Dragnet 1966 (1969) (TV)

Director:

Jack Webb

Writers:

Richard L. Breen (1954 script)
Richard L. Breen (screenplay)

Release Date:

27 January 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

Sgt. Joe Friday is called back from vacation to work with his partner, Off. Bill Gannon, on a missing persons case...

Plot Keywords:

Detective | Murder | Sequel | Photographer | Criminal Investigation

Cast

Jack Webb	...	Sgt. Joe Friday
Harry Morgan	...	Officer Bill Gannon
Vic Perrin	...	Don Negler, alias J. Johnson
Virginia Gregg	...	Mrs. Eve Kruger
Gene Evans	...	Capt. Hugh Brown
John Roseboro	...	Sgt. Dave Bradford
Bobby Troup	...	George Freeman
Tom Williams	...	Melvin Gannon
Jack Ragotzy	...	Carl Rockwell
Roger Til	...	William Smith
Jean-Michel Michenaud	...	Claude LeBorg (as Gerald Michenaud)
Bruce Watson	...	Freddie
Herbert Ellis	...	Rico 'Ricky' Markell
Eddie Firestone	...	Max Shelton
Elizabeth Rogers	...	Eve Sorenson

Also Known As:

World Premiere: Dragnet (USA) (promotional title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Mark VII Ltd.

Trivia:

Pierce Brooks, the technical advisor on this film, was the Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective who originally solved the actual case on which this film was based.

Goofs:

Plot holes: Friday and Gannon collect a picture of each of the missing women. At the end when they see the pictures that Negler took of his bound victims, they are all wearing the same outfits.

Quotes:

Don Negler, alias J. Johnson: I'd like to tell you right now why I killed them.
Sergeant Joe Friday: Why?
Don Negler, alias J. Johnson: Because they asked me to. They said they'd rather die than live with me.

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Dragnet" (2003)

Soundtrack:

Theme From Dragnet (Danger Ahead)

The second wave of "Dragnet" in top form.

This powerful 1966 "Dragnet" flick marked the return of Sgt. Joe Friday to the screen (though Friday was a Lieutenant in the last black-and-white episode). This time Friday is teamed with Officer Bill Gannon played by Harry Morgan. The episode, involving young ladies murdered by a photographer, is tense and gut-wrenching. It is finely directed and features the best, most realistic performances of any 1960s episode. It received very high ratings when it was finally broadcast in 1969, after a very successful season in which the show returned to the top twenty in the Nielsen ratings for the first time since the 1950s.

Fans of this new version of "Dragnet" may be very interested to know that Jack Webb and Harry Morgan had appeared together in two film-noir movies before doing this show. The first was "Appointment with Danger," filmed in 1949, in which the two play killers and Jack Webb's character, coincidentally named Joe, kills Harry Morgan's character by smashing his head with bronze shoes. The other movie was "Dark City," filmed in 1950, in which the two play gambling cronies and constantly get on each other's nerves.

In this "Dragnet" show they don't get on each other's nerves, and, with some of the most clever investigation Joe Friday ever does (the candy bar wrapper scene and the lured confession), the two get their guy.