"Dragnet" The Big Producer (1954)

Director:

Jack Webb

Writer:

James E. Moser (writer)

TV Series:

"Dragnet" (1951)

Original Air Date:

26 August 1954 (Season 4, Episode 1)

Genre:

Drama | Crime | Mystery

Plot:

Obscene literature and pictures are spread among youngster at a school in Los Angeles. The supplier of this illegal stuff turns out to be a former film producer from the days of silent movies. |

Plot Keywords:

Hollywood Reporter Magazine | Sunglasses | Female Police Officer | Movie Studio | Has Been

Cast

  (Episode Complete credited cast)

Jack Webb	...	Sgt. Joe Friday
Ben Alexander	...	Officer Frank Smith
Ralph Moody	...	Charles Zeeman Hopkins
Martin Milner	...	Stephen Banner (as Marty Milner)
Carolyn Jones	...	Laura Osborne (as Caroline Jones)
Helen Andrews	...	Policewoman Norene Statzel

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Company:

Mark VII Ltd.

Trivia:

Based on a 1952 episode of the Dragnet radio series.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Sgt. Joe Friday: This is the city - Los Angeles, California. I work here; I'm a cop. It was November 4th. It was windy in Los Angeles. We were working the day watch out of Juvenile Division. My partner is Frank Smith; my name's Friday. A steady stream of obscene literature had been finding its way into a half-dozen high schools in the city. We'd gotten a lead on one of the sources of supply - a seventeen year old high school senior. We had to check it out.

CB de Mille meets the LAPD

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Apparently the producers wanted to kick off the 4th season with a different kind of episode. Most notably, the usual documentary style is abandoned in the second half for a psychological approach, which pulls the audience into the old movie-maker's sentimental recollections of glories past . Sound effects are also used to heighten the "inner" reality, along with a rising crane shot framing the expressionistic very last shot. It's all a rather heavy-handed elegy to old Hollywood, and a bit "arty" for such an unpretentious series. Whether you like this rather extreme departure is, I suppose, a matter of taste. But if my own recollection serves, this was one of the more talked-about episodes of the time. So I guess someone figured right, at least in terms of ratings.

The case itself concerns selling pornography to high-schoolers, including the clearly over-aged Carolyn Jones and Martin Milner. The project, of course, is master-minded by the old movie-maker (Ralph Moody) now down on his luck. Frankly, my viewing was hampered by Moody's paste-on mustache that appears ready to fall off at any moment.