“THIS IS THE CITY.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. I WORK HERE. I'M A COP”

By Jim Doherty

 

It's odd to consider that if Erwin Walker, an honor student at the California Institute of Technology, a decorated combat veteran of World War II, and a one-time civilian employee of the police force of Los Angeles suburb, hadn't fancied himself a master criminal, there might never have been a police procedural sub-genre.

Well, that's an exaggeration. There'd undoubtedly have been books and stories a about cops that attempted to depict their work with accuracy and attention to detail. Indeed there had already been such stories, in a variety of mediums, by the time Walker began his career as an outlaw.

But, had Walker stayed honest, there might never have been general recognition of the police procedural as a separate, distinct sub-genre of crime fiction. Evan “Ed McBain” Hunter might never have created the 87th Precinct. John “J.J. Marric” Creasey might never have created Gideon of Scotland Yard. And Anthony Boucher, America 's premiere mystery critic, might not have taken note of the rising number of mystery novels built around the authentic depiction of the law enforcement profession, and consequently, might never have coined the term “police procedural” to describe such stories.

But, shortly after his return from the South Pacific, Walker did turn criminal. He began, just before his discharge, by stealing six tommy guns and a dozen .45 pistols from a military armory, then spent several months of 1946 committing a series of brash burglaries and armed robberies, using his knowledge of law enforcement, gained from his time as a police radio dispatcher in Glendale, and his familiarity with the sewer system beneath the streets of Los Angeles, which he frequently used as an escape route, to keep a step ahead of the law. Along the way, he killed a cop in one shootout, and wounded another in a second.

A scientific genius who was also an evil mastermind, a real-life Moriarty, was too obvious a source of story material to be missed, and Hollywood lost no time in making a movie about the hunt for the killer whom the media would dub “Machine-Gun” Walker after his eventual apprehension.

That film, a low-budget but extraordinarily well-made noir called He Walked by Night , was made by a small studio called Eagle-Lion that specialized in inexpensive but nicely crafted “B” pictures, and released in 1948. Co-directed by Alfred Werker and Anthony Mann (who was not credited), and photographed by John Alton, the legendary cinematographer who put the “noir” in “film noir,” the film was a surprise hit, a “sleeper,” in the parlance of the industry, that earned rave reviews, large audiences, and even a few awards.

One of the cast members was a 28-year-old Los Angeles native named Jack Webb, playing small but important supporting role as “Lee,” a police lab technician modeled on Lieutenant Lee Jones, the well-known, largely self-taught criminalist who was, at that time, the commander of LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division.

Webb was better-known as a radio personality than a film actor. Indeed, He Walked by Night was only his second film (not counting an uncredited bit part, when he was 12, as a schoolchild in an early Bette Davis movie). To that point in his show business career, he'd made a far bigger splash on the airwaves than on theatre screens. Best known for playing the titular character on Pat Novak for Hire (ABC, 1946-49), about a denizen of San Francisco's waterfront who rented boats and operated as a unlicensed private eye, he'd also starred in Johnny Modero – Pier 23 (Mutual, 1947), a clone of Pat Novak , and in Jeff Regan – Investigator (CBS, 1948), as an operative of the Lyon Detective Agency. On all three shows he played essentially the same tough-talking, simile-spouting, cop-hating character.

In the course of filming He Walked by Night , Webb developed a friendship with the film's police technical advisor, Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, of LAPD's Robbery Division. Wynn lost no time letting Webb know how most cops felt about radio shows like Pat Novak that depicted private eyes as crime-solving whiz kids and cops as stupid, corrupt dunderheads. Why, he wondered, couldn't radio do a series that showed how cops really worked?

Wynn apparently forgot about the conversation soon afterward, and when filming wrapped, probably thought he and Webb would never cross paths again. He was undoubtedly surprised when Webb tracked him down early in 1949 and reminded him of the idea for a radio show he'd pitched a year or so earlier. Pat Novak was due to go on summer hiatus in a few months, and Webb, with his then-wife, jazz thrush Julie London, pregnant, needed a new show he could put on quickly as a summer replacement to get him through ‘til the fall. Wynn's off-hand notion suddenly seemed like a good one.

Webb, as he later put it, “shook hands with research for the first time.” With the help of Wynn, he secured permission from LA Police Chief Clemence Horrall to fictionalize actual cases from LAPD files, much as He Walked by Night had fictionalized the hunt for Walker . Then he spent the next few weeks attending police academy classes, riding along with cops on patrol, accompanying detectives on stakeouts and arrests.

He had hundreds of questions, and Wynn and his partner, Detective Vance Brasher, found themselves spending a lot of time explaining precisely how a suspect should be searched when arrested, what various radio codes meant, what kind of guns they carried, etc.

