Capone author’s tour hits brewery, thanks to Ness

Seventy-nine years ago this spring, Eliot Ness’ squad of “Untouchables” bashed down the doors of Al Capone’s brewery in Cicero, Ill. and took an axe to 14 vats filled with thousands of gallons of Capone’s beer. This Friday, Jonathan Eig will pay a much more polite visit to Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewery. Over lunch and some Eliot Ness Amber Lagers, the author from Chicago will talk about his new book, Get Capone, and its portrayals of the famed Prohibition agent and history’s ultimate gangster.

Eig’s vivid, fast-paced account of the rakish crime boss’ rise to power reveals how federal officials struggled to find some way – any way -- to put Capone in prison. Ness, who spent seven years crusading as Cleveland’s safety director, appears on only about 15 pages.

“I was struck by his intelligence and his honesty,” Eig says -- but he argues that during the Capone investigation, Ness “was well-meaning but mostly ineffective.” His brewery raids didn’t contribute to the tax charges that did Capone in. Ness’ early investigations of Chicago Heights bootleggers didn’t impress the author either. “He didn’t really have the character for undercover work,” Eig says. “He was better at public jobs: getting interviews, getting attention.”

Even in Cleveland, where Ness fought police corruption, racketeers, gamblers and the Mob, “He was a troubled man in many ways,” Eig says. “He had very high standards for himself as public figure, but his personal life often got in the way.” He’s referencing Ness’ failure to solve the Torso Murders, his public drinking, and his two divorces, which eroded his reputation.

Cleveland knows the real Ness: Complex, sometimes tragic, and more interesting than the squeaky-clean mythic hero. Clevelanders “knew him in the mature years of his career,” Eig says. “They saw him at times as a flawed person. In Chicago, nobody really knew him until he was gone.”

Eig will include Ness in his noontime Friday talk at the brewery and his more sober appearance Thursday night at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. But he’ll focus on Capone, whose voice leaps off the pages of his book, his wit as quick and piercing as tommy-gun bullets.

“He was a jovial guy,” says Eig. “People enjoyed his company. He was a man’s man. He liked going hunting and fishing and going to the track. People really enjoyed being with him.”

Capone still fascinates us because he pursued the American Dream, Eig says. “He did it with machine guns, which isn’t the traditional way, but he was an immigrant kid with an amazing opportunity to rise from mediocrity to greatness.

“He does this with a certain flair. He doesn’t just want to be the meanest, toughest gangster. He wanted to have style, wanted to dress elegantly. That makes him intriguing.”

(Photo from Cleveland State University's Cleveland Press collection.)

It's "Ky-ah-HO-ga" -- the Mohawk say so

Did you see Cleveland Magazine mentioned on the Plain Dealer's front page yesterday? Mike McIntyre, the Tipoff columnist, credited us with a friendly assist as he tried to settle Cleveland's eternal debate: whether the river and the county should be pronounced "Ky-ah-HO-ga" or "Ky-ah-HOG-ah."

McIntyre covers the main points: that West Siders tend to prefer "HOG-ah," while East Siders say "HO-ga." He credited Jimmy Dimora with endorsing "HOG-ah" last week. (During his "diatribe" -- Dimora's own description -- against county Republican leader Rob Frost, my notes show Dimora also reduced the name to three, almost two, syllables: "Ka'HOG-ah" County.)

McIntyre writes, "Cleveland Magazine declared hoag correct after once interviewing a woman who speaks Mohawk. Cuyahoga is derived from an American Indian word." I had tipped him off to one of my proudest discoveries of Cleveland-iana, which we published in our December 2005 "How Cleveland Are You?" quiz:
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The most poetic legend claims Cuyahoga is a Mohawk word for “crooked river.” So we called someone who speaks Mohawk: Martha Lickers, curriculum developer at the Ronathahonni Cultural Center in Ahkwesahsne, Ont. The Mohawk word for “big river,” she says, is kahionhowanen, which is pronounced “gah-yo-ho-wah-na.” HO-ga it is.
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Gah-yo-ho-wah = Ky-ah-ho-gah. That not only settles the HO-ga vs. HOG-ah debate, it identifies the origin of the river's name! Alas, it's not "crooked river," as the poetic legend goes, just "big river."

No wonder our discovery didn't catch on. The idea that the name means "crooked river" is one of those Cleveland myths we don't want to let go -- like the legend that the bullet holes in Great Lakes Brewing's bar were shot by Eliot Ness.

