Dragnet 1967

OK, maybe this isn't the best show in television history, but it is a good one to watch. Even though I have seen every episode many times, I never get tired of watching it. After viewing the show all these years, it is fun to try and spot which of the many recurring actors and actresses appear in that episode--like the late Virginia Gregg!! She was a hoot to watch in many of the episodes.

It is also fun to see someone portray a cop or good guy in one episode and then play a villian in another episode. Now, even though this doesn't have anything to deal directly with any episode of Dragnet, I think that it was really nice how Jack Webb hired his ex-wife's husband in a few episodes and later was the producer of "Emergency" with his ex-wife Julie London and her husband Bobby Troup. I doubt very seriously that many people in Hollywood would be so mature and do that today.

Jack Webb was being interviewed once about his show Dragnet and he said that he hoped that by creating this show and its portrayal of police work that it would make the public more sympathetic to our brave boys in blue and their job easier. The amount of abuse that police have to take is horrible and ridiculous Mister Webb said. Its is small wonder that the police were so fond of him. They once gave him an award from "the best real cops to the best reel cop". Jack Webb in fact is the only person to ever be given a policeman's funeral by the LAPD who was not a police officer. He served in the Air Force in WWII and began to work as a disc jockey and a small part movie actor after the war. It was while making a film called He Walked By Night that Webb befriended a Los Angeles policeman who introduced him to police files and a light went on in Jack's head and the rest is history. Webb used actual cases from the LAPD and the script went through several hands before it even went on the air from patrolman to captain. Webb even instructed his actors to "deadpan" their lines to add to the air of realism. He read his won lines off a teleprompter. I admit that if Webb had been any more wooden you could have made an end table out of him. Even his walk was like a man whose shorts were too tight. Joe Friday was really a very boring person who wore the same suit all the time. He didn't love his job but did it and served uncomplainingly. Dragnet tackled a lot of topics that were controversial at the time like teenage drug abuse. There was one episode once about a father who went to Friday and Bill Gannon and told them his daughter was smoking pot. There was one excellent scene where Friday angrily lectures the girl and her husband about thier addiction. This episode had a horrifying ending where they crash a party at their house and find that they have drowned their little girl in the bathtub. Gannon gets sick at the sight and it is the most powerful Dragnet that I have ever seen. Another episode has Friday engaging in hand to hand combat with a teenager holding a live grenade. Jack Webb was one of the true pioneers with this series and with Adam 12. He brought us all a lot of enjoyment and made the police out to be the heroes that they are. I often wonder what he would think of tv series like The Shield and NYPD Blue. He would probably be turning over in his grave.

Dragnet is a classic, one of the last times when not only were the patrol cars black and white, the issues were, too. That may be what makes it so enjoyable to watch...no question of who the bad guys are here! Gannon and Friday--the Odd Couple on the job, and a perfect working combination. And where else could you see the guy who was Crimson Crusader one week be a stoned hippy student the next, then a worried bigamist the week after? Or the gun runner who becomes a doctor or a shop owner? And just how many times was Virginia Gregg on that program anyway? And hey, when was the last time anyone could drive from downtown L.A. to Toluca Lake in 6 minutes?

... and Dragnet shows how much they are changing. This show takes the same format as the original 1950s TV show. Two deadpan LA police detectives - Jack Webb's Joe Friday and Harry Morgan's Bill Gannon - investigate one crime per show. Friday is single and Gannon is married. With four kids. On a police detective's salary. Those were the days, just before The Great Inflation drove women into the workforce and the birthrate downward. But I digress.

When this show begins - 1967- women who work for the police department wear frilly clothes and are all secretaries and various office personnel. They are asked to get coffee for the detectives and it does not wind up in the lap of said detective. And for some reason any time a pretty woman appears, even if she is a suspect that va va va voom music plays on a nearby saxophone. By 1969 that music disappears and women become police officers and are addressed as peers. Oh, and suddenly there are black people in LA and on the force! Wherever did they come from? In the 1967 world of Dragnet's LA, the City of Angels is portrayed as white as rice.

So Dragnet becoming so socially conscious is part of what is killing the show by the end of the 60s. It spends way too much time talking about police/community relations and the issues of the day. Issues that are over 50 years old and have really dated the show. But there are good episodes even in the last season. Another thing - To listen to Joe Friday marijuana is as dangerous as heroin. That was a prevailing attitude at the time. Elizabeth Taylor was almost run out of town on a rail in 1969 for comparing weed (that's not what she called it) to alcohol.

I also want to commend the acting skills of Harry Morgan. Whatever role he was asked to play he became that person. In the 40s and early 50s he played vindictive hoods and whiney weaklings. He was the tolerant suburban husband Pete Porter in the 50s and 60s. He was that old horse soldier on MASH, and he is the loyal partner of Joe Friday here. I think he is very much underrated because his presence is so subtle.

This series is worth your time. Also go back and watch the original 50s Dragnet if you have the chance.

This was a great show. Unfortunately, it does appear a little dated today--almost 40 years later. Also, too many people have discounted this show because they have been warped by seeing crap like the DRAGNET movie starring Dan Aykroyd. For the time it was made, this was one of the very best cop shows on TV--if not the very best.

Unlike the earlier incarnation of the TV show that Jack Webb produced and starred in from the 1950s, this version is less violent and more subdued--showing a lot of the more mundane aspects of police work. And, the show was meant to be more entertainment AND public service work to build support for our cops. The earlier show was more important just for entertainment. Plus, in this series, Detective Smith has been replaced by Detective Gannon (played by Harry Morgan).

So why did I like it so much? Well, aside from its realism, I think that Jack Webb's interpretation of Joe Friday was probably the coolest square guy I have ever seen. Yes, he was rigid and by-the-book, but he had the absolute best lines in TV history. For every scumbag he had the greatest snappy comebacks--sometimes making the entire episode worth while.

While not every episode clicked (some were too preachy or dull), there were so many great episodes. For example, the several episodes starring Burt Mustin, the Blue Boy episode, the white supremacist (with perhaps the greatest Friday one-liner), the guy who stole superhero memorabilia and thought HE was a superhero, etc. are all wonderful examples of fantastic TV. If you see one episode and it doesn't win you over, try a few more--I can guarantee if you give it a fair try you'll be hooked.

By the way, the best of the four seasons is the first. Part-way through season 2 and continuing into the series the shows often were more desk-bound and often concerned more mundane things like public relations and the like. While not bad, these later episodes were a bit claustrophobic and lacked the zip of the earlier ones.

PS--while the style is VERY different, try to find a copy of the DRAGNET movie Jack Webb made in the 1950s. It's one of the best Film Noir movies and is a very tough and gritty film--and VERY different from DRAGNET 1967.