Wynn later recalled that, at one point, Webb asked him to “talk like a cop.” Cops, Wynn replied, bristling a little, didn't talk differently from anyone else.

“Well,” said Webb, “what would you do if you needed information on a suspect?”

“I'd go down to R. and I. and pull his package,” answered Wynn.

“ That's what I'm talking about!” exclaimed Webb.

While getting to know cops, Webb began to build a picture of the kind of lead character he'd need. Dedicated. Quietly courageous, but not fearless. Bright and intelligent, but not a genius. Honest and compassionate, but not a saint. An ordinary, hard-working guy, who'd be the symbol of thousands of ordinary, hard-working guys across the country protecting and serving their communities. Just a regular joe doing his job well. And suddenly he had a first name.

Then, recalling an unsold pilot script for yet another private eye series that he'd worked on with a friend, Joe Friday – Room 5 , he decided to recycle the name for this new police show. Unlike names such as Novak, Modero, or Regan, “Friday” suggested no particular ethnic group, and would therefore add to the “everyman” aura with which he was trying to imbue the character. Thus the unsold private eye became the cop who was destined to become an icon.

The next thing they needed was a title, something short and pithy that dramatically suggested police work. Recalling a piece of jargon for an all-out police effort that he'd heard on He Walked by Night , “dragnet,” Webb realized that this would be a perfect name for the show.

Now the problem was getting the show on the air. None of the networks with which Webb had been associated to that point, ABC, CBS, or Mutual, were particularly interested. But Homer Canfield, the head of West Coast operations for NBC was mildly intrigued and agreed to broadcast the show on a sustaining (i.e. without a commercial sponsor) basis, committing to only four episodes, with the option to renew for another four weeks if the series showed promise.

Dragnet debuted on June 3, 1949 , which means that it is celebrating its 60 th anniversary this year. A few of the tropes we now associate with the series were missing from those early shows. “Danger Ahead,” the famous “dum-de-dum-dum” theme, had not yet been composed by Walter Schumann, for example. And the opening lines with which every episode would eventually begin, “It was [day of the week], [date]. It was [whatever the weather was on that day and date] in Los Angeles . We were working the [day or night] watch out of [investigative division]. The boss was [the name of the commander of that division]. My partner's [one of the seven or so partners Friday would work with over the years]. My name's Friday,” had not yet been developed. And, rather than have the suspect's fate given as an epilog by the announcer, Friday and his partner discussed it at the end of the show in one of those awkward, “it's exposition and it's got to go somewhere” kind of dialog exchanges.

One thing the show did have right at the beginning, was the opening announcement (borrowed from He Walked by Night ):

“The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

And each episode did, in fact, dramatize an actual case, usually from the files of the LAPD, very occasionally from other police departments.

Over the next few weeks, as the show smoothed out the rough edges and worked out its format more completely, its audience began to grow. Critical response was positive. A sponsor, Liggett & Myers Tobacco, was obtained. By the fall, when the show was renewed for the long term, Webb decided to leave Novak and stick with the show he'd created himself.

In those early radio episodes, Friday's partner was Detective Sergeant Ben Romero, a Texan of Hispanic (presumably Mexican) descent played by Barton Yarborough. A veteran radio actor, Yarborough was best-known for playing Cliff Barbour on the long-running soap opera One Man's Family (NBC, 1932-59), and private eye “Doc” Long on I Love a Mystery (NBC, 1939-44). His character on Dragnet was an older, more experienced officer than Friday, married, with a couple of kids. This would be the template for most of Friday's partners during the run of the show. Ironically, in an earlier detective show, Adventures by Morse (Syndicated, 1944-45), Yarborough had played investigator Skip Turner whose partner was also named Friday.

As the show became more successful, Webb's insistence on authenticity became a veritable passion, not just about police work, but about everything that impinged on the show. When a listener heard Joe Friday climb the stairs leading to the front entrance of the L.A. City Hall (then the headquarters for the LAPD), the number of steps Joe took was exactly the number of steps on that stairway. When Joe was reading information from a two-page report form, the listener would hear the sound of a page turning before Joe read information that would only be found on the second page of that form. When a script called for a rooftop gun battle, Webb sent sound technicians to a roof and recorded the sounds of guns being fired there. When another script called for action to take place at a particular intersection at a particular time of night, Webb sent those technicians to that same intersection at that same time to record the typical sounds at that location. In one episode that called for Joe to make a long-distance call to Fountain Green, Utah, Webb actually sent an actor to that city, then, as the episode was being aired (and remember, at this time the shows were not pre-recorded, but broadcast live), actually made the call during the performance.

“There's something,” he'd say later, “about the way a real phone operator says ‘ Los Angeles calling,' that an actor just can't duplicate.”