Speaking of the river: "Burn On," our complete package of stories about the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River Fire, is now online. It's also in the July issue of the magazine. (If you'd like to link to it, here's a shortcut: tinyurl.com/CMriverpackage.)

'Torso' filming in Cleveland?

More news for all you torso enthusiasts! Cleveland.com reports progress toward shooting Torso, a feature film about Cleveland's infamous serial killer. I'm excited, but skeptical.

Here's the backstory. In January 2006, Fight Club director David Fincher announced he wanted to adapt the graphic novel Torso into a film, dramatizing Eliot Ness' attempts to solve our town's grisly 1930s dismemberment-murders. Then 2 1/2 years went by with few updates.

Until this week, when the Plain Dealer quoted Bill Mechanic, a co-producer on the project, saying Paramount Studios wants to start shooting in early 2009. The filmmakers want to shoot it all in Cleveland, Mechanic says, but they may have to do only street scenes here, and the rest in Detroit, because Michigan has new tax breaks for filmmaking that Ohio doesn't.

Well. A few thoughts. Of course Cleveland movies ought to be filmed in Cleveland. And of course Ness' Cleveland years were filled with cinematic drama. I can't wait to see the scene of Ness, on his first day as safety director, walking out of the old Payne Avenue police headquarters, promising action. And even though Detroit's gorgeous 1920s architecture could easily stand in for Cleveland's, Ohio should look to Michigan's new law for ideas on attracting film projects.

But a close read shows reasons not to dust off your head shots, in hopes of becoming a fedora-topped or post-flapper-bobbed extra, just yet. The PD, citing Mechanic, says "Paramount executives are putting together the movie's budget and a critical piece of that involves receiving tax breaks." In other words, the funding isn't nailed down yet. Also, the PD says the film "will star Matt Damon as Eliot Ness," but Damon's not listed on Torso's page on IMDBPro (subscription only). I think the PD is going off vague 2006 reports that the filmmakers were talking to Damon about the role. An anonymous poster to Cleveland.com who says he's in the film industry is skeptical too.

Torso could be a great movie if Fincher can see his ambitions through. He says he wants to make it the Citizen Kane of cop movies -- and demythologize Eliot Ness. A worthy goal, but given his source material, I wonder. The graphic novel Torso, while closer to the historic Ness than the Untouchables film and TV series, takes plenty of fictional leaps. To create an effective climax, Ness catches the killer. The real torso murderer was never caught.

Haunted Cleveland torso murders tour

This weekend, I went on Cleveland's most macabre tour, which includes no haunted houses or ghost tales, just actual killings. Haunted Cleveland's Torso Murders tour tells the homicide-curious the story of the never-identified serial killer who decapitated and dismembered 13 victims in Cleveland between 1935 and 1938.

I've read the two main books on the murders, Steven Nickel's Torso and James Jessen Badal's In the Wake of the Butcher, so I figured I was prepared. Anyone who'd pay $50 for this tour likely has a strong stomach and an appreciation of dark horror. But my friend and I were still caught off guard -- we did not expect such an uncensored trip through the county coroner's office, including the sight of bodies under sheets, their toe-tagged feet sticking out. By comparison, the bus ride through Lake View Cemetery was downright sunny. Our destination was Eliot Ness' gravestone. The legendary Treasury agent and Cleveland safety director investigated the torso murders but could not solve them -- a failure many torso enthusiasts blame, inaccurately, for his career's decline.

Buddy Kovacic, a retired Cleveland homicide detective, narrated the tour. As the sun set and the tour followed Kinsgbury Run, where many victims were discovered, Kovacic explained historians' leading theory about the murders. Their research points to deranged surgeon Francis Sweeney, whom Ness secretly interrogated for days, and who sent Ness disturbing, taunting postcards for decades afterward. (Click here and scroll down to read James Jessen Badal's 2006 Cleveland Magazine article about Sweeney.)

Last stop was the Cleveland Police Museum, which has a torso murder exhibit that includes the death masks of some victims (pictured). Badal, the torso-book author, took questions about the murders and revealed he is working on a second book about them. It will focus on suspect Frank Dolezal, who died in jail after his arrest for one of the murders, and Sweeney, the secret suspect.

Haunted Cleveland may run the torso tour once more this year, but its focus this fall is on its Halloween-season Burning River Ghost Tour.