Decoy

Yes, this is a wonderfully gritty, no-nonsense cop yarn. What struck me is: Where's the sexism? Where's the condescension? Where's the "Oh, ya gonna arrest me, Officer Sweetie Pie?" This was the Fifties, right? It's a cop show with a twist: a cop who gets emotional over what she sees and what she has to do. But Casey Jones never, and I mean never, lets it get in the way of her completely professional approach to her job. She works with male officers, and they are nothing if not equals, comrades in arms. And for those of you who know Beverly Garland only from the fluff of My Three Sons, have you got a surprise coming. Great entertainment all the way around. And for something a little snappier, try Front Page Detective.

Watching this on Amazon Prime. It's a series I hadn't had the opportunity to view on television. Yes, it's dated and some police techniques might seem questionable by today's standards, but it's ahead of its time by focusing on a female police officer and female victims and criminals. Lots of terrific early performances by actors who became well known and respected.

This show took me completely by surprise. When it showed up on my suggested list, on a whim I watched the 1st episode and was hooked.

It's been called the female Dragnet but in my opinion it is better. The topics are timely even for today and definitely ahead of it's time for 1958. Filmed entirely in NYC, it is a enlightening snapshot of the city in the 50's with many of the structures looking exactly the same to this day. Also of note are the many actors appearing in Decoy who would go on to become household names.

Don't let the name or age of the show dissuade you. I think American TV audiences were just not ready for an empowered female lead in a series and that's a shame because personally, I would have liked to have seen a few more seasons.

One would call "Decoy" for what it is... a female "Dragnet", with the beguiling Beverly Garland ("My Three Sons", "Scarecrow and Mrs. King") and the city of New York filling in for Jack Webb and sunny Los Angeles. But once you get caught in its premise, it's easy to overlook other aspects of the show. Such as the fact that Ms. Garland is required, in her role as undercover policewoman Patricia "Casey" Jones, to play a different role in each of the 39 episodes filmed. In one episode, she could play an exotic dancer in a carnival, in the next, she can play an addict, and so on and so on, all in the guise of a crime fighter. Whether Angie Dickinson, as Pepper Anderson - "Police Woman", took her cues from Beverly Garland is open to debate, but it's clear to say that Ms. Garland's Casey Jones is clearly a trailblazer for other lady lawmen to follow.

As for the other co-star, New York City... "Decoy" isn't the first series filmed on location in the Big Apple, nor was it the last, but it was certainly one of the most effective in terms of its film noir look and fully fleshed characters. This isn't "Naked City", but it's as close a similarity as you can get on a shoestring budget. And it does the city justice, as "Naked City" would do the next year. Check it out on DVD when you get the chance.

"Decoy" is a Pyramid Production in association with Official Films, Inc. with technical assistance from the Policewoman's Bureau, NYC Police Department. 39 episodes were filmed on location in 1957.

Back in 1957, women were seen as homemakers, school teachers, nurses, sales clerks, and those roller skating waitresses at a "drive-in" diner. If they were a bit more down on their luck, they might be prostitutes, exotic dancers or bar waitresses on the seedier side of town.

But there was another role for particular women who could handle it, who were strong enough, brave enough and ready enough to step into it. And that's where this show tells its story.

At the beginning of each episode of "Decoy," there was a block of text that read as follows:

Presented as a tribute to the Bureau of Policewomen Police Department, City of New York.

This was the first time in television history that a woman was the lead character in a police-based action-adventure series, and the show was popular, though it wasn't available on a network, so it had a bit less reach. "Decoy" was telecast nationally, just not necessarily at the same time in every city and admittedly wasn't available everywhere, because of the limitations of syndication.

The decoy of "Decoy" is Detective Casey Jones, played by Beverly Garland, who goes undercover into the world of third shifters, nightclubs, and other sordid or common jobs that women might have to eke out a living at the time. She plays the roles in order to investigate cases of theft, drug trafficking, arson, racketeering, even murder.

As was the custom at this time, we never see or hear anything about the lead character's personal life, except what leaks out in her brief discussions with her colleagues, nearly all of whom are male. It's strictly police work and lots of it, with Casey needed to become proficient in all sorts of skills to find her way into the lives of the criminals and take them down. Conversely, Casey didn't have a partner, per se, and worked at night usually, so there really wasn't any time for blithe discussions about hobbies and relationships. That was important because it kept Casey a rock solid, no-nonsense character.

It was a tour-de-force role for Ms. Garland, who weekly got to do various things, singing, dancing, emoting, and fighting for her life as she was asked to step into the roles required of various jobs every week. She often had to play innocent, dumb, weak and vulnerable, though audiences knew that Casey was none of those things, which is another element that added quality to her portrayal.

New York played a part because the seamy underbelly of The City is always there and the need to stop crime when and where it happens is a regular element that, like NYC itself, constantly changed and grew. Current footage around town was included in each episode, which gave the series value as a Time Capsule for what NYC looked like at that moment, with the Times Square area being prominently featured, both in plots and in the program's opening titles.

"Decoy" wasn't canceled; it was ended because the producers ran out of cash to keep it going. This was well before a program like this could earn the kind of bucks that today's syndicated shows get. And it took nearly twenty years before Angie Dickinson took the titular role of "Police Woman" and a network finally picked up the concept of a woman undercover cop doing the job.

In a way, it's sad that more people don't know about this series and its groundbreaking star, who eventually played the part of Fred MacMurray's wife on the long running sitcom "My Three Sons" and played Amanda's mom on the comedy/drama "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," two roles that fell into the "typical" category for women to play on television.

The good thing is that "Decoy" is essentially in the Public Domain, so nearly all of the episodes are available to view on YouTube, and with a thirty minute run time (about 24 minutes without commercials), they are brief to watch and mostly pretty entertaining. Not a lot of lag time when you're setting up an episode, getting the baddies to fall into the trap and hauling them down to Central Booking.

This is presented as a tribute to a great, somewhat forgotten actress, Beverly Garland, who deserves to be remembered for her versatility, her balance and her convincing portrayal of a police officer at a time when only the guys were doing the tough stuff.