Stories ranged from highly dramatic murder or robbery investigations to mundane check fraud or shoplifting cases. Webb was as intent on capturing the human interest that might be generated from a minor offense as he was the thrills that might be generated from tracking down a major criminal.

Indeed, in order to get a more complete picture of the wide range of activities a cop might have to deal with, Webb made one of his few compromises with authenticity. Rather than have Joe and his partner stick in one specialty division, as would be the case in real life, the two cops would transfer to a new detail every week. Joe and Ben might be tracking bank bandits for the Robbery Division in one episode, going undercover to nail a major heroin trafficker while working out of Narcotics in another, or trying to get the goods on a con man for Bunco in a third.

There was comparatively little violence on the show. As with real-life police work, violence was an ever-present possibility, but, as with real-life police work, it was also relatively rare. This gave action scenes, when they did occur, much more impact.

Awards soon followed the critical and popular acclaim the show as garnering. It was nominated for two prestigious Peabody awards, won two Edgars from the MWA for Best Mystery Radio Series of 1950 and 1951, as well as awards in two different categories given by the Radio-TV Mirror magazine.

By 1951 Dragnet was one of the most popular shows on radio, and a move to the comparatively new and growing medium of television became inevitable. NBC wanted Webb to move the production to New York and do it live. Webb insisted on staying in Los Angeles and doing it on film. Eventually, Webb prevailed.

As with the radio series, Webb was in charge of every aspect of the show, producing the show, directing every episode, occasionally writing scripts, and playing the lead character. He was television's equivalent of Orson Welles.

Webb's pilot episode, “The Human Bomb,” was adapted from the seventh episode of the radio series, which, in turn, had been based on the 1912 case of a suicide bomber who walked into L.A.'s police headquarters with a box of dynamite strapped to his chest and threatened to blow up himself, the building, and everyone in it unless his demands were met. It was filmed over two October days in 1951 on a budget of $38,000. Webb, who'd never actually directed a film before, was rather proud that he'd been able to bring the pilot in so quickly, and on budget. Some time prior to the date set for showing the pilot to executives from both the network and the sponsor, Webb happened to be watching an old movie on TV.

TV screens in 1951 were very small, often round. The images from the movie, originally filmed for the huge, rectangular screen of a theatre, were difficult to make out on the small screen of a home television set. Webb immediately notified the cast and crew that more filming was needed. He'd suddenly realized that the medium and long shots in which he'd filmed the pilot had to be supplemented by close-ups or the impact of the story would be lost.

With that single decision, Webb single-handedly revolutionized the TV medium. To this day, the close-up is perhaps the most common camera angle for a filmed television show. In fact, close-ups are often colloquially referred to as “Jack Webbs.”

With the close-ups inserted into the pilot film, Webb was ready to go. The sponsor was anxious to get the series on the air. NBC, however, perhaps chagrined that Webb had gotten his way about filming the show on the West Coast instead of broadcasting it live from New York as every other network drama series was, dragged its feet about picking a time to schedule it.

Liggett & Myers took things into their own hands. They were already sponsoring a half-hour show called Chesterfield Sound-Off Time (NBC, 1951-52), a variety show on which Bob Hope, Fred Allen, and others alternated as hosts. For the December 16, 1951 , episode of Sound-Off Time , Liggett & Myers simply ran the Dragnet pilot in place of the regular variety show.

The ratings and the critical acclaim generated by the pilot were immediate, and NBC finally relented and scheduled Dragnet for a timeslot on Thursday nights beginning in January 1952. It would be one of two series rotating under the umbrella title Mystery Theatre . For the first few weeks, Dragnet alternated with a live broadcast suspense anthology called Chesterfield Presents . By March, Chesterfield Presents had been replaced by Gangbusters , another filmed police drama based on a popular radio series. By January of 1953, Dragnet , having proven that it could stand on its own, was running weekly.

For television, Webb added a new introductory teaser device that was not suited to radio. Every episode began with a panoramic shot of Los Angeles , with Friday, providing voice-over narration, intoning, “This is The City. Los Angeles , California . I work here. I'm a cop.”

Sometimes, if the script was coming in a few minutes short, he'd work a mini-travelogue film between the “This is The City” beginning, and the “I'm a cop” ending, during which he'd show, and describe, different L.A. sights. In later years, responding to a complaint by J. Edgar Hoover that “cop” was an inherently disrespectful term, Webb would change the introductory phrase to “I carry a badge.” But I've always thought that the flat, laconic declaration “I'm a cop” suits Friday's character better.

During this period, Dragnet suffered its first major crisis. After appearing in the pilot, and in the second TV episode, Barton Yarborough suddenly and unexpectedly died after an acute heart attack. Rather than recast a part that had become so identified with Yarborough, Webb decided to write him out of the show by having the character die suddenly the same way Yarborough had.

