots him in the head with a revolver and cuts his throat from ear to ear.
17. The shootout at Union Station doesn't take place on the steps, but inside the train that's scheduled to take Payne to Florida.
Sure, the movie may distort historical facts, but it's a great action film. If there had been an MTV Movie Awards back in 1987, Billy Drago could have taken home a Best Supporting Villain award for his chilling role as Frank Nitti.