I'm the Law

Geroge Raft plays a NYPD detective in a gritty, shot-on-location crime series which apparently spawned Naked City, Cagney & Lacy and NYPD Blue among many other series. This is New York City in the early 50s and apparently crime was the same then as today. Raft as usual is a joy to watch. Unfortunately, I have only seen one episode in which a chemist for a cosmetic company is secretly importing drugs disguised in cosmetic samples from France. The script is above average and maintains interest without resorting to banality or contrived situations. This series only survived for 26 episodes and unfortunately has fallen into oblivion without VHS or DVD release unless you know differently. Cosman Productions and Television Corporation of America produced such during 1952-53.

George Raft who had pretty much descended to B films decided to give television a try as did so many other stars who were finding work scarce on the big screen. Raft was always best in the gangster/noir type film so he did this syndicated television series which only lasted a season in the early Fifties. He plays a police lieutenant in I Am The Law.

As a rule the half hour format in my opinion is never good for any kind of mystery drama, you need at least an hour to develop characters and a few good alternative suspects. I Am The Law was no exception to the rule.

The show was produced by of all people Lou Costello, note on the credits his brother Pat as the executive producer. Raft at the time was starting to have his tax troubles as was Costello. Maybe they thought this could help both of them out.

In any event Raft returned to the big screen and did give some good noteworthy performances subsequent to I Am The Law as in Rogue Cop and Some Like It Hot. And I Am The Law which was an average TV series passed on to history.

Based on the five episodes I saw (and reviewed each of the episodes under their individual titles), this was an entertaining cop drama. The story lines were sufficiently intriguing with the occasional snappy lines and the guest actors were uniformly very good. Raft's performance was also good but did often lack spark - but then he always was a fairly wooden performer. The series does suffer somewhat from being very studio bound - even the one lengthy scene set in a park looks like a studio set. But I quibble. Three episodes are available on Matinée Classics and two different episodes are available on Uncle Earl's Classic T.V. Channel site. These are definitely worth watching and it's fun trying to identify the many familiar character actors such as Rochelle Hudson, Lyle Tabot, Percy Helton, and Gordon Jones.

Our family didn't have TV in 1953/54 but the next door neighbours did. I was 8 or 9 at the time and I can still remember the closing scenes of "I Am The Law"on Friday afternoons.If my (pretty ancient) memory serves me correctly, George Raft's programme was aired immediately before "The Cisco Kid" on BBC Television (the only player in town !). I would love to think someone somewhere would issue the series on DVD, but I'm not holding my breath. Here in the United Kingdom, very little early television survives, America, on the other hand - due to its enormously large land mass - carefully filmed popular shows for syndicated distribution. Many programmes survive in excellent condition including "Criminologist" with Canadian actor Donald Woods at the helm.

Three episodes were strung together and released theatrically as a second feature in the UK in late 1954 under the title " Crime Squad " with a running time of 71 minutes. The film was granted a British Board of Film Censors certificate " A " ( children admitted if in the company of an adult ) I believe two of the episodes were " The Model Agency " and " The McClury Brothers ". The third involved the murder of a police officer, the principal clue being that of the imprint of a tennis shoe. Unfavourable review quotes ... three undistinguished melodramatic crime stories, in which the detection is mainly a matter of intuition and guesswork...unquote. I recall the TV series on early BBC programming, and in particular the story of the shoplifter who justifies the stealing with the line .. "God helps those who help themselves !"