“The Big Sorrow,” a radio episode written especially to accommodate the unexpected tragedy, begins as Joe reports to the squadroom for work where he's called into the captain's office and told that Ben unexpectedly passed away of a heart attack during the night. The captain then tells Joe that, while he'd like to give him time off to grieve, a major case is going to require every available hand. Friday is promptly assigned a new partner (Barney Phillips as Sergeant Ed Jacobs) and sent out to help track down some escaped convicts.

Meanwhile, on the television version, Webb was shooting around Yarborough. For the third TV episode, “The Big Death,” Romero is said to have called off sick and Friday is temporarily partnered with Sergeant Bill Cummings, played by Ken Peters. Cummings was the actual name of the detective who'd solved the real-life case dramatized on “The Big Death,” and the real Cummings was on the set while that episode was being filmed, serving as that segment's technical advisor. By the fourth episode, “The Big Mother,” Phillips was playing Jacobs on TV, as he was already doing on radio, but without the explanation that radio listeners had been given.

For various reasons, Webb felt that Phillips wasn't working out as Friday's partner. While the TV version was on summer hiatus, Webb used the radio version to try out different assistants. Martin Milner, who would become a regular member of Webb's “repertory company,” was cast briefly as rookie Detective Bill Lockwood, said to be Ben Romero's nephew, the only time Webb had Friday working with a younger partner. When Milner was drafted, he had to leave the role after only four radio episodes. Kenneth Patterson replaced Milner as Lockwood in a TV episode, but was dismissed after a fight with Webb before he could appear in another segment.

As Friday played “musical sidekicks,” Webb was getting increasingly frustrated, because he was sure he knew exactly what kind of a partner Friday should have. A humorous, dependable, supportive family man. Someone who could provide some comic relief, but still be believable doing realistic police work. A little off-center, perhaps, but someone you could count on when it came to the crunch. Someone a lot like Webb's uncle, Frank Smith, the man who'd been like a father to Webb when he was being raised by his single mother. In fact, he decided, “Frank Smith” was the perfect name for the character. And the perfect actor to play the part, in Webb's opinion, was a fellow named Ben Alexander, an affable, avuncular former child star from the silent era who now hosted a local game show in L.A. called Watch and Win . Webb presumed that Alexander's hosting duties would make him unavailable for Dragnet , so he set about trying to find someone else to play Detective Frank Smith.

On radio, he tried out several members of his growing repertory company. Harry Bartell, Vic Perrin, and long-time friend Herb Ellis all played Officer Smith on radio, but Webb was reluctant to give any of them the part permanently because he used them all so frequently as supporting characters and didn't want any of them tied to a single role. Oscar-nominated character actor Jack Oakie tried out for the part on television, but sank his chances when he showed up drunk for an interview with Webb.

As a stop-gap measure, Ellis introduced the character on television, debuting on a filmed version of “The Big Sorrow” in which TV viewers finally got the explanation of Ben's absence that radio listeners had heard months earlier. Three more episodes with Ellis as Smith were filmed when Webb learned that Alexander was a big Dragnet fan, and was actually interested in doing a guest shot on the show.

Webb immediately contacted Alexander and offered him the part of Smith. Alexander explained that he was only interested in doing a single episode. Webb replied that they would be shooting four episodes over a two week period to accommodate the show's new weekly schedule. Could Alexander appear as Smith just for those four episodes to see how he liked it? In the meantime, could he take over the role of Smith on the radio?

Alexander agreed, found he really enjoyed playing Smith, and, though already quite wealthy thanks to some savvy business investments, went on to play the part for the next seven years. Alexander's first radio episode as Smith aired on September 21, 1952 . His first TV episode aired on January 1, 1953 .

In later years, Alexander said “[Webb] knew those four episodes would be enough to get the hook into me. So here I am. A perpetual monument to a smart man's come-on.”

With all the elements now firmly in place, Dragnet went on to become a radio and television institution, a well-oiled machine that would turn Webb into a show business legend.

The obsession with accuracy that had so marked the radio series would become, if anything, even more marked on the TV version. “These are documentary cases,” Webb would tell interviewers, “and they've got to be believed.” Actual LAPD badges were used as props, for example, delivered before each day's shooting by whichever member of the Department was acting as technical advisor, and then collected at the end of the day. To get the look of his squadroom set exactly right Webb used precisely the same brand of furniture then used by LAPD's Detective Bureus, and made plaster casts of all the doorknobs and had them reproduced because no one was actually making that particular style anymore.

An often-repeated story was that a technical advisor arrived on the set, looked around in wonder, and exclaimed, “That's my desk. And that's my ashtray. And those are my cigarette butts! ” Supposedly, to make sure every detail was accurate, Webb had actually gone to the length of collecting some discarded cigarettes butts from an actual ashtray in one of LAPD's actual detective squadrooms to use as props on the set.

