Dragnet

Plot synopsis:
On Saturday April 9, 1954, Miller Starkey, a small-time hood who works for West Coast mob second-in-command Max Edward Troy, is palling with Troy in a field when he sees hitman Chester Davitt appear over a nearby hill, sawed-off shotgun in hand. Starkey turns but is pushed by Troy and is promptly shot by Davitt.Sgt. Joe Friday, working out of the LAPD's Intelligence Division, gets information on the killing from forensic scientist Ray Pinker as Pinker briefs division chief James Hamilton and other officers. Hamilton suspects Troy and several of his close associates, such as Lee Reinhardt, Wesley Cannon, and Davitt, and after a meeting with chief of police W. H. Parker the detectives arrest Troy and his associates and a low floor of the Crown Regent Hotel is appropriated by the police to allow mass-interrogation. Davitt cannot be found but his wife Belle is brought in and angrilly calls out Friday and company, to no avail.Friday and his partner Frank Smith interrogate Max Troy, but after four hours they get nothing out of him. As he is taken to jail they get word that an eyewitness has been found. It is a museum curator named Jesse Quinn, who positively identifies Chester Davitt as being near the field at the time of the crime.Friday and Smith check out The Red Spot Grille, a restaurant secretly owned by Troy, and find nothing. They then decide to infiltrate a policewoman, Grace Downing, into the bar with a primitive wire to record conversation between Troy and his pals. After 36 hours habeus corpus kicks in and despite the reluctance of Deputy DA Adolph Alexander, Troy and his pals are released. Friday and Smith, however, get information from Roy Cleaver, an informant and jazz musician; he tells them that Starkey was seen weeks before his death sporting heavy bandaging from a beating. When Friday and Smith question Starkey's widow, she tearfully confirms this and gives Friday a copy of her husband's work book, a collection of gambling debtors.Friday and Smith question 22 of the names in the book but get no information until they question theatrical agent Fabian Gerard, who explains that he paid back a gambling debt but was confronted by other mob enforcers claiming he didn't; when he showed them proof they left him alone.Now the two officers figure out why Starkey was killed - he'd been pocketing debts he'd been collecting. They learn more from one of Grace Downing's recordings - Troy tells the bartender to take a package in his car's glove box and dispose of it; the bartender loaned the car to his nephew for a fishing trip and it won't be back until Wednesday, and he'll get rid of whatever this package is then.The police, however, find and arrest Chester Davitt, and a grand jury is summoned to investigate Troy and his pals. Friday goes to get Jesse Quinn, but Quinn suddenly gets cold feet about testifying; he is supoendaed but tells the grand jury nothing substantial. The jury members question Friday in their investigation, and in the end the jury votes not to indict Troy.Captain Hamilton angrilly orders Friday and Smith to tail Troy day and night, and they do, constantly searching him wherever he goes. It goes too far when they tail him to a gin game and several toughs attack Friday and Smith; the two policemen win the ensuing brawl but get a mild reprimand from Hamilton for it.More pressing is a call from Grace Downing that she found something from the bartender's car at The Red Spot, but that Troy may be on to her. Friday and Smith arrive at the bar and escort her safely out, then she takes them to the back alley where they find a box of shotgun shells - with four missing.Eventually a wiretap is installed at The Red Spot, and one of Troy's pals, Wesley Cannon, gets a call from Cleveland, and informs the bartender that Chester Davitt has been killed to keep him quiet - permanently - about the Starkey murder. Friday and Smith reluctantly confront Belle Davitt with the resulting tape, and she tearfully changes her tune, showing the officers the toolbox where Troy and Chester sawed off the shotgun barrel, and she reveals that the gun was thrown into Echo Park Lake.With a signed affidavit from Belle Davitt and the resulting evidence, DA Alexander has enough to convict Troy, but Troy pulls the ultimate fast one that ensures he'll never be arrested.

Tags: murder

Review:
Jack Webb is fantastically straight as Joe Friday; he never had a better role.
Everyone in the movie is great, but the standouts are Virginia Gregg as the murdered man's alcoholic and handicapped wife,  Stacy Harris as Max Troy, insincere head of the crime syndicate, and Richard Boone as the police captain, who says to his men with angry authority "all right, bumper to bumper tail; get up with em in the morning and put em to bed at night"..
I really enjoyed the Dragnet television shows back in the 1950s with Jack Webb and Ben Alexander and later Harry Morgan.
I wouldn't watch it again.Oh, it started off with a bang as a man was murdered in a field, but then the rest of it is mostly detail work which gets pretty boring after 40 minutes!
I agree with the other comments that it is somewhat disappointing that we already know the identity of the killer at the beginning, but it is obvious that the killing was shown so that we know Friday and Smith aren't harassing an innocent man throughout the movie.
