The Interrogation

In the day and age of action police dramas, the Dragnet series seems an anachronism. For the most part, all that happens are the detectives Sgt Joe Friday (played with the straightest of straight faces by Jack Webb) and his partner Office Bill Gannon (a slightly more expressive character played by Harry Morgan) interviewing suspects or witnesses. There are lots of scenes where it is just the two of them talking about mundane matters of life. But what resonates with this series is that it seems what cops actually do in real life. It is rarely high speed chases or big shoot-outs, but rather the everyday discipline of routine investigation and plain old hard work. This particular episode, "The Big Interrogation," is even more shorter in the dramatic department than others in the series as it consists almost totally of Friday and Gannon interrogating a young undercover cop accused of holding up a liquor store. Almost everything happens in an incredibly small internal affairs interview room that is so sparse, there is not even a place for poor Officer Gannon to sit down. But for its limited action and scenery, it more than makes up for it in one section toward the end of the episode. Joe Friday goes into a five minute monologue on the difficulties of being a policeman, but ends with the reward of doing the job because it needs done. I found myself nearly in tears by the time he finished. It was flawlessly delivered and spoken with total conviction. The next time someone complains about their local police force,they would do well to play this clip and think about it for awhile. I want to go shake the hand of the next policeman I meet!

This is an Internal Affairs story as a young cop, just on the force 114 days and working undercover narcotics, has to relate to Joe and Bill what he did all night. It seems a liquor store was robbed, and the policeman is a prime suspect. He expects favored treatment but you straight-shooters like Friday and Gannon are not going to give it to him. They just want the truth.

The most noteworthy aspect of this episode might be the fact that Kent McCord plays the young officer "Paul Culver." McCord went on to be the star in his own police show, "Adam -12." which ran from 1968-1975. He showed here that he can act. He's a fine career since then, too. Read his biography here on IMDb; it's interesting, filled with facts such as the fact that McCord was good friends with Ricky Nelson and appeared on over 40 episodes of "The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet" as a fraternity brother of Ricky's.

Anyway, is McCord innocent or guilty? It's hard to tell until the end the last few minutes of this episode.

A sign this may be a different type of "Dragnet" ep is that the theme song is only played with a percussion drum. Then the only characters appearing is Friday, Gannon, and a rookie cop played by Kent McCord. McCord is in the interrogation room with Joe and Bill because he's been ID'd as the suspect of a liquor store robbery. Kent keeps denying he was the one who did it but the constant questions of especially Friday wear him down. Then he gets questioned about his off-duty life and that has Joe doing a speech about how unglamorous being a cop is but despite that, he's very proud to be one, that's for sure! I'll just now say this was a most excellent ep of this revived version of this classic cop show. And yes, this was the same Kent McCord who went on to star in Jack Webb's later series as producer, "Adam-12".

This episode is interesting in that it starts with a different introduction--without the usual "Dragnet" theme music and a kettle drum instead. You also will soon notice that the guest star for the episode is Kent McCord--who later became famous on Jack Webb's show "Adam-12". Webb tended to re-use actors and McCord plays a cop but not the same guy from "Adam-12"--confusing but typical for this show. In other words, Jack Webb often used a stock group of actors and they played multiple characters on the show--good guys, bad guys and regular citizens.

This episode finds McCord playing an officer who is being held on the suspicion that he might have committed an armed robbery while on a stakeout! While this seems like a remote possibility, the facts keep stacking up against the young officer and it looks bad for him. As the Internal Affairs process proceeds (with Gannon and Friday playing IAD officers), the officer being investigated begins to crack under the strain and feels sorry for himself. Ultimately, this leads to one of the single best moments of the series, as Friday delivers an amazing monologue about how tough it is to be a cop. Surprisingly, it showed Jack Webb was an amazing actor. Perhaps it wasn't done in one take (though it appeared to be) it was a fine piece of acting and must be seen by fans of the series.

Overall, an average episode despite the great speech. Worth seeing but not among the very best of the shows.

Just caught this famous episode (for many reasons) late night, having seen it for decades, never forgetting a single scene. It's that powerful.

Friday and Gannon question young officer Paul Culver (Kent McCord) who has a lot of things going against him. He was on stake-out, yet stands accused of holding up a liquor store. One of those dramatic stories where deep down inside, you figure the guy is a victim of circumstances, however it's not an easy path to clear his good name, as you will see.

Outstanding writing, directing and acting on the part of Jack Webb, essentially the whole show. An Emmy nominee performance defined, due to his sobering "all in a day's work" summation of a dedicated cop at the close of the story. Brilliantly written and carried out. Sums it up in spades, even to this day, and makes you wonder how many young men and women Jack Webb inspired to join police forces nationwide.

Great part for Kent McCord, appearing in eight episodes, this leading to his co-starring role on ADAM 12. Yes, it's true. Jack Webb rewarded many actors with appearances in DRAGNET and other shows he produced for years. When he passed in 1982, he was, in fact, honored by the LAPD.

Something all us fans will never forget.

Just terrific. SEASON 1 EPISODE 4 dvd box set, billed as DRAGNET 1967. Released 2005. METV cites this as Season 9 Episode 4, if you were to couple this color series with the old black and white series of the 50s. Later box sets titled DRAGNET 1968, 69 and 70.