Dezernat 'M'

"When I was a child around 7-8 years old I loved the police series that came on in the 50s Highway Patrol, The Lineup, San Francisco Beat,Mike Hammer, but I think that M-Squad was my favorite. Lee Marvin was DANGEROUS as Lt. Ballanger. But the sound track of Count Basie was what made me watch this show every week, and made me a life long Basie fanatic. I hope somebody will put all 117 episodes on video because I would certainly buy all of them.

I recently saw Max Weinberg's Big Band and it was a real treat to hear them play the theme from M Squad - especially since I had just watched all the episodes of the series over the past year or so. Lee Marvin was one cool cucumber of an actor who wore a cool hat during the series run. It's great to see him walk the streets of Chicago in his relentless pursuit of criminal apprehension. Like Joe Friday, we never really see Marvin's Frank Ballinger off the clock, but unlike Friday it seems like when he does get the occasional day off, Ballinger might actually have a good time at a local windy city watering hole. I watched many of the episodes in the wee hours of the night, which was the perfect time to enter Frank's black and white universe of no nonsense crime fighting.

Lee Marvin became and remains one of my favorite actors because of this series. As a kid I eagerly awaited Friday nights at 9:00 (EST) on NBC. Frank Ballinger always got the bad guy, and we got to hear some really cool music along the way. The late fifties and early sixties were a golden age for TV cop shows and TV music -- this show was one of the main reasons. After much travail, I have managed to obtain a rare videocassette of two episodes, and even rarer, a copy of a CD reissue of the sound track LP. Great stuff! The "Police Squad!" opening credit sequence, and the characters of Frank Drebin and his boss, were lifted (lovingly, I am sure) from this show.

Straight out of the James M. Cain hard boiled school of crime fiction (minus the sex, of course) this was TV by men for men. Each episode began and ended with a pithy remark or two by the hero/narrator Detective-Leut. Frank Ballinger about "my town"--Chicago, that is.

Oddly, this fifty-plus year old series can still provide insights and observations that seem fresh, about police work, about human nature in general. The tough, minimalist dialog contains lines that make you want to write them down for future use.

Lee Marvin is perfect. He was only mid-thirties when this series was shot but looks somewhat older, or anyway more mature, with his lived-in face and prematurely white hair. Marvin personifies toughness but he's no Steve McQueen. That is, he can handle a line of dialog articulately, use his voice like a woodwind, yet lose none of his manliness.

The only aspect of the character of Lieut. Ballinger that is a bit unrealistic is his almost monkish attitude toward women--imposed on the character due to the prevailing broadcast standards of the time. In this series women are mostly trouble, or else the grieving widow of a police officer or the wife of a criminal, astonishingly naive about what her man really does.

Without all the technical advances of today's television production, this show accomplished more with just tight writing, solid acting and straightforward directing.

M Squad is probably the only true film noir TV show ever shot. It was done with low camera angles and the most intense black and white photography with surprising lighting. As few shades of gray as possible were used. It needs to be viewed on a b/w TV for the full effect. It is an important work, and if the series still exists, it should be shown on PBS. Very intense drama. A good antidote to the sugary sweet shows like (two of my true favorites) Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best. Good shows, but the fifties were nasty, and the TV shows that you find on G4 or Nick are just not representative. It was a show that made the viewers uncomfortable, I have read. I a very thankful that my parents never took those parental rating seriously (yes, they had them then).