More awards were coming. Another Edgar, this one for Best Television Mystery of 1952. Three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Mystery Program in 1952, 1953, and 1954. Another two awards from Radio-TV Mirror , one for Best Mystery TV Program and another for Webb personally as Best Dramatic Actor. The Sylvania Award for Best Documentary Law Enforcement Program of 1953. Another personal award for Webb for Best TV Director given by Look magazine in 1954. Dozens of glowing magazine pieces, including cover articles in Time , Look , Coronet , McCall's , and the Saturday Evening Post .

But what probably pleased Webb more than anything were the appreciative comments from police officers across the nation. A retired FBI agent wrote, “Not only do you provide wholesome entertainment, but you are doing more for law enforcement than anyone else in the entertainment field.” A detective from Michigan singled out Webb's performance, saying, “After twenty-four years' service, I have never witnessed you make one mistake which would have tipped me you were not ‘law.'” And a former New York Police captain wrote Webb that, “[ Dragnet ] makes me homesick. Sometimes it even makes me wish I was back on the beat.”

Inevitably, Dragnet was imitated. There was the San Francisco-set The Lineup (which Webb once described as “ Dragnet with the Golden Gate Bridge ”). There were Tales of the Texas Rangers (“Lone Star Dragnet ”) and the Edgar-winning 21 st Precinct (“ Manhattan Dragnet ”). There were Highway Patrol (“State Trooper Dragnet ”), N.O.P.D. (“Big Easy Dragnet ”), Not for Hire (“Military Dragnet ”), The Lawless Years (“Prohibition-era Dragnet ), M Squad (“ Windy City Dragnet ”), Fabian of the Yard (“British Dragnet ”), Paris Precinct (“Gallic Dragnet ”), and Decoy (“Distaff Dragnet ”). And all either claiming that their stories were dramatizations of actual cases, that they were produced with the cooperation of the actual police agency (or at least a prominent member of the agency) being depicted, or (usually) both.

And television and radio weren't the only mediums showing the influence of Webb's creation.

John Creasey, founder of the British Crime Writers Association, had already used police officers as the heroes of many of his novels and stories. Indeed his most popular character was probably Inspector Roger West of Scotland Yard. The West novels, however, were filled with lots of unlikely melodrama. But the success of Dragnet and of its British counterpart, Fabian of the Yard (BBC, 1954-56), indicated to Creasey that a more down-to-earth, realistic approach could be as successful in prose as it apparently was on TV. Adopting the pseudonym “J.J. Marric,” Creasey wrote Gideon's Day (Harper, 1955), about a typical 24-hour period in the life of a high-ranking London policeman as he supervises the investigations of several unrelated cases being carried out by subordinates. It became the first in a long-running, award-winning series of novels that are now considered benchmarks of the police procedural sub-genre, though that term had not yet been coined.

On this side of the Pond, Evan Hunter, also a fan of Dragnet , particularly of the radio version, began contributing New York-set cop stories, obviously done in the style of the show, to magazines like Manhunt , Argosy , and Pursuit . Pocket Books editor Herb Alexander invited Hunter to bring that same sense of “clinical verity” to a series of novels. Adopting the pseudonym “Ed McBain,” Hunter wrote Cop Hater (Pocket, 1956), about a group of precinct detectives in an unnamed city that was obviously New York , on the trail of an apparent serial killer who's targeting cops. It became the first in a long-running, award-winning series of novels that are now considered benchmarks of the police procedural sub-genre, though that term had not yet been coined.

Marric and McBain were only the most talented exemplars of what was obviously a growing movement in crime fiction. By December of 1956, in his annual look back at the year in suspense, New York Times mystery critic Anthony Boucher noted the growing number of novels attempting to depict the profession of law enforcement with accuracy and verisimilitude, and, explicitly crediting the success of Dragnet as the root cause of this trend, originated the phrase “police procedural” to describe it. Now the term had finally been coined, and Dragnet was the main reason that the sub-genre it had been coined to describe was getting recognized.

Ironically, as the fortunes of the police procedural generally grew, the fortunes of Dragnet specifically began to decline. Oh, it was still as popular as ever, but it wasn't really as good as ever.

There were a number of probable reasons for this. First, in December 1953, Webb had sold the Dragnet copyright to Music Corporation of America for five million dollars (that's in 1953 dollars, roughly 40 million in present-day terms). He would retain absolute creative control over the property for as long as the series remained in production, and, in addition to the five million, receive an annual salary of one hundred thousand dollars (nearly 800 thousand a year in contemporary money) for his services as producer, director, star, and occasional writer of the show. A splendid deal, the most lucrative TV deal ever made to that point, but, with the show no longer his, Webb probably lost interest.

