Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated
Los Angeles police detective,
Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from an actual police term, a "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Dragnet debuted inauspiciously. The first several months were bumpy, as Webb and company worked out the program's format and eventually became comfortable with their characters (Friday was originally portrayed as more brash and forceful than his later usually relaxed demeanor). Gradually, Friday's deadpan, fast-talking persona emerged, described by
John Dunning as "a cop's cop, tough but not hard, conservative but caring." (
Dunning, 210) Friday's first partner was
Sergeant Ben Romero, portrayed by
Barton Yarborough, a longtime radio actor. After Yarborough's death in 1951 (and therefore
Romero's, who also died of a heart attack, as acknowledged on the
December 27, 1951 episode "The
Big Sorrow"), Friday was partnered with Sergeant
Ed Jacobs (December 27, 1951 - April 10,
1952, subsequently transferred to the
Police Academy as an instructor), played by
Barney Phillips;
Officer Bill Lockwood (Ben Romero's nephew, April 17, 1952 - May 8, 1952), played by
Martin Milner (with
Ken Peters taking the role for the June 12, 1952 episode "The Big Donation"); and finally
Frank Smith, played first by
Herb Ellis (1952), then
Ben Alexander (
September 21, 1952-1959).
Raymond Burr was on board to play the
Chief of Detectives. When Dragnet hit its stride, it became one of radio's top-rated shows.
Webb insisted on realism in every aspect of the show. The dialogue was clipped, understated and sparse, influenced by the hardboiled school of crime fiction.
Scripts were fast moving but didn't seem rushed. Every aspect of police work was chronicled, step by step: From patrols and paperwork, to crime scene investigation, lab work and questioning witnesses or suspects.
The detectives' personal lives were mentioned but rarely took center stage. (Friday was a bachelor who lived with his mother; Romero, a Mexican-American from
Texas, was an ever fretful husband and father.) "Underplaying is still acting", Webb told
Time. "We try to make it as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee." (Dunning, 209) Los Angeles police chiefs
C.B. Horrall,
William A. Worton, and (later)
William H. Parker were credited as consultants, and many police officers were fans.
Most of the later episodes were entitled "The Big _____", where the key word denoted a person or thing in the plot. In numerous episodes, this would the principal suspect, victim, or physical target of the crime, but in others was often a seemingly inconsequential detail eventually revealed to be key evidence in solving the crime. For example, in "The Big
Streetcar" the background noise of a passing streetcar helps to establish the location of a phone booth used by the suspect.
Throughout the series' radio years, one can find interesting glimpses of pre-renewal
Downtown L.A., still full of working class residents and the cheap bars, cafes, hotels and boarding houses which served them. At the climax of the early episode "
James Vickers", the chase leads to the
Subway Terminal Building, where the robber flees into one of the tunnels only to be killed by an oncoming train.
Meanwhile, by contrast, in other episodes set in outlying areas, it is clear that the locations in question are far less built up than they are today.
Today, the
Imperial Highway, extending 40 miles east from
El Segundo to
Anaheim, is a heavily used boulevard lined almost entirely with low-rise commercial development. In an early Dragnet episode scenes along the
Highway, at "the road to
San Pedro", clearly indicate that it still retained much the character of a country highway at that time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragnet_(series)
- published: 05 Nov 2012
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