Dragnet (TV Series) The Big Seventeen (1952) User Reviews

Teenagers smoking marijuana terrorize Los Angeles

[susanj50 · 7/10 · 21 June 2006]

It was another world and maybe middle class teenagers did go insane as the result of smoking marijuana, but this episode is difficult to swallow. A gang of upper middle class whites goes crazy in a neighborhood movie theater. Sgt. Friday is called in and is given a small box containing to marijuana cigarettes. He goes to the house of the boy who purportedly dropped the box and his alibi and will to deny quickly collapse.

This boy, and all his confederates are then taken downtown with their fathers where the entire story comes. Now Sgt. Friday has to capture the boy who set the entire scheme up. he, of course, is on the lamb.

The dealer who sold the drugs to the pusher is beaten to a pulp and in the hospital not expected to survive the night. Sgt. Friday interrogates him and takes his statement as a dying declaration.

Finally the pusher contacts his girl friend who agrees to meet him in the park. She goes to see him with Sgt. Friday and several other police officers.

In the end we are told that the entire gang is convicted and send to state prison. This does not ring true. All of the kids involved here were 18 or 17. Although I do not know the laws of California in 1950 I am reasonable sure that they would have been sent to Juvenile Hall. Additionally if the dealer dies there is a murder involved and this issue is never resolved. Finally the dying declaration of the dealer does not fit the definition of a dying declaration which I had to memorize before taking the California Bar Examination.

This episode of Dragnet is more propagandistic than most and doesn't work nearly as well as a good episode. After you watch this episode check out Reefer Madness and decide which is better.

Early Say no to drugs Episode

[gordonl56 · 6/10 · 12 June 2017]

DRAGNET "The Big Seventeen" 1952

This is the 18th episode of the 283 episode run of the original Police Detective series, DRAGNET. This series ran from 1951 to 59.

Sgt Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Detective Frank Smith (Herb Ellis) are working the day watch out of Juvenile Division. They receive a call about a group of teens running wild at a local movie house, destroying property and attacking the staff.

The Detectives arrive and survey the damage while interviewing the manager and staff. They manage to get the names of several of the teens involved. There is also a small box containing a couple of reefers. The Detectives pay a visit on the one boy identified, and bring him in for questioning. He quickly caves under a bit of third degree and spills more names.

The trail soon leads to a further up the chain dealer, Herb Vigran. Vigran happens to be in the hospital with a severe head wound. It seems one of the teens he sold to, came back and wanted some stronger stuff. There are more interviews with parents and the girlfriend of the teen suspect. Anyways, this all leads to a park where they find the boy dead of an overdose.

While a bit laughable by today's standards, it most likely scared the hell out of viewers at the time.

All in all, this one comes off as a mid-range episode that kills the time well enough. The copy I watched had all the original "Chesterfield Cigarette" ads in it. The show's star, Jack Webb is even hawking the items in one of the ads.

Nothing Good Comes From This, nothing!

[biorngm · 8/10 · 1 February 2018]

Review - The Big Seventeen - Aired 11-6-52 Season 2 Episode 4 A juvenile division story has Friday and Smith checking out a vandalized movie theater, people hurt and hospitalized by teens running rampant on the place and area with increased burglaries, car thefts, other acts of crime unprecedented for the neighborhood, all by the local teenagers.

A description of one of the perpetrators with a pill box containing marijuana dropped leads the cops to his home. The guilty party confesses to using, being at the scene as he, his father and other father/son combinations end up at HQ all informing the police on their narcotic usage. A teenage distributor is given up as well, but cannot seem to be located by Friday and Smith. Smith gets a call that the pusher is in the hospital, in bad shape, telling the cops of being beaten and robbed of his heroin. Now the teenage distributor has even more powerful drugs to peddle, but he is unfamiliar with the toxic nature of the stuff. Through a series of leads, the boy's mother leads to the girlfriend, which leads to the seventeen-year-old distributor face down, dead from an overdose.

He was seventeen; Friday says was the excuse for behaving the way he did. Two familiar faces guested in this episode, roles well played to tell the story. An episode worth seeing as Friday and Smith work their leads with the help from others in finding the dead distributor, after the pusher dies in his hospital bed.

Some will surely find this rather preachy, I thought it was pretty good.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 November 2013]

When "The Big Seventeen" began, this episode of "Dragnet" reminded me of "The Big War"--which was made a few seasons later. This is because both begin with the detectives visiting a parent to discuss their out of control teen and in both cases the parent was adamant that their little angel was 100% innocent. However, in "The Big Seventeen", when the child is interviewed minutes later, it's obvious his story is full of holes and the father believes the detectives that the teen was involved in a mêlée at a local theater AND that he had pot in his possession. Soon, the kid rats on his friends and sends the detectives looking for the teen who's selling the drugs. Apparently, the dealer isn't just selling pot but far more dangerous drugs as well. But, they just can't find him because the teen apparently knows they're going to arrest him. In the end, they do find him....face down in a pond.

I saw another review that seem to think that the was pretty much anti-marijuana hype. However, after seeing the show, I didn't think that at all. I am not personally against legalization of pot but the show was about enforcing the law--like it or not. Plus, it wasn't just pot but drugs that could kill--and apparently did. It really did not come off as just anti-pot and youth gone wild hype to me and was watchable and worth seeing.

Ham-fisted anti-drug lesson with a heroin overdose

[ronnybee2112 · 5/10 · 26 December 2021]

Jack Webb was nothing if not consistent. He obviously hated illicit drugs and he never missed a chance to speak out against them. I am sure his intentions were to save young people from the big problems and tragedies that drugs can cause (or at least be blamed for). The only problem is that Webb made no distinction whatsoever between the many different kinds of illicit drugs. Marijuana,pills, and heroin were all put into the same category which made for some ham-fisted approaches to the drug problem that seem pretty silly when seen through today's eyes. As good as Webb's intentions were,I think that many of the anti-drug episodes of 'Dragnet' missed their intended audience by exaggerating and overdoing things. Watch for yourself and see what you think,and let us know!

Spreading the Hype

[dougdoepke · 10 April 2007]

"Drug-crazed Teens Riot at Local Theater"-- could be the sub-title of this typical 50's entry. Yeah, only communists were feared more during those Mc Carthy years than unruly teenagers, otherwise known as juvenile delinquents. And the demon drug that could set them off was not rum, but what was then known as "MaryJane" or "weed" or what now goes by the common slang "pot". Never mind that the only riot marijuana ever caused was a mass love-in at a 60's rock concert. Just the thought of "reefer madness" was enough to set off the guardians of law and order like Joe Friday, who probably enjoyed a martini or two after a hard day on the set. And never mind that the impossibly wild tales surrounding pot probably led more kids into truly dangerous drugs than the proverbial toke or two behind the family garage.

Pot-hype aside, this is a pretty tame episode, as Friday and Ellis track down the chief drug pusher who turns out to be a 17 year old. I like the way Ellis gets to do most of the questioning, a rarity once the show became a mega-hit. Also notable for the incredibly sweet presence of Allene Roberts who seems to have made a brief career out of falling for hell-bent type boys, and for the great Bill (Willis) Bouchey whose inimitably gruff presence enlivened many a feature of the day. If not much else, this is a genuine 30-minute reflection of its time.