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"Dragnet" The Big Girl (1954)
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Overview
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"Dragnet" (1951)Original Air Date:
1 April 1954 (Season 3, Episode 31)Plot:
The detectives try to track down a tall, beautiful woman who has been terrorizing the city by robbing men... more | add synopsisUser Comments:
Got Room for a Blonde? moreCast
(Episode Complete credited cast) | Jack Webb | ... | Sgt. Joe Friday |
 | Ben Alexander | ... | Officer Frank Smith |
| Art Gilmore | ... | Capt. Harry Didion |
| Harry Bartell | ... | John Maloney |
 | Carolyn Jones | ... | Donna Stewart (as Caroline Jones) |
| Harper Goff | ... | Emil Collins |
| Maurice Hill | ... | James Arnold Sutter (as Maury Hill) |
| Henry Corden | ... | Edgar Morse |
| Jerry Zinnamon | ... | Harry Reese |
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I hate to disagree with Ms. Collins, but this is an excellent entry, weaving together a number of series staples in effective fashion. The crime itself is an engrossing one, with cutting-edge subtexts for that period. Male motorists pick up a shapely blonde hitch-hiker who proceeds to rob and shoot them-- certainly not the lucky day they were hoping for. As one victim opines, "The wife might not understand,"--indeed not! Then there's Carolyn Jones in an early role, vamping Friday in coy fashion. Clearly, she's on her way to bigger things.
The episode also stresses the tedious, job-like nature of urban policing. There's a heavy emphasis on how its done, all of which de-glamorizes prevailing movie images of the time. Friday and Smith are working their butts off with little success, at the same time their boss (Art Gilmore) is pressuring for results-- after all, the crimes are scary and violent, and men will never stop picking up leggy blonde women.
Even the humor is well plotted without being disruptive or demeaning. There's not much human interest, except for the peculiar ending, which unfortunately goes unexplained. Still, the elements are blended effectively into the overall theme of the series-- there's nothing glamorous about police work. (And if it takes an accident to catch the culprit, at least that gets the boss off their back.)
Superior entry.