Dragnet 1967

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.

*****Five out of Ten Stars*****

Producer Jack Webb was known as an extremely economical TV producer: His Mark VII productions routinely used minimal sets, even more minimal wardrobes (Friday and Gannon seem to wear the same suits over entire seasons, which minimized continuity issues) and maintained a relatively tight-knit stock company that consisted of scale-paid regulars who routinely appeared as irate crime victims, policewomen, miscreants and clueless parents of misguided youth. Which is pretty evident if you follow the show consistently. In fact I find it comical, in an annoying way, that some actors clearly play good characters in some episodes and criminals in other episodes.

In real life Jack Webb was a hard worker that had a great sense of humor, loved to drink, and smoke cigarettes. That being said, "Dragnet" is over-rated. PLEASE let me explain: Webb's decision to have actors read off cue cards and read their lines monotone isn't my idea of a method in making a TV show more realistic; which was Webb's reasoning behind this production decision. Also, the whole idea of these stories being real life depictions of actual events is somewhat misleading. These stories were BASED on real cases. Liberties were clearly taken in the writing department in an effort to make the stories more palatable to Webb's goals and the main TV viewing audience.

So, don't' get me wrong; I like watching Dragnet. Webb's introductory history lessons about Los Angeles are really quite enjoyable at the beginning of each episode. It's also great to see the location shots filmed in the Los Angeles area at that time in the late 60s: It's classic America before LA turned into the sess-pit it is now. Putting it into perspective, "Dragnet" has some endearing qualities, but Jack Webb's cue card production style gets an F from me.

Viewers used to series today such as Law & Order and CSI probably won't enjoy this classic show from the 1960s, but if you need a break from gritty realism and hard-boiled dramas this is a great show to watch. The 60s version of Dragnet was somewhat like the original show in the 1950s, but dealt with the topics of the day like drug use, race relations, student unrest, etc. Jack Webb plays Joe Friday to the hilt again, maybe a little less authoritarian that back in the 1950s version but still quite a memorable character nonetheless. By contrast, Harry Morgan plays Friday's partner, Officer Bill Gannon, as just a regular guy who happens to be a cop. You get the feeling that Gannon could easily move to some other career if he wanted to without much difficulty, while Friday seems to be interested only in police work; it's hard to imagine Joe Friday taking a day off, let alone do anything like go to the movies, visit a museum, etc. The supporting characters come and go regularly, as others have mentioned, but do a good job with their limited roles. Also, the crimes that Friday and Gannon investigate are quite interesting, and most episodes are well written. There will always probably be a debate as to whether the 50s or 60s version of Dragnet was best, but either way this series has held up well and is still a lot of fun to watch today.

This is still the greatest police drama that ever was made. When I was growing up, the second version of the show in the late 60's/early 70's was the only version I knew and it not only showed how police track down criminals, but it was also the first show that dealt with the day to day operations of the L.A.P.D.. Everything was covered from watching how a young man (or woman) becomes a police officer to community relations. This version really tried to hammer down the point that police officers are human beings and that they do have lives outside the squad room.

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.