Dragnet was a pretty big deal, as was it was one of the top-rated TV and radio shows at the time. If you're only familiar with the 1960s TV version with Officer Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) as Sgt. Joe Friday's partner, you 're in for a big surprise. There's very little comedy or camp in the movie, and it's played pretty straight. It's practically a film noir.
It's odd seeing Jack Webb so young (and thin) and with Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) as his funny, likable partner. But it's a great movie, one of the few non-Westerns in my DVD collection.
Here's the rather faded movie trailer.
And here's the rest of the movie page.
And of course there is the very timely imported epic, The Marihuana Story (1950).
Ah, at least there's Border City Rustlers at the Lorain – basically two episodes of the TV show Wild Bill Hickok (with Guy Madison and Andy Devine) strung together to make a movie. "Hey, Wild Bill! Wait for Me!"
I was listening to an old DRAGNET radio program the other day, on an app called Radio Garden.
ReplyDeleteI remember the made for tv movie in 1967 that introduced the Jack Webb/Harry Morgan reboot of DRAGNET, which still airs early in the morning on MeTV. As I recall, it was a rather grim story about a serial killer.
I was a big fan of Wild Bill Hickok and Andy Devine back then. A few years later I went for every monster movie I could find, which generally involved creatures grown gigantic because of radiation or some such. "Monster from the Ocean Floor" was before my time. Later on I was far more interested in musicals like "Seven Brides" because the brides were better looking than enormous arachnids.
ReplyDeleteThe Yellow Tomahawk was playing at The Grove.Featuring the beautiful but troubled Peggie Castle.She was in The Lawman tv western with John Russell and Peter Brown in the late "50's.Peggie later died from alcoholism in the early 1970's.
ReplyDeleteThe Dragnet movie is one of my favorites. And the no-way-in-heck remake with Dan Akroyd, Tom Hanks, and the virgin, Connie Swail, is sort of funny, in a 1980s kinda way.
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