Waste of time

To me, this movie is perfection.

Overrated

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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. However, the plot takes WAY too long to get to an ultimately UNsatisfying conclusion. I am a fan of Jack's but I believe this was his first crack at directing a feature and, unfortunately, it shows. Many scenes drag on for too long (the bar room brawl seems interminable) and as a result, the story just plods along. The running time is listed at only 88 minutes, but it SEEMS longer. 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. Webb stops short of lighting his Chesterfields with a copy of the Bill of Rights, but clearly he, like the PD, saw it as a list of amusing suggestions. Ironically, Joe Friday has a testy exchange with a member of a grand jury about the ethics of wire tapping. When the jury member suggests that once criminals know their phones are being tapped, they'll just conduct their business on street corners. Friday's reply, "And we'll have a cop on every one of 'em!" came as Parker was pulling beat officers off the street and having them work from patrol cars. (Of course, Parker supported Webb when "Dragnet" did stories about the dangers of guns in the hands of children, much to the consternation of the NRA, but that's a topic for the listing of the TV show. Anyway, people can be more complex than we think them)

I really enjoyed the Dragnet television shows back in the 1950s with Jack Webb and Ben Alexander and later Harry Morgan. They were very entertaining and fast-moving. I say that because this feature-length film was just too boring to add to my collection. 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! Some of the dialog is good: nice '40s-type film noir stuff. What I missed was the humor of the TV show, in which Webb and his partner, Officer Frank Smith, would interview a number of crackpots and those interviews would be funny. Most of the characters in this movie did not invoke laughs. It needed a bit more action, too, for a crime movie.

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. Let's give a few examples: 1. The film begins with some sap betting blown away in a field with a shotgun. When Friday appears later to investigate the crime scene he says: "The first shot cut him in half--the second made him a crowd". Yuck.2. 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. In one case, he (for the 6th or 8th time) pulls the man over and frisks him--making him empty out all his pockets. The guy complains that he is being harassed and is tired of it. Then he requests that he get the contents of his pocket back. Friday says "you have the Cadillac--why don't you drive over and get it yourself". Cool, man.Finally, after badgering this guy through almost the entire movie, the prime suspect literally DIES from being harassed!! Cool.PS--read the quotes on the title page for this movie--they are INCREDIBLE!