Monday, May 15, 2017

Great Essay on Dragnet

About Last Night If you’re fifty or older, you won’t need to be told the source of these half-recalled phrases: “The story you are about to see is true.” “This is the city.” “I carry a badge.” “My name’s Friday.” If you’re much younger than that, though, I doubt that you’ll remember Dragnet with any clarity. In the early days of network television, Dragnet was the most successful of all cops-and-robbers TV shows, as well as the most influential. It’s still influential—every episode of Law and Order bears its indelible stamp—but TV has since moved in flashier directions, and I doubt that the narrative conventions brought into being by Jack Webb, the director, producer, and star of Dragnet, will remain conventional for much longer.  

Hat tip to Art Scott.

5 comments:

Rick Robinson said...

My parents - and I - never missed it.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

I watched this every week as a kid. Rewatched a bunch recently. Doesn't hold up well. Defintely had a anti counter cultural vibe in the 60's. Hippies were usually 30some actors with bad wigs who constantly said groovy.

Max Allan Collins said...

Ignore the '60s-'70s DRAGNET. I like it because I am such an admirer of Webb, but it's frequently painful. The black-and-white shows are often brilliant. I learned to write dialogue largely to listening to my father watching a midnight airing of BADGE 714 (the syndication title) in the next room while I was supposed to be asleep in bed. So few of the original shows are available -- a worse crime than most of those Friday and Smith solved. The radio shows, which are equally good if not better, are widely available and highly recommended.

Cap'n Bob said...

I've been a Webb Head since I first saw the show when I was a boy. I like the sixties version, too. The anti-dope shows are over-the-top hilarious nowadays.

Don Coffin said...

Following links...it seems that most of the original (1950s) episodes are lost...which is a tragedy.