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This police drama began on radio in 1949, became a long-running televised black-and-white series on NBC from January 1952 to September 1959, and was revived in January 1967 for four more years in color. These classic late 1960s episodes are listed in detail here online. The presence of Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday was a constant throughout all the "Dragnet" incarnations, as was the famous "Dragnet" theme song composed by Walter Schumann.
Joe Friday and his partner Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) were determined to do right when thrust into detective work on a wide variety of cases, and in the 60s, they were mostly moral cases.
The hallmark of "Dragnet" was the documentary-style realism in its portrayal of procedural police work in Los Angeles, California. Each episode is based on actual files drawn from the L.A.P.D. But what distinguishes this series from all other crime dramas is the strikingly original dramatic and visual style conceived by its director and star, Jack Webb. The no-frills art direction, deadpan acting (actors were encouraged to read their lines off cue cards rather than memorizing them), and austere camera work of "Dragnet" perfectly reflected Webb's stark view of the conflict between good and evil in contemporary society. From Webb's late-Sixties perspective, of course, good often took the form of straightlaced squares in gray suits while evil generally appeared as a flamboyantly attired hippie.
This info comes to us from Nick at Nite |
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