Second, in 1954 Webb's production company, Mark VII Limited, went into partnership with Warner Brothers to make a big-screen version of Dragnet . This turned out to be one of the best things Webb ever did under the Dragnet flag. Friday and Smith, assigned to the Intelligence Division (LAPD's Organized Crime detail, colloquially known as the “Gangster Squad” within the department) try to nail a local Mafia boss for a gang killing, but are constantly frustrated in their efforts. With a larger screen to play around on, and nearly two hours in which to build a story, Webb turned out a tight, gritty film that became one of the highest-grossing pictures of the year. Having done Dragnet as a full-length movie, though, he probably, consciously or not, might have felt he'd reached the peak of whatever he could do with the property and really had nowhere else to go.

Third, the success of this film opened up a career in feature length theatrical films for Webb. Over the next few years, he'd produce, direct, and star in Pete Kelly's Blues (Warners/Mark VII, 1955), The D.I. (Warner's/Mark VII, 1957), and -30- (Warners/Mark VII, 1959). With theatrical films providing him with a new outlet for exploring other characters and settings besides police work, Webb probably regarded the necessity of making nearly forty new episodes every season as an increasingly tedious chore that was interfering with his big-screen work. Inevitably, he'd save most of his creative energy for the movies, while a tendency to simply “phone in” his Dragnet work set in.

Fourth, and this really had nothing to do with Webb's attitude toward the show, Dragnet 's main writer, Jim Moser, whose creative talent was, arguably, as much a reason for the success of Dragnet as Webb's, had burnt out after churning out over a hundred and sixty scripts. Webb's primary replacement for Moser, John Robinson, was a competent journeyman, but he was clearly not as talented as his predecessor, and it showed in the scripts.

And finally, after five or six years of eating, sleeping, and drinking Dragnet , an effort that had cost him, among other things, two marriages, he was probably just plain growing tired of it.

There were still fine episodes being made, but there was more chaff and less wheat than there had been in earlier seasons, when Webb was truly on fire.

Whether the decline in quality was obvious to audience members, it didn't materially affect the show's popularity. Not only did Dragnet remain a top-rated show on prime-time network broadcasts, reruns from earlier seasons that were syndicated to local stations (under the title Badge 714 ) continued to be surefire winners in local timeslots.

The show's popularity, in fact, was still so high that dozens of ancillary products were being licensed. There was a daily Dragnet comic strip syndicated to newspapers across the country. Transogram manufactured a Dragnet board game. Mattel a Dragnet toy pistol. Knickerbocker a Dragnet police badge. Kellogg's included a Dragnet police whistle as a prize in their cereal boxes.

Pocket Books published three paperback Dragnet novels. The first was Case No. 561 (1956) by Shell Scott creator Richard S. Prather (writing as “David Knight”), which, like He Walked by Night , fictionalized the pursuit of Erwin Walker. This was followed by The Case of the Courteous Killer (1958) and The Case of the Crime King (1959), both by Richard Deming. Whitman put out a hard-cover collection of Dragnet short stories for young readers, Dragnet – Case Stories from the Popular Television Series (1957), also by Deming.

And aside from the many licensed products, there were dozens of unlicensed products deliberately evoking Dragnet without paying for the privilege.

There's no question that Dragnet 's popularity was still high. And it remained high (though not nearly as high) through its final season in 1958-59. Friday (now a lieutenant) and Smith (promoted to sergeant the same day Friday got his lieutenant's shield) continued to go through their paces, but the energy was visibly bleeding out of the series, and a change in timeslot that put them up against Cheyenne (ABC, 1955-63) cost them a lot of viewers. Ironically, the Badge 714 reruns were getting better ratings than the first-run network episodes. Webb decided to end the show while still a comparative winner. Once the final episode was in the can, Webb wrote an admiring history of the LAPD called The Badge (Prentice-Hall, 1959), essentially a 300+ page “thank-you” note to the Department for providing the essential help that made Dragnet so successful, and started concentrating on other projects.

Regretfully, the “other projects” failed to work out. Webb put two other series on the air after Dragnet completed production. The first, another cop show called The DA's Man (NBC, 1959), loosely based on the career of Investigator Harold Danforth of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, only lasted 26 episodes. Pete Kelly's Blues (NBC, 1959), based on Webb's 1956 film about a Prohibition-era jazz musician with a tendency to get involved in crime, barely held on for 13. Webb's last theatrical film, a WW2 service comedy called The Last Time I Saw Archie (UA/Mark VII, 1961) was a box office flop. And, when, in 1963, he was hired by Jack Warner to replace Warner's son-in-law, Bill Orr, as the head of Warner Brothers Television, he lasted less than a year.

