- Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time movie#
- Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time full#
- Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time tv#
Hayde, in his book My Name is Friday (2001), says that “the negatives have been placed in storage,” but if so, nobody seems to be able to find them. I’ve heard that it’s a simple matter of no one having gotten around to it yet, but that’s ridiculous.ĭozens of Dragnet episodes never had their copyrights renewed, and some people believe that’s why no one’s produced an official DVD release- after all, why spend a lot of money restoring public domain shows for DVD when anyone could legally copy your work and sell it themselves? But official releases of the early seasons of One Step Beyond and The Beverly Hillbillies have come out- material that’s largely public domain- so why can’t that be done with Dragnet? That’s a question I’ve been asking for years, and I’ve been given different answers. So why doesn’t someone just transfer it to video? Given Dragnet’s popularity and prestige, why hasn’t it been given an official DVD release? Unlike the fabled anthology shows of the era that were aired live, Dragnet was shot on 35mm film. Oversaturation is as good an explanation for the show’s demise as any, but it should be noted that by the time these later seasons were produced, the well of old James Moser radio scripts had run dry. Dragnet was over, at least in prime time, but the show was already a staple of the syndication market, and would remain so well into the 1960s, under the title Badge 714. But even more viewers were lost, and Webb turned in his badge.
It was beaten in its timeslot by ABC’s The Real McCoys, prompting a move to Tuesdays the following season. In spite of a very strong lead-in (Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life, the most popular Thursday show of that 1957-58 season), Dragnet’s ratings began falling steadily.
Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time tv#
Besides starring in every episode, he was producing and directing them as well, while developing other film and TV projects on the side. Certainly, Webb himself was getting a little winded by this time. Maybe audiences felt the show was getting a bit stale. Things began unraveling three years later.
Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time movie#
movie version was also a hit, arriving pretty much right at the peak of Dragnetmania in late 1954. It’s very compelling television.ĭragnet was one of the few hit radio dramas to become even bigger on TV, placing in the Top Ten throughout most of its first six seasons (not surprisingly, it was especially popular in its home base of Los Angeles). There’s stark, dramatic lighting and unusual overhead camera shots. Many episodes in the early years recycled the superb radio scripts of James Moser, which lost none of their impact in the transition. There are rapists and violent psychotics on Dragnet, even child molesters. He can relax a little bit while bantering with sidekick Frank Smith (Ben Alexander), but soon it’s right back to the exhausting grunt work of a police detective: following up on leads, dealing with dullard civilians and surly punks, and piecing together a case, one clue at a time. Friday of these years is lean, terse and somewhat haunted.
Dragnet episodes from 50s lost to time full#
It’s got a very film-noir feel to it, full of dark nights, heavy shadows, staccato dialogue, fedoras, overcoats, dangerous losers and cynical dames. So yes, it’s a pretty good show, but what’s really good is the black-and-white original Dragnet. Joe Friday, with that voice of his and the way he delivers his lines. And of course, even if a particular episode isn’t anything special, you still get to enjoy Jack Webb’s performance as Sgt. The third season falls into a rut of showcasing tedious police administrative procedurals, but the show recovers somewhat afterward.
Episodes from the first one-and-a-half seasons are often terrific. “The color Dragnet” is a pretty good show overall. (Radio buffs will scowl and remind you that the true original Dragnet was the radio series, and they’re right, but let’s stick to TV.) It’s known informally as “the color Dragnet,” to differentiate it from the black-and-white original, which aired from 1951 to 1959. A lot of us grew up watching the 1967-1970 revival of Dragnet, either first-run or in syndication.
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