Dragnet

Several sources have stated that Jack Webb really wanted to be a Los Angeles policeman. The height restrictions of that time period kept him from qualifying for his badge. It also has been said that "Dragnet" is the closest to reality of all the police shows ever made.

I'm most familiar with the Harry Morgan period but all versions I've seen of the TV and radio originals are really good. Post-sixties angst is absent from the stories and characterizations, as in Perry Mason and perhaps a few others. Actually, "Ozzie and Harriet" from a different angle gives the same picture of a time with a bit less self-doubt.

Dragnet began on radio in June 1949. The first two programs contained a lot of gratuitous violence. Letters from listeners changed this aspect of the program. On the third program, even the theme music had changed. The lone writer for the radio show was James Moser. Many of Jim's scripts were adapted for television when the TV version started in 1951. Because Barton Yarborough, who played Ben Romero, died while working on the TV show at the Disney studios in Burbank, his rural wisdom was sadly missed.

It should be remembered that Jack Webb was a comedian at heart. Comedy is a hallmark in every Dragnet episode. If you look hard in even the soberest episode about police officers getting killed, you will find smatterings of humor. Jack's first venture in broadcasting was a weekly comedy-variety series originating from KGO in San Francisco and heard on ABC West Coast stations during the spring of 1946.

All of the 1950s shows were in black and white with the exception of the annual Christmas show (The Big Little Jesus), which was always done in color. It was also the only episode which did not bear the statement, "The names have been changed to protect the innocent." There was a Christmas episode used prior to this one which was about a little boy who got a rifle for Christmas. I won't spoil it by telling you the ending, but you can probably figure what happens, three minutes into the show.

Some actors on Dragnet appeared as several different characters. They included Harry Bartell, Ed Phillips, Virginia Gregg, Olan Soule, Allene Roberts, Virginia Christine (Folgers Coffee lady), and many others. Some of the actors were "has beens" like Natalie Masters (who was Candy Matson on a radio series in the late 1940s) and Ben Alexander (Joe Friday's partner--had a big part in the 1930 antiwar flick "All Quiet on the Western Front.") Her husband, Monty Masters was on the production crew. Up and coming stars included Leonard Nimoy (bad guy), Dennis Weaver (worked in the police lab), and Martin Milner (your typical teenager from any Los Angeles high school). Peggy Webber, a woman who was probably born about the same year as Jack Webb, portrayed Joe Friday's mother, with whom he lived.

Those of us who loved the 1950s series find the 1960s series lacking in some ways. While it was a good, wholesome show for the entire family, it wasn't the old series. Of course, Joe Friday's partner, Bill Gannon, would get better stuff in the years to follow, as Col. Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H.

One thing a nitpicky guy like me notices is that at the end of Dragnet in the 1950s, Joe Friday was promoted to Lieutenant. When the show came back on the air in the 1960s, he was back to Sergeant.

There were two other programs with the Dragnet name. One was a syndicated program in the late 1980s. It had different characters and a very different feel. The other premiered in 2003: Joe Friday, now Detective Joe Friday, had badge 714 and a partner named Frank Smith, who was Joe's permanent partner after Ben Romero died in 1951 on the original series.

Actually, this show was rude in that the LAPD retired Friday's badge after his death. He had a State Funeral in Los Angeles City Hall. When Jack Webb died, so did Joe Friday.

During my childhood the staccato musical "sting" could be heard anytime and any place that there was a parody of a detective programme or even between kids if there was a minor mystery, someone would hum the theme.

Actually watching it for the first time many decades later in very bleary prints shown on the most obscure satellite channel to fill the gaps between adverts early in the morning, its brilliance still shines through. "Everything you see is true". But how true and how was it actually made? There doesn't seem to be any authoritative account of how the scripts were written so I can only guess. Two things however strike me: firstly there is a precision and sometimes quirky individuality about the portrayal of the suspect, small but striking details of their manner and behaviour. Secondly, the calm reasonable and utterly professional cops who at all times remain dedicated, fully human and humane, sympathetic yet not presented as superheroes.

My feeling at least is that the source of the materials was not just the files but the actual cops involved who related things they'd remembered but which would not have seemed significant enough for them to include in a written report.

The most impressive was Lee Marvin playing a violent killer who combined calm petty self-absorption with lying, and unconcerned matter-of-factness about his murders. He's just violently attacked a cop, is now handcuffed and about to be taken down to the station yet calmly says he wants to clean his teeth and expects the cop, who's still got a bloody face, to hand him the toothpaste and turn on the tap. He's not trying to wind the cop up, he just wants what he wants. During questioning he says that he's hungry, is taken to a cafe and carefully chooses a meal with a special salad. Once finished he is confronted with compelling evidence, and casually confesses to a string of brutal and almost motive-less murders, then calmly turns to a discussion of how a little salt is vital to fully enjoying lettuce. It's his last meal outside jail and probably not far from his last meal on earth yet he remains calm and self-absorbed. It is the perfect outline sketch of a psychopath.

I've been watching some older episodes recently, courtesy of a couple of bargain four-episodes DVD I got in a Brighton 99p shop, and my attitude towards the series has changed somewhat from when I first saw Dragnet some decades ago. I now realise that the very tight, plodding format with the story told mostly through voice-over - much satirised, most memorably in Police Squad! and in a classic parody in an early Mad magazine - can somewhat blind the viewer to some of the show's more subtle strengths. The show does seem to make an effort to show the often tedious and legwork-heavy aspects of police work, and avoids violence and gratuitous gunplay as much as possible. But there's often a very sympathetic tone in Dragnet episodes towards the culprit, understanding that crime is often tragedy - such as in an episode called Big Porn, where in the final minutes a pornographer is revealed as a sad, tired old man, reliving his old days as a movie director. I particularly like an episode called Big Shoplift where the criminal turns out to be a lonely woman suffering from kleptomania, for whom even Joe Friday recognises that jail is not the right place. This compassion was a step forward from the efficient but rather cold film that inspired Dragnet, He Walked by Night, in which Webb had a bit part.

When I first saw Dragnet, I think in particular I underestimated the performance of Jack Webb, who seems to approach his suspects with a very human demeanour which is entirely realistic and such an antidote to the overplayed performances of many later TV cops. Webb produced and often wrote and directed the shows, and he displays a sure, experienced touch. Incidentally, the series didn't always take itself that seriously: look out for a wildly campy episode which alters the opening titles to read "Badge 417".