By 1966, Webb had been out of work for more than two years. But 1966 was the year things began to turn around, and, once again, Joe Friday was the reason.

In those pre-cable days, the three networks were getting their highest ratings by broadcasting recently released movies. But, with a movie being shown on one network or another at least five nights a week, there just weren't enough recent films to go around. Moreover, they were damned expensive. CBS paid Warner Brothers a cool million for the one-time right to air The Music Man (1962). ABC doubled that amount to purchase the rights to a single showing of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) from Columbia .

Universal Studios and NBC came up with a solution called “Project 120,” 120 standing for a hundred twenty minutes, or two hours of air time. The idea was for Universal to produce a two-hour feature-length movie (actually 96 minutes, figuring in commercial time and station breaks) directly for television. Nowadays, when the “made-for-TV” movie is so much a part of our pop culture DNA, it's hard to imagine just how revolutionary a concept this was in the mid-‘60's.

Having come up with the concept, they needed producers and directors who could come up with solid, entertaining fare, quickly and on-budget. Since Universal had been purchased by MCA, which had bought the rights to Dragnet thirteen years earlier, and since NBC had been the network that put Dragnet on the air, a made-for-TV Dragnet movie must have seemed like a natural.

Webb, for his part, was happy to have something to do after two years of unemployment. There were a few roadblacks, however. For one thing, Ben Alexander was already doing another LA-set cop show, The Felony Squad (ABC, 1966-69), and wasn't available to reprise his role as Frank Smith. Another buddy of Webb's, Harry Morgan, was brought in to portray a very similar character, Detective Bill Gannon.

For another, Friday had been a lieutenant when the show ended in 1959, and Webb had decided that had been a mistake, since lieutenants aren't normally field investigators. Well, that problem was easily dealt with. The promotion was simply ignored, and Friday was once more a detective sergeant, with no explanation given for the apparent demotion.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Richard L. Breen, who'd scripted the 1954 theatrical Dragnet film, was brought on board to write the proposed TV movie. He turned in a tight, suspenseful script, based on the case of Harvey “The Lonely Hearts Club Killer” Glatman, in which Friday and Gannon are assigned a missing persons case and quickly realize that they are on the trail of a serial killer who's already murdered three young women and has abducted a fourth. The climax, a nail-biting hostage situation played out during a raging rainstorm, is one of the best sequences Webb ever directed.

As with the 1954 film, the TV-movie, perhaps the first “reunion movie” ever made for television, was one of the best things Webb ever did with the Dragnet property.

The studio and network execs were so impressed with Webb's finished product that they immediately decided to return the series to the air. The revived Dragnet , called Dragnet 1967 , debuted in January of '67 (in subsequent seasons, the year suffix would change so that the title became Dragnet 1968 , Dragnet 1969 , etc.). For reasons both complicated and mundane, the movie didn't serve as the introduction to the new series. Instead it was shelved until the third season of the revived series, when it was aired as a “special two-hour episode” during one of NBC's movie timeslots.

At 46, Webb was still a comparatively young man, but he was no longer the 20-something whiz kid he'd been when he first got Dragnet onto the air, and fatigue set in quickly on the new show. Moreover, Webb was showing a lamentable tendency to preach, something he rarely did in the 1950's. On the original show, when Friday reamed someone out, which he did rarely (Webb called these ream-outs “Jesus Speeches”) it seemed to grow naturally out of the frustrations any working cop would experience. In the revived series, Friday was spouting a Jesus Speech in virtually every episode, and seemed less like a frustrated cop venting than a spokesman for Webb's agenda.

(Although, that being said, two of the best Jesus Speeches ever, “Quirk in the Law” from the two-hour pilot, and “What Is a Cop?” from the first-season episode “The Big Interrogation,” were both products of the revived series.)

Action was even more minimal than it had been in the original show. In 99 episodes (counting the TV-movie) there was only one shootout and only one punch-up.

Friday was more involved in drug enforcement than ever before. Whereas, in the original series, Friday was assigned to Narcotics twelve times out of two hundred and seventy-five episodes over eight seasons, in the new series he was assigned to Narcotics nine times out of only ninety-nine episodes over only four seasons. Even the one Dragnet novel published as a tie-in the revived show, David H. Vowell's Dragnet 1968 (Popular Library, 1967), depicted Friday as a narc.

That would have been fine if he was actually out busting pushers and heavyweight traffickers, but all too often he was merely preaching. One episode, “The Big Prophet,” consisted of nothing but a long debate about drug use between Friday and an obnoxious Timothy Leary-type called “Brother William.” “The Big High” was a similar debate about drug use between Friday and a young married couple experimenting with marijuana. “Narcotics – DR16” was about Friday and Gannon providing advice to a burgeoning high school anti-drug society called “Smarteens.”

