Star Trek: A Piece of the Action

Episode: "A Piece of the Action"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 2, Episode 17
Original Air Date: January 12, 1968

via wellyousaythat

In a Star Trek costume drama,  the Enterprise visits Sigma Iotia II, a planet corrupted by too early contact with the Federation a hundred years before.  The crew of Horizon had left behind a book called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties.  The impressionable natives built the entire society around the text, essentially treating it as heaven-sent gospel.  If you ever wanted to see our heroes in zoot suits and Captain Kirk do a terrible Cagney impression, this is your chance!

The novelty of the episode is fun, as is seeing Vic Tayback in a guest star gangster role.  I couldn't help feeling, though, that the writing was a bit labored at times.  I could have done without Kirk and the goofy accent, too.  But again, the novelty is fun.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Bela Oxmyx, the story's Al Capone-equivalent, is played by Anthony Caruso.  Caruso was born April 7, 1916 in Frankfort, Indiana.  He had a 50-year career in Hollywood career with 251 screen credits, usually in villain roles.  The lion share of his work was in television but there were film roles in the '40s and '50s, notably The Asphalt Jungle, Watch on the Rhine and A Gun in His Hand.  He was married to his wife, Tonia Valente, for 63 years, parting upon his death in 2003.