Dragnet was a long-running radio and television police
procedural drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police
detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes
its name from an actual police term, a "dragnet", meaning a system
of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Jack Webb insisted on realism in every aspect of the
show. The dialogue was clipped, understated and sparse, influenced
by the hard boiled school of crime fiction. Scripts were fast moving
but didn’t seem rushed. Every aspect of police work was chronicled,
step by step: From patrols and paperwork, to crime scene investigation,
lab work and questioning witnesses or suspects. The detectives’
personal lives were mentioned, but rarely took center stage. (Friday
was a bachelor who lived with his mother; Romero was an ever-fretful
husband and father) "Underplaying is still acting," Webb told Time.
"We try to make it as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee.” (Dunning,
209) Los Angeles police chiefs C.B. Horrall and (later) William
H. Parker were credited as consultants, and many police officers
were fans.
Though rather tame by modern standards, Dragnet--especially
on the radio--handled controversial subjects such as sex crimes
and drug addiction with unprecedented and even startling realism.
Dragnet broke one of the unspoken (and still rarely broached) taboos
of popular entertainment when a young child was killed in "A Gun
For Christmas" (aired December 21, 1950). The episode followed the
search for eight-year-old Stevie Morheim, only to discover he’d
been accidentally killed by his best friend while they played with
a rifle his friend had received as a Christmas gift. Thousands of
letters were mailed to NBC in complaint, including a formal protest
by the National Rifle Association. Webb forwarded many of the letters
to police chief Parker who promised "ten more shows illustrating
the folly of giving rifles to children." (Dunning, 211) "Big Betty"
(November 23, 1950) dealt with young women who, rather than finding
Hollywood stardom, fall in with fraudulent talent scouts and end
up in pornography and prostitution.
This collection of Dragnet Greats includes 286 different
shows and appearances for a total of 135 hours of listening enjoyment.
This product is a DVD collection of Old Time Radio mp3s. It is
designed to be played on your computer DVD drive with standard mp3
software - like Windows media player or its equivalent on Macintosh
computers. The mp3 files on the DVDs can be copied onto CDs for
play in your car stereo, home entertainment center, etc so you can
take your favorite shows with you anywhere you go.
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