Because we know the killer, we can laugh they way Friday and Smith do when they frisk him four times a day and tailgate his car.
The main problem with the movie is that the story just isn't as interesting as most of the stories of the television episodes were, and, as someone wrote, Friday is a different, tougher man, not as likeable as before.
Another unfortunate thing is that in making the movie in color to attract audiences who had only seen "Dragnet" in black-and-white, the movie loses the stark film noir feel that many of the television episodes had.
The early episodes had a lot of dark humor, but not silly humor like this movie does, such as the scene with the big-busted singer, and the scene in which the bystanders watch Friday and Smith frisk Max Troy.
Webb directs with a nice pace and the big production gives it a grand atmosphere that the television show can't capture.
However, this is a good crime movie and Webb at least gives it a kind of watchable uniqueness.
"Dragnet" was the first theatrical feature to be based on a successful television series.
Too bad its script bears little relation to the elements of that show.In the 1952-59 series, viewers never saw the crime being committed.
"Dragnet" was a mystery program; Sgt. Friday and Officer Smith would be called in to solve a crime, then locate and arrest the guilty party/parties.
(As Webb put it, "This makes YOU a cop, and you unwind the story.") "Dragnet" (1954) begins with the actual crime, so that we KNOW who's guilty even before the titles appear.
The movie is no mystery, merely the depiction of a murder investigation, in toto.Worse, the Sgt. Friday in this film is not the quiet, dedicated cop of the radio and TV original.
Great Film of Dragnet Fans.
Every time I see this movie, I find something else about it that makes me like it all the more.
Simple interrogation from Friday with smart-mouth answers from the bad guys and the snappy, emotional responses from Joe. It kind of gets you, right where you live, you know?
The mind boggles.Moviegoers in 1954 got excited when they heard that one of their favorite TV shows, Dragnet, had been made into a feature film.
(I remember because I was one of them.)  One now stares in wonder at this icon of the strange and far-off 'fifties, an era that was Eisenhower-sunny on the surface and dark and menacing just beneath it.Dragnet the movie (eventually there was a second, on TV), now largely forgotten, was nothing more than an extended television episode made in color, while home sets were still black and white.
Many of the actors were frequently unemployed second-string players whose work did not make a deep impression.In the intervening time since it was made the film has largely gone unseen and although it made it to video, it is little viewed in this form.
That 'fifties audiences accepted the actors' rigidly stylized, robotic impersonations of police officers as representing the way they actually spoke in real life says something about Americans' willingness to uncritically accept virtually anything they saw in movies, and especially on TV.
(Remember actors posing as doctors extolling the pleasures of smoking during cigarette commercials?)  Dragnet's cops' signature manner of speaking---a flat, semi-technical, bureaucratic argot, spoken in low, monotonal voices---Webb's cops rarely if ever snarled---was one of the most memorable things about the show.
(On the other hand, to Webb's great credit, virtually all modern-day cop shows stemmed from Dragnet, untold imitations of which have been launched on television over the past five decades)For more evidence of the film's antiquated point of view, watch the scene at the jazz club where Friday and Smith, seeking information about a criminal they're pursuing, converse with a musician who's one of their informants.
This is followed by a three-way conversation during which the script clumsily has the musician work his way through an A to Z litany of now-moldy, 'fifties hipster clichés (`How's that chick?' `Really flipped, huh?' `Oh man, that's a drag,' `He was really nowhere,' `I've been diggin' it in the papers,' `He was jumpin' pretty steady with that Troy mob,' `Dig ya.') by way of what the screenwriter apparently must have regarded as establishing a well-rounded character.Not only was the film disappointing in how little attempt was made to `open it up' for the big screen, but in some ways its narrowly focused two-for-a-nickel script was decidedly less interesting than what was shown on the television show.
For example, it missed interesting possibilities for character development, especially as this pertained to Webb's Joe Friday and Ben Alexander's Frank Smith.
(Some time after the film's debut, Webb finally recognized that television viewers yearned to know more about Joe Friday in his off-duty hours and so gave them glimpses of this law enforcement automaton's meager social life, including intriguing little dabs of romance.)The film version also completely wastes the participation of Ben Alexander, the warmest and most appealing of all Joe Friday's sidekicks, leaving him with nothing to do except dutifully tag along with his superior officer and occasionally asking suspects or witnesses the odd question or two.
The inspired daffy non sequiturs that his character, Frank Smith, regularly voiced in conversations with Joe Friday on the television show, which viewers loved and looked forward to, were almost entirely absent from the film.
The one exception, which occurs during a brief back-and-forth with Webb about their individual food preferences, is so brief and isolated that it comes off as a self-conscious sop to audiences whom the screenwriter knew would be looking for it and falls flat.Webb also was the film's director, and he went about most of these duties with a notable lack of imagination.
