Police Station

One untitled episode of this series is available at the Matinée Classic website. The show takes place in an unnamed metropolitan city. As the introductory narration tells us the stories are about "a war that starts with a crime and begins with an arrest." The series focuses on the activities in a police station, Pricinct 11. The main thread of the story is the investigation into two murders that happened during a fight between two rival teen-age gangs. A sub-story is the arrest for a charity scam pulled by an elderly woman. The show ends with a brief segment of the eventual sentences of the gang killer and the old lady. When I confirmed the date of this episode as I was amazed as the production values were those of television shows 8 to 10 years earlier - flimsy sets, poor audio quality, rather static camera work, and in a couple of cases the acting was very poor indeed. Incredible for a 1959 production. Even so, it's a shame that evidently most of the episodes are lost - it would be interesting to see more of them. The only actor I recognized was Henry Beckmann who had quite a career as a character actor - I remember him from at least one Perry Mason show.

I found a copy of this show on archive.org's website. Their TV shows and films are free to download and are in the public domain--and they're often linked to IMDb. However, WHICH particular episode I watched, I have no idea and IMDb doesn't help to clarify this.

This show seems very similar to "Dragnet" as it claims to be based on actual cases and has a similar sort of epilogue, though instead of focusing on one case it focuses on two--though one is clearly the main story. The slight plot involves an old lady con artist. She's cute but a habitual offender. The other plot involves a gang war in which two teens were killed--and the detectives are trying to sort out who did it.

Overall, the film is like a not quite as good version of "Dragnet". Enjoyable and interesting--and perhaps meant as a replacement for the other series that was just wrapping up its nearly decade-long run. Interestingly, it was written and directed by the same person, Sandy Howard.