Dragnet 1966

This powerful 1966 "Dragnet" flick marked the return of Sgt. Joe Friday to the screen (though Friday was a Lieutenant in the last black-and-white episode). This time Friday is teamed with Officer Bill Gannon played by Harry Morgan. The episode, involving young ladies murdered by a photographer, is tense and gut-wrenching. It is finely directed and features the best, most realistic performances of any 1960s episode. It received very high ratings when it was finally broadcast in 1969, after a very successful season in which the show returned to the top twenty in the Nielsen ratings for the first time since the 1950s.

Fans of this new version of "Dragnet" may be very interested to know that Jack Webb and Harry Morgan had appeared together in two film-noir movies before doing this show. The first was "Appointment with Danger," filmed in 1949, in which the two play killers and Jack Webb's character, coincidentally named Joe, kills Harry Morgan's character by smashing his head with bronze shoes. The other movie was "Dark City," filmed in 1950, in which the two play gambling cronies and constantly get on each other's nerves.

In this "Dragnet" show they don't get on each other's nerves, and, with some of the most clever investigation Joe Friday ever does (the candy bar wrapper scene and the lured confession), the two get their guy.