The scene where as Joe Friday he interrogates the crippled woman whose small-time crook of a husband has just been killed is mawkish, and the actors playing police officers are directed to be so deadly serious that scenes like this were subsequently lampooned to great effect in the Dan Aykroyd satire made in 1987.
It's a wonder Webb didn't direct him to gnaw on a table leg.Dragnet was a film that was mired deeply in its time and seems to evidence a disturbing subtext that relates to the American mindset as it was during the bland, conformist, and frightened Eisenhower/McCarthyite fifties.
The cops in Dragnet are not merely grim, intense, obsessed defenders of the law, they often  border on being zombie-like.
One of Dragnet's most explicit messages---brought home to audiences several times---was how, if only we didn't have so many laws and that darn Constitution, we could put a heck of a lot more criminals behind bars where they belong.
So popular was Dragnet proving to be on the small screen that producer and star Jack Webb decided to expand it into a feature film.
So what we got here is a television episode of Dragnet expanded to 90 minutes and in color.Webb and partner Ben Alexander are assigned to the homicide of Dub Taylor whose familiar face and voice are hardly seen on the screen before he gets cut down with both barrels of a shotgun.
Altogether quite grisly and gruesome.So the rest of the film under the command of their captain in gang intelligence Richard Boone, Webb and Alexander try to gather the evidence to nail the bad guys.
No way that would happen today except in some real right wing heaven.Interesting film, nicely done in Dragnet's famous crisp, staccato style and be happy if you're a criminal you weren't operating back then..
Dragnet never dealt with Mr. Big, it was always these awful little two bit people, con men, purse snatchers, etc.
I knew that Jack Webb had written, produced and directer it, and that's usually a pretty good prescription for a failure.
This motion picture was made only because "Dragnet" (the TV series) was popular enough to draw in an audience, or at least, I'm guessing that the folks putting up the money thought so .
What the movie audiences got for their money was just a thirty minute TV show that had been blown up -- filmed in color -- and little more.
"Dragnet" was like a lot of films or TV shows that caught on at a particular time.
Well, actually this film reflected Jack Webb, and his conception of movie making.
This was based on the popular show "Dragnet" and it's too bad seeing as how I have never seen the original show.
Dragnet is an interesting Crime Drama film released that was released in 1954.
It is about 2 detectives, Sargeant Joe Friday played by Jack Webb and Officer Frank Smith played by Ben Alexander, assigned to investigate a shotgun murder.
The acting, the cinematography, and the dialogue are the best parts of the film.Ben Alexander and Jack Webb play their parts incredibly well.
1954's DRAGNET is well-cast with Jack Webb's stock company, plus a pre-PALADIN, Richard Boone and pre-CHESTER on GUNSMOKE, Dennis Weaver.
The crisp, clean pace of Webb's radio and TV DRAGNET episodes is lost in this full-length treatment..
Those looking for elements of the Red Scare in this movie may be overlooking an aspect of life in the 1950's that was closer to the everyday lives of Los Angelinos: that the LAPD was one of the most corrupt departments in the country, and Webb was polishing apples for police chief William Parker by presenting his cops as honest dispensers of justice.
We may accept Friday's "bumper-to-bumper" harassment of a suspect because he "knows" he's guilty, but at the same time, the cops were doing this and much worse to ordinary citizens, especially blacks and Latinos.
Instead, we're left with 85 minutes of erratic police interviews, gleeful harassment of a known felon, and one very unnecessary, but carefully choreographed brawl that does add action but also points up the street-fighter inadequacies of the rail-thin Webb and the paunchy Ben Alexander.
(Some of the frames appear set up for 3-D, so be prepared to duck.) The film's climax comes across as ironic but unfortunately Webb can't resist rubbing our nose in it.Don't get me wrong-- I was and still am a fan of the series, which occasionally produced some pretty powerful melodramas involving ordinary people and their day-to-day travails.
However, stretched over 90 minutes, Webb's exaggerated style becomes pretty tiresome, as does his endless parade of smart-alecky toppers.That same year, 1954, Lucy and Desi spun off from their own wildly successful series to make a movie, The Long, Long Trailer.
Joe Friday Takes On Mob Boss Guilty Of A Gangland Hit. Contains Spoilers With the success of his television series, Jack Webb extended the working territory of Sgt. Joe Friday into widescreen color cinema with the first Dragnet motion picture, scripted by Richard Breen from an actual LAPD case file - complete with realistically detailed rap sheets on the perpetrators involved.Miller Starkey, White Male American, aged 44 - in LAPD lingo WMA 44, with an LA prison number of 106484; bookmaker, gambler, procurer, with no known legitimate occupation, and debt collector for Vegas bookies.
