Two cute, blond little girls are missing with Sgt Joe Friday and partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) leading a search for them in the neighborhood and surrounding area/blocks near the location where they were last seen. Within the "gulp" case, a horrifying scenario parents fear, is a rock solid redemption story regarding the father of the girls, Bert Stanley (Robert Clarke), having been divorced from his ex-wife Marian (series regular Peggy Webber) over a year and "on the wagon" nearly a year (in AA, recognizing himself as an alcoholic), truly acknowledging his failures as a husband, father, and human being. Thankfully, this episode eschews the usual scenario where estranged exes bicker and argue while their children are missing or in possible danger. Vic Perrin (a serial killer in the 1966 movie pilot) makes an appearance, established by Friday as a child-beating creep, with the mere sight of him making your skin crawl—there's just something repulsive he gives off, Perrin excels at portraying characters that are repellent low-lives. This episode also beautifully establishes the importance of man's best friend as the dog relates to the girls. Strong episode, with a "phew" ending that removes the lump from your throat. For a while this episode really sets up an "anything could have happened to them" possibility that lingers until the conclusion.
5 Reviews
All's well that ends well...
planktonrules19 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILER--If you don't want to watch this episode because it may involve a child abduction/murder, don't worry. Although it looks like this IS the case, this episode has a happy ending and you don't need to worry about being traumatized by watching it.
This is a rather mundane episode in many ways, as it involves two missing children--no murders, thefts or the like. A rather anal-retentive (i.e., controlling and rigid) mother calls the police because her two daughters, 3 and 5, have disappeared. She is panicked and assumes her rotten ex-husband took them. However, Friday and Gannon find that the guy is not responsible for the disappearance and he's getting his life straightened out and becoming a better man. So, it's up to the detectives to keep canvasing the neighborhood in search of the two little girls.
Overall, this is a good and very sentimental episode--one that betrays that despite his tough veneer, Jack Webb was a bit of a softy.
By the way, a perennial "Dragnet" bit player, Vic Perrin, plays a small role as a sex pervert. This was EXACTLY the sort of role he often played on the show. What a thankless job! So, if you see the diminutive white haired guy (who looks like Henry Gibson's older brother), you can probably assume he's playing a sicko.
This is a rather mundane episode in many ways, as it involves two missing children--no murders, thefts or the like. A rather anal-retentive (i.e., controlling and rigid) mother calls the police because her two daughters, 3 and 5, have disappeared. She is panicked and assumes her rotten ex-husband took them. However, Friday and Gannon find that the guy is not responsible for the disappearance and he's getting his life straightened out and becoming a better man. So, it's up to the detectives to keep canvasing the neighborhood in search of the two little girls.
Overall, this is a good and very sentimental episode--one that betrays that despite his tough veneer, Jack Webb was a bit of a softy.
By the way, a perennial "Dragnet" bit player, Vic Perrin, plays a small role as a sex pervert. This was EXACTLY the sort of role he often played on the show. What a thankless job! So, if you see the diminutive white haired guy (who looks like Henry Gibson's older brother), you can probably assume he's playing a sicko.
The Big Search
sbutler072712 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Call me a sentimental fool if you like, but this is one of my favorite episodes of Dragnet. An overbearing and obsessive-compulsive mother discovers that her two daughters have disappeared. She immediately suspects her alcoholic ex-husband but Friday and Gannon are not so sure. This leads to a very tense and dramatic search that includes a brief but very creepy encounter with a child molester. The girls are eventually found at a former neighbors house asleep with a dog. The girls are reunited with their parents and the father promises not to drink again. The final scene is very sentimental but brings a tear or two to my eyes anyway. What the father sees in his overbearing ex-wife is beyond me, but to each his own I guess. In summary while this episode is sentimental, it remains one of my favorites.
Very Annoying Mother
1Wishbone15 November 2022
I must admit Peggy Webber was a great actress, because this episode never fails to make me sick of her. She is anal and overbearing, and she does nothing to help solve the problem of her missing children. In fact, she does nothing but sit on her lazy backside on a chair she never gets out of for the entire thirty minutes. She also verbally fights with Friday and Gannon whenever they offer suggestions as to where the children may be. No wonder her husband turned to the bottle. You would need to in order to live with this woman. Other thoughts: I thought the refrigerator scene was a little over the top; the two cute kids were not credited; and about ten minutes into the show when Friday and Gannon were on the front porch, in the background you see a red, 1967 Plymouth Barracuda, which appeared in multiple previous Dragnet scenes.
Gone Missing.
rmax30482329 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Mrs. Stanley calls Friday and Gannon. Her two little girls have gone missing and the police force gets organized and snaps into the big search, turning up nothing. A conundrum.
Mrs. Stanley is divorced from her drunken husband so it's possible he put the snatch on his two kids. The idea excites Mrs. Stanley: "Why, that's KIDNAPPING!" She seems almost eager. Mr. Stanley must have been some husband. She describes him as a loser, although in fact she's doing fairly well in her modest home, living on alimony and child support, especially considering that Mrs. Stanley has called "my lawyer" and had a restraining order put on the husband. And he always wanted to get the girls a dog -- filthy things, carrying germs around. I began to get the eerie feeling that I'd lived through this marriage myself.
Anyway, Friday and Gannon visit Mr. Stanley's apartment and find he's been sober for a year and genuinely concerned about his two girls. Not such a bad guy after all.
The end is predictably happy. I'm always impressed at the middle-brow quality of this program. They question a bum who was picked up while sleeping at the nearby railroad tracks, an "undesirable." This guy is a tramp but he's not dirty and he's wearing a pressed suit -- but no necktie. A house is described as messy but compared to mine it looks like the barracks in a Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island.
Mrs. Stanley is divorced from her drunken husband so it's possible he put the snatch on his two kids. The idea excites Mrs. Stanley: "Why, that's KIDNAPPING!" She seems almost eager. Mr. Stanley must have been some husband. She describes him as a loser, although in fact she's doing fairly well in her modest home, living on alimony and child support, especially considering that Mrs. Stanley has called "my lawyer" and had a restraining order put on the husband. And he always wanted to get the girls a dog -- filthy things, carrying germs around. I began to get the eerie feeling that I'd lived through this marriage myself.
Anyway, Friday and Gannon visit Mr. Stanley's apartment and find he's been sober for a year and genuinely concerned about his two girls. Not such a bad guy after all.
The end is predictably happy. I'm always impressed at the middle-brow quality of this program. They question a bum who was picked up while sleeping at the nearby railroad tracks, an "undesirable." This guy is a tramp but he's not dirty and he's wearing a pressed suit -- but no necktie. A house is described as messy but compared to mine it looks like the barracks in a Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island.
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