Dragnet 1966

Although it's written by the same writer as "Dragnet" (1954), this film is the antidote to the theatrical production, and the best "Dragnet" Jack Webb ever did.

The actual case had occurred in the late 1950's, and had been worked by then-Sgt. Pierce Brooks, who served as technical consultant. (Wambaugh's "The Onion Field" was also a Brooks case.) A sex deviant photographs young, inexperienced models before raping and murdering them. Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon try to find the killer pervert, and in the process they solve ANOTHER murder; that of a jewelry salesman from France who bears a striking resemblance to their suspect. The plot is gripping and (of course) well acted and directed. A great moment comes when Friday consoles the young son of the murdered jewelry salesman. It's a rare display of emotion for the "cop's cop." The dialogue is true-to-life, and so are the supporting characters - even the ones clearly played for laughs.

For anyone who wants to know why Webb's "Dragnet" was so successful, THIS is the film to see.

FACTOID: The film aired in 1969, but was actually shot in 1966. It wasn't intended as a pilot for a new series, but when NBC saw it, they wanted Webb back as Friday full time.

Seven years had elapsed since the end of the original incarnation of Dragnet, and the show's popularity in syndication helped persuade Jack Webb to film this 1966 telemovie, which became the basis for the full-time return of Joe Friday to duty as telefilmdom's most famous working detective for the LAPD, this despite the fact the actual Richard Breen-scripted telefilm was kept in the can until 1969.

Dragnet 1966 alludes to the 1950s series when Joe mentions having a previous partner named Smith. This is a nice touch that helps bridge the two decades of Joe's detective duty together, though it does raise the question of why Friday, who'd been promoted to lieutenant, was reassigned as a sergeant. In any event, Joe's return to duty is welcome, and his interplay with new partner Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) and the other detectives of LAPD's Homicide Division (later merged into the Robbery Division) remains engaging.

Friday is recalled to duty from a vacation by the visit of Russian VIPs, but that lasts all of two minutes before Homicide chief Captain Hugh Brown (a miscast Gene Evans; Art Balinger normally played Hugh Brown but is curiously cast as another officer here) assigns Friday and Gannon to help with the tracking of three missing young models.

As with Breen's previous Dragnet film, we see in the prologue the actual commission of the crime - the three girls are bound and gagged, their suffering filmed and photographed by the perp responsible. Unlike the 1954 Dragnet, however, here we do not see the face of the killer, though his rear profile gives us an indelible image nonetheless. Friday and Gannon get a name - J. Johnson - who'd been dating one of the missing models and had seen her at a ritzy dating service run by a sometimes-intemperate woman, Eve Kruger (veteran Dragnet actress Virginia Gregg), whose description of the man is at variance with that given by the missing woman's brother.

Friday and Gannon get what looks like a break when a body matching J. Johnson's description is found in a rundown out of the way area, brutalized and shot. A book of matches on the body helps identify the body and leads the two officers to the man's brother and the man's young son - this is among the most gut-wrenching scenes in the entire Dragnet series; making it all the more powerful, the dead man's young son sings Way Down Upon The Swanee River - in French! Such mildly comedic touches are common to the color Dragnets and help humanize the characters more.

Joe and Bill find the two men responsible - one is played by Herb Ellis, the original Officer Frank Smith of the Dragnet series in 1952 before being replaced by Ben Alexander in 1953; Friday also "pulls dropsy" in a sense; he tricks the perps into copping out to the crime - but after apprehending the two perps the original J. Johnson strikes again.

But as Friday laments the lack of a good clue to J. Johnson's identity, he promptly finds a good clue - one so good it leads to a cliffside confrontation amid driving rain between a small batallion of LAPD squad cars and the real killer, who has his latest victim hostage in a trailer he intends to push over the cliff - which can give way any minute in the downpour - if the cops don't amscray in five minutes.

Another link between Dragnets 1950s and '60s comes near the end - as in the 1954 movie, a toolbox proves instrumental in wrapping up the murder case, containing as it does all the evidence needed to pin the crime on the right man.

This powerful 1966 "Dragnet" flick marked the return of Sgt. Joe Friday to the screen (though Friday was a Lieutenant in the last black-and-white episode). This time Friday is teamed with Officer Bill Gannon played by Harry Morgan. The episode, involving young ladies murdered by a photographer, is tense and gut-wrenching. It is finely directed and features the best, most realistic performances of any 1960s episode. It received very high ratings when it was finally broadcast in 1969, after a very successful season in which the show returned to the top twenty in the Nielsen ratings for the first time since the 1950s.

Fans of this new version of "Dragnet" may be very interested to know that Jack Webb and Harry Morgan had appeared together in two film-noir movies before doing this show. The first was "Appointment with Danger," filmed in 1949, in which the two play killers and Jack Webb's character, coincidentally named Joe, kills Harry Morgan's character by smashing his head with bronze shoes. The other movie was "Dark City," filmed in 1950, in which the two play gambling cronies and constantly get on each other's nerves.

In this "Dragnet" show they don't get on each other's nerves, and, with some of the most clever investigation Joe Friday ever does (the candy bar wrapper scene and the lured confession), the two get their guy.

This 1966 film was a pilot that starred Jack Webb and Harry Morgan made as a pilot to relaunch Webb's classic Dragnet series for network TV. One thing with Jack Webb and Dragnet you know exactly what you are getting.

The only addition is color. Joe Friday got a new partner in Bill Gannon played by Harry Morgan. Ben Alexander who was the partner on the original Dragnet was doing another police series called Felony Squad. Morgan fitted nicely into the role of the talkative partner with Webb maintaining the strong silent persona.

Webb and Morgan work two cases the death of a French tourist and the missing, presumed dead case of four women answering an ad for models.

There is one very well staged confrontation scene with suspect Vic Perrin during a driving rainstorm and a potential mudslide. Not usual for the TV series.

Nicely done police drama.

However Jack Webb stretched the truth a wee bit with this one. The story is based on the case of Harry Glatman who murdered 2 aspiring models and one woman he met through a lonely hearts club over the course of 1957-58. The police weren't hot on his trail and were just working it as a missing persons case. Nor was he cornered on a rainy hillside with his 4th victim inside a trailer. Instead, he got into a struggle with his 4th intended victim on the side of a Orange County highway and was arrested after a passing CHP motorman, on his way home, stopped to investigate. Glatman confessed to the 3 murders and Orange County notified the LAPD since 2 of the victims were from LA and Sgt.Pierce Brooks was assigned the case to clean up their end. Still it's a pretty good Dragnet episode.