Dragnet 1967

OK, maybe this isn't the best show in television history, but it is a good one to watch. Even though I have seen every episode many times, I never get tired of watching it. After viewing the show all these years, it is fun to try and spot which of the many recurring actors and actresses appear in that episode--like the late Virginia Gregg!! She was a hoot to watch in many of the episodes.

It is also fun to see someone portray a cop or good guy in one episode and then play a villian in another episode. Now, even though this doesn't have anything to deal directly with any episode of Dragnet, I think that it was really nice how Jack Webb hired his ex-wife's husband in a few episodes and later was the producer of "Emergency" with his ex-wife Julie London and her husband Bobby Troup. I doubt very seriously that many people in Hollywood would be so mature and do that today.

This series has taken a rap from latter-day critics, who can't stand that it's not "Dragnet" (1952). A few misguided souls actually view it as "camp comedy," and the terminally hip scoff at Sgt. Friday's rabid anti-drug stance.

What makes this series rise above such criticism is the sincerity of all players, its dead-on realism in every situation and performance, and the fact that each story is TRUE. As with practically everything Jack Webb did, this show was ahead of its time in many ways. "Dragnet 1967-70" preached "just say no" twenty years before it became fashionable. Friday's assertions about the addictive nature of drugs, and that marijuana users tend to move on to harder stuff, is still borne out by statistics. The absence of gunplay and wild car chases underscore what a cop's day-to-day life REALLY is. Best of all, the chemistry between Webb and Harry Morgan is unbeatable.

Yes, a lot of the same actors are used over and over, but that was just as true in the 1950's version. Members of the LAPD, and other police departments, assert that "Dragnet" and "Adam-12" (also a Webb production) are still TV's most realistic cop shows. Forget what you've read before and give this version of "Dragnet" a try.

... and Dragnet shows how much they are changing. This show takes the same format as the original 1950s TV show. Two deadpan LA police detectives - Jack Webb's Joe Friday and Harry Morgan's Bill Gannon - investigate one crime per show. Friday is single and Gannon is married. With four kids. On a police detective's salary. Those were the days, just before The Great Inflation drove women into the workforce and the birthrate downward. But I digress.

When this show begins - 1967- women who work for the police department wear frilly clothes and are all secretaries and various office personnel. They are asked to get coffee for the detectives and it does not wind up in the lap of said detective. And for some reason any time a pretty woman appears, even if she is a suspect that va va va voom music plays on a nearby saxophone. By 1969 that music disappears and women become police officers and are addressed as peers. Oh, and suddenly there are black people in LA and on the force! Wherever did they come from? In the 1967 world of Dragnet's LA, the City of Angels is portrayed as white as rice.

So Dragnet becoming so socially conscious is part of what is killing the show by the end of the 60s. It spends way too much time talking about police/community relations and the issues of the day. Issues that are over 50 years old and have really dated the show. But there are good episodes even in the last season. Another thing - To listen to Joe Friday marijuana is as dangerous as heroin. That was a prevailing attitude at the time. Elizabeth Taylor was almost run out of town on a rail in 1969 for comparing weed (that's not what she called it) to alcohol.

I also want to commend the acting skills of Harry Morgan. Whatever role he was asked to play he became that person. In the 40s and early 50s he played vindictive hoods and whiney weaklings. He was the tolerant suburban husband Pete Porter in the 50s and 60s. He was that old horse soldier on MASH, and he is the loyal partner of Joe Friday here. I think he is very much underrated because his presence is so subtle.

This series is worth your time. Also go back and watch the original 50s Dragnet if you have the chance.

Dragnet is a classic, one of the last times when not only were the patrol cars black and white, the issues were, too. That may be what makes it so enjoyable to watch...no question of who the bad guys are here! Gannon and Friday--the Odd Couple on the job, and a perfect working combination. And where else could you see the guy who was Crimson Crusader one week be a stoned hippy student the next, then a worried bigamist the week after? Or the gun runner who becomes a doctor or a shop owner? And just how many times was Virginia Gregg on that program anyway? And hey, when was the last time anyone could drive from downtown L.A. to Toluca Lake in 6 minutes?

This is still the greatest police drama that ever was made. When I was growing up, the second version of the show in the late 60's/early 70's was the only version I knew and it not only showed how police track down criminals, but it was also the first show that dealt with the day to day operations of the L.A.P.D.. Everything was covered from watching how a young man (or woman) becomes a police officer to community relations. This version really tried to hammer down the point that police officers are human beings and that they do have lives outside the squad room.