Upon hearing George Fenneman's announcement of the truth of the story with name alteration to protect the innocent, we witness the actual commission of the crime in a field near Loma Vista, Third, Wentworth, and Rachel Avenues, as Starkey is gunned down in cold blood by hit-man Chester Davitt and West Coast mafia second-in-command Max Edward Troy (Stacy Harris).
This dramatic device was comparatively unused in film at the time, predating by nearly two decades the formula made standard by one of Joe Friday's fellow LAPD detective lieutenants, a man named Columbo.Starkey's record is such that suspects in his killing are fairly easy to identify.
The department rounds up Starkey's mob associates, and Friday and Frank Smith have the task of interrogating Max Troy, who despite four hours of often bitter questioning, refuses to admit to anything.Joe and Frank are given 36 hours to find evidence against Troy and his pals or they will have to walk.
Friday and Smith, though, continue the investigation, assigning Policewoman Grace Downey (Ann Robinson) to infiltrate a swanky nightclub at which Troy and his pals hang out (and which is covertly co-owned by Troy), and eventually finding Starkey's "work book," a diary of names and addresses of gambling debtors.From their sources the two officers learn that Starkey was badly beaten up and also that gambling debtors visited by Starkey were revisited by other enforcers who never got paid.
Hamilton (Richard Boone) enough that Friday and Smith are assigned a bumper-to-bumper tail - which humiliates Troy and leads to a brawl with several toughs.Grace Downey then comes up with a major clue, and wiretap recordings of the nightclub lead Chester Davitt's wife, who has furiously refused to cooperate with police, to suddenly change her mind and finger Troy and her husband, all of which gives the DA's office ample evidence to send Troy and company to the gas chamber.
I originally saw this movie as a child in 1954 and still remember how scared I was watching the opening scene before the main credits.
I was shocked.This feature film is based on the series from the 1950s.
It's tougher than the stories that we're used to from "Dragnet 1968" and in some ways not nearly as good.
Friday and his partner, Ben Alexander, don't bump into quite so many loopy characters.
I think we'd ALL like to know more about THAT part of Joe Friday's life..
First, I need to point out that there is hardly any similarity between this film and the television series (both the original of the 1950s and the late 1960s versions of Dragnet).
Yes, Jack Webb is playing Sgt. Friday but this film NEVER would have been shown on TV when it was first made--it was way too violent and the dialog was repulsively cool.
Snappy dialog is THE reason I watch film noir and this one is among the best.
When Friday appears later to investigate the crime scene he says: "The first shot cut him in half--the second made him a crowd".
When Friday completely ignores the Bill of Rights (and all good noir cops MUST ignore the 4, 5 and 6th amendments) by harassing the man he KNOWS committed the crime,he has MANY snappy one liners.
Cool, man.Finally, after badgering this guy through almost the entire movie, the prime suspect literally DIES from being harassed!!
Jack Webb and Ben Alexander, the two television icons of "Dragnet," made this 1954 film.
This film was made as if it were for television.There are two very good supporting performances by Virginia Gregg, as the widow of the murder victim.
Also noteworthy was Georgia Ellis' portrayal of the murderer's wife, hard-boiled and abusive to police, she soon changes her ways when her husband is knocked off.We have the usual elements of police harassment, but this time it's more than justified, a witness who is scared off, thereby making the case harder to get to the guilty.When the head of the mob falls victim to cancer at the end, we can all say, "He deserved it."Speaking of the latter dread disease, the film is marred in a way by Joe Friday's (Webb's) chronic smoking.
***SPOILERS*** It's when mobster Miller Starkie, Dub Taylor, is blown to pieces in an open field in L.A proper that the Homicide as well as Intelligence divisions of the LAPD is brought in to not only find out who murdered Starkie but why.The murder investigation headed by the tough talking and take no BS Sgt. Joe Friday, Jack Webb, and his partner and faithful Tonto-like companion Officer Frank Smith,Ben Alexander, soon find an eyeball, or eye, whiteness to the murder Jesse Quinn, James Griffith.
This makes it almost impossible to have a grand jury indite Davitt as well as the person who hired him big time L.A mob boss Max Troy, Stacy Harris, who's reportedly dying of stomach cancer.Sgt.Friday together with Officer Smith in trying to break down Troy hound the dying man unmercifully day and night like a bulldog chewing on a bone until he almost cracks under the pressure.
The two law enforcers go so far as interrupt a card game that Troy is participating in where they end up getting black and blue, you should see what the other guys looked like, all over in a knock down drag out fist fight with some of Troy's card playing buddies!
Your left wondering if it was the cancer or Sgt. Frday and Officer Smith's constant hounding and harassing the guy, sometimes for 24 straight hours in two 12 hour shifts, that finished Troy off!
"Dragnet" the movie has the distinction of being be the very first TV serial to make it to the big screen.