Back in 1947 a friend suggested to Jack
Webb that he come up with a radio show about the police. He gave it some
thought and came back the next week with a script for a show he called Dragnet.
His name was going to be Joe Friday. The friend said make it a positive show
about cops at work and Webb did that for the next 20 years. The radio show
lasted from 1949 (Webb was 29 years old) to 1957. But in 1951 he also branched
into TV with his partner Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) and that show lasted
till 1959. During that time Webb was married to Julie London for seven years.
By this time Joe Friday was iconic - his vocal intonation was made for imitation
- and perhaps because of that he didn't get many acting offers over the next
few years. So, in 1967 Joe Friday made a return. His old partner was busy
with another show and he turned to Harry Morgan to play his partner, Bill
Gannon. The new show went on for four seasons and 98 episodes. Still not
done with Friday, Webb began working on another version of Dragnet in 1982,
this time Harry Morgan was busy with a little show called MASH and he asked
Kent McCord to be his partner. McCord shows up in a bunch of the Dragnet
shows usually as a patrol man with a few sentences before he went away -
but Webb had hired him for his show Adam-12. Webb died though from a heart
attack before the show got started. Joe Friday was gone.
This was the pilot show for the 1967 series
though for some reason not shown till 1969. It's good. A topnotch no nonsense
police procedural. Interestingly in the show, it is Gannon's last day - he
will retire at the end of the day - and they want to solve the case before
that happens. Obviously, he returns. The show is now in color and it opens
in kind of a shocking manner for a Dragnet show. A stunning blond woman is
tied up being photographed and then an unseen man comes over to strangle
her. Am surprised with her looks that Thordis Brandt didn't go on to much
- but had seven appearances in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. But that is all we
get from her in this show. Her death. Friday returns from vacation a few
days early and first gets dragged into security for Russian guests - where
oddly they insist that food be checked for radioactive material. Hmmm.
But he gets assigned to a case with three
missing girls - two models and one girl who contacted a man through the Adam
and Eve Lonely Hearts Club. Her brother (Bobby Troupe - now married to Julie
London) called it in and gave a description. The owner of the Lonely Hearts
is played by Virginia Gregg - one of those supporting actors that shows up
all the time in TV shows if you wanted a middle-aged plain woman. She was
a favorite of Webb and he brought her on 14 times. The case has very little
to go on. But every possibility is followed - leading nowhere - once they
think they have a lead on the man but he turns up to be the wrong man - and
dead from three bullet shots - and they have to catch his killers as well.
Another girl goes missing. They find a candy wrapper in her room. She was
a model. Models don't eat chocolate Friday surmises and they finally have
the break they need. I still watch Dragnet at times - perfect at 25
minutes - the beginning "This is Los Angeles" to the end where the sentence
is given. Very conservative and Webb loved his cop monologues in which he
spits out the evils of drugs or other societal ills. His one on marijuana
and LSD are classics.
