La police est sur les dents

This film is so true to the atmosphere of the 1950's that you could show it in a history class, but it's a lot of fun. Jack Webb is fantastically straight as Joe Friday; he never had a better role. He speaks every word with a cement-like conviction; he's always got a snappy answer for every sarcastic criminal. Everyone in the movie is great, but the standouts are Virginia Gregg as the murdered man's alcoholic and handicapped wife, Stacy Harris as Max Troy, insincere head of the crime syndicate, and Richard Boone as the police captain, who says to his men with angry authority "all right, bumper to bumper tail; get up with em in the morning and put em to bed at night".

Check out the Chrome on the shiny 1950's automobiles. Look carefully and you will see the clear plastic air-conditioning tubes inside the rear window of the Cadillac. Wood furniture (not fiberboard), non-filter cigarettes by the ton, neon signs, 8-miles per gallon autos. This is authentic 1950's retro (and wastefulness) at its best.

Expensive color film and fine film editing. First-class musical scoring is seamlessly blended into the movie.

"Dragnet" is a meticulously planned movie project. Looks like every scene was thought out well in advance of the actual production. Webb must have been a very hard-working movie craftsman.

Stylistically, Webb's brisk handling of actors and clipped, monotonous dialog is not appealing to my tastes, but directing style is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. His style is OK for television shows but less so in a full-length movie. However, this is a good crime movie and Webb at least gives it a kind of watchable uniqueness.

Modern TV's "Law and Order" breaks no new ground. This "Dragnet" movie has the cops and detectives, then the District Attorney, then some sort of judicial hearing, etc. And of course "Law and Order" doesn't have those big chrome dinosaurs.

Every time I see this movie, I find something else about it that makes me like it all the more. Whether its the cars, the attitudes, the clothes or just the story itself. I liked the cast from the very first time and recognized most of them from the TV series. Seeing again, now, was like getting visit from some old friends. It departed from the TV show in that you saw the crime committed up front and there was no epilogue of the outcome. But otherwise, it was classic Joe Friday. Just the facts. Not a lot of superfluous rhetoric or endless scenes of police tailing bad guys. Lots of voice over with details like time of day, location, etc. Simple interrogation from Friday with smart-mouth answers from the bad guys and the snappy, emotional responses from Joe. It kind of gets you, right where you live, you know? Don't miss this one. You won't be sorry.

Oh, what a delight to begin TV Month with the first ever movie based on a TV show! Yes, that's right! This was based on the popular show "Dragnet" and it's too bad seeing as how I have never seen the original show. I think it might have set some record for prime time show with the most series revivals. I got to poobala's crossover website enough to know that. Anyway, this movie was well, good.

I'm surprised that the first would be in color and the color is quite nice. I admit it does run into the problem of seeming just like a long episode of a show. I will however, forgive that a bit seeing as how this was the first ever movie based on a TV show. The plot probably could have been bigger, but this is still well acted. It's great how consistently serious this movie is. While not a classic, I'm glad to have come across it. ***

I agree with the other comments that it is somewhat disappointing that we already know the identity of the killer at the beginning, but it is obvious that the killing was shown so that we know Friday and Smith aren't harassing an innocent man throughout the movie. And harass they do. Because we know the killer, we can laugh they way Friday and Smith do when they frisk him four times a day and tailgate his car. The main problem with the movie is that the story just isn't as interesting as most of the stories of the television episodes were, and, as someone wrote, Friday is a different, tougher man, not as likeable as before. Another unfortunate thing is that in making the movie in color to attract audiences who had only seen "Dragnet" in black-and-white, the movie loses the stark film noir feel that many of the television episodes had. In addition, the movie was made when the television series started to bring more silly comedy into it, and, as a result, the movie contains far too much of it. The early episodes had a lot of dark humor, but not silly humor like this movie does, such as the scene with the big-busted singer, and the scene in which the bystanders watch Friday and Smith frisk Max Troy. Even Friday's one-liners aren't as darkly funny or clever as they are in the early television episodes. That said, the movie is still very interesting and rather entertaining if you give it a chance. Webb directs with a nice pace and the big production gives it a grand atmosphere that the television show can't capture. Had a "Dragnet" movie been done in black-and-white, with a more accessible story, and during the 1951-52 season when the only comedy was dark comedy, the movie would have been a bonafide classic.