***SPOILERS*** It's when mobster Miller Starkie, Dub Taylor, is blown to pieces in an open field in L.A proper that the Homicide as well as Intelligence divisions of the LAPD is brought in to not only find out who murdered Starkie but why.
The murder investigation headed by the tough talking and take no BS Sgt. Joe Friday, Jack Webb, and his partner and faithful Tonto-like companion Officer Frank Smith,Ben Alexander, soon find an eyeball, or eye, whiteness to the murder Jesse Quinn, James Griffith. Quinn when learning that the mob was behind Starkie's murder, in him holding back on in shake down money in collected for it, suddenly loses his memory and refuses to point out his killer: The imported from Cleveland via San Diego hit-man Chester Davitt, Willard Sage. This makes it almost impossible to have a grand jury indite Davitt as well as the person who hired him big time L.A mob boss Max Troy, Stacy Harris, who's reportedly dying of stomach cancer.
Sgt.Friday together with Officer Smith in trying to break down Troy hound the dying man unmercifully day and night like a bulldog chewing on a bone until he almost cracks under the pressure. The two law enforcers go so far as interrupt a card game that Troy is participating in where they end up getting black and blue, you should see what the other guys looked like, all over in a knock down drag out fist fight with some of Troy's card playing buddies! With the cops and especially Sgt.Friday and Officer Smith breathing down his neck Troy finally orders a hit on hit-man Davitt who get's it as he leaves his flight at the Cleveland Municipal airport.
***SPOILERS*** With Sgt.Friday and Officer Smith finally getting enough evidence on Troy, by wiretapping his phone,in the Davitt hit-job to put him behind bars he suddenly checks out for good as he dies at L.A General Hospital while being operated for his cancer condition! Your left wondering if it was the cancer or Sgt. Frday and Officer Smith's constant hounding and harassing the guy, sometimes for 24 straight hours in two 12 hour shifts, that finished Troy off! "Dragnet" the movie has the distinction of being be the very first TV serial to make it to the big screen. Something that many many other TV serials like "The Flintstones" "Mission Impossible" and the "Fugitive" were to follow in its footsteps.
The murder investigation headed by the tough talking and take no BS Sgt. Joe Friday, Jack Webb, and his partner and faithful Tonto-like companion Officer Frank Smith,Ben Alexander, soon find an eyeball, or eye, whiteness to the murder Jesse Quinn, James Griffith. Quinn when learning that the mob was behind Starkie's murder, in him holding back on in shake down money in collected for it, suddenly loses his memory and refuses to point out his killer: The imported from Cleveland via San Diego hit-man Chester Davitt, Willard Sage. This makes it almost impossible to have a grand jury indite Davitt as well as the person who hired him big time L.A mob boss Max Troy, Stacy Harris, who's reportedly dying of stomach cancer.
Sgt.Friday together with Officer Smith in trying to break down Troy hound the dying man unmercifully day and night like a bulldog chewing on a bone until he almost cracks under the pressure. The two law enforcers go so far as interrupt a card game that Troy is participating in where they end up getting black and blue, you should see what the other guys looked like, all over in a knock down drag out fist fight with some of Troy's card playing buddies! With the cops and especially Sgt.Friday and Officer Smith breathing down his neck Troy finally orders a hit on hit-man Davitt who get's it as he leaves his flight at the Cleveland Municipal airport.
***SPOILERS*** With Sgt.Friday and Officer Smith finally getting enough evidence on Troy, by wiretapping his phone,in the Davitt hit-job to put him behind bars he suddenly checks out for good as he dies at L.A General Hospital while being operated for his cancer condition! Your left wondering if it was the cancer or Sgt. Frday and Officer Smith's constant hounding and harassing the guy, sometimes for 24 straight hours in two 12 hour shifts, that finished Troy off! "Dragnet" the movie has the distinction of being be the very first TV serial to make it to the big screen. Something that many many other TV serials like "The Flintstones" "Mission Impossible" and the "Fugitive" were to follow in its footsteps.