Even when they weren't working as narcs, Friday and Gannon seemed to spend more time pushing an agenda than fighting crime. Instead of working Robbery/Homicide or Burglary, they were working Community Relations or Management Services. One episode had Friday and Gannon appearing as guests on a TV talk show trying to defend the police point of view against two counter-culture types. Another had the two cops going out to the country with a large cross-section of other cops from various details of the LAPD for weekend retreat during which various ideas for connecting more effectively with the community were discussed.

The look of the show wasn't as effective as it had been in the earlier version. Television was now full-color, and Dragnet was now being filmed in a brightly lit “Universal Studios pastel” giving the show a washed-out look that dated quickly, a stark contrast to the boldly chiaroscuro black and white episodes of the ‘50's that still have a timeless look that just gets better with age.

Finally, though still not yet 50, Webb was getting jowlier and paunchier with each season. Though scripts still suggested the character was supposed to be in his 30's (in 1952, Friday was saying he'd been on the job for eleven years; in 1968 he was claiming to have been on for twelve), Webb was clearly no longer the sleek young greyhound he'd been in his salad days, but had evolved into a kind of grouchy, middle-aged bulldog.

But the revived show was a ratings winner, nonetheless. Enough of a winner to give Webb the clout he needed to get new shows on the air. In 1968, NBC would debut Adam-12 (“ Dragnet in Uniform”), which was popular enough that he was able to successfully sell more shows than ever before, all of them leaning heavily on the proven Dragnet formula. In 1971, NBC would air The DA (“Courtroom Dragnet ”), based loosely on the career of Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, while CBS debuted O'Hara – US Treasury (“Federal Dragnet ), with David Janssen as a government investigator who bounced around from agency to agency. This was followed by Emergency (“Hospital/Firefighter Dragnet ”), Chase (“Motorized Dragnet ”), Hec Ramsey (“Old West Dragnet ”), Mobile One (“TV Newsroom Dragnet ”), The Rangers (“National Park Service Dragnet ”), Sam (“Canine Dragnet ), and Project UFO (“Science Fiction Dragnet ”). While sticking to the Dragnet recipe, Webb had proven that he was capable of more than just producing and directing stories about Joe Friday.

By the end of the ‘70's, however, Webb was once more running out of gas. Project UFO was cancelled in 1979. And Webb, who had usually managed to be ahead of the curve in show business trends, missed out on an idea that turned out to be sure-fire because he'd fallen too far behind-the-times. Sergeant Dan Cooke, his LAPD contact, had pitched a series based on the activities of real-life LAPD Homicide Detectives Peggy York and Helen Kidder, probably the first team of female murder investigators in American law enforcement. Webb looked into the possibility, but ultimately passed, believing that a realistic crime drama with two female leads couldn't possibly work. A few months later, the pilot for Cagney & Lacey aired on CBS, proving Webb wrong.

On December 23, 1982 , Webb unexpectedly died of a heart attack. At the time, he'd been looking into the possibility of one more go-around as Joe Friday in a re-revived Dragnet . In this new version, Friday's partner was to be played by Kent McCord, reprising his Adam-12 character, Jim Reed, now promoted to the Detective Bureau from Uniformed Patrol. Webb's death prevented this version from ever coming to fruition.

But it didn't stop revivals of Dragnet .

In 1987, Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks starred as Joe Friday II (supposedly the real Joe's nephew) and Pep Streebeck in a Universal film titled Dragnet , a broad, but generally affectionate, spoof of the original show in which Ackroyd managed a rather uncannily accurate imitation of Webb. Though it was affectionate, it nevertheless had the unfortunate effect of adding to the “camp” reputation of the actual series, a largely unfair taint, primarily based on a few select episodes of the revived series of the ‘60's rather than the original run of the ‘50's.

In 1989, a series called The New Dragnet was syndicated to local stations by Universal. Instead of Joe Friday, the lead character, played by an actor named Jeff Osterhage, was named Vic Daniels, this on the theory that Webb was so identified with the part of Friday that no one else could play him. Almost as outrageous as the absence of Friday, the opening credits did not use Schumann's familiar “Danger Ahead” theme music. Viewers, apparently convinced that any Dragnet without either Joe Friday or the “dum-de-dum-dum” musical flourish wasn't Dragnet at all, didn't respond in large numbers, and the show only lasted about a year.

The most elaborate revival of Dragnet so far was the work of writer-producer Dick Wolf, creator of Law & Order (NBC, 1990- ) and its spin-offs. Wolf has often been quoted as saying that “The DNA of Dragnet is in Law & Order .” And in terms of story structure and approach, he's absolutely right. There was probably no other producer better qualified to do a revival of Dragnet .

That said, his version, called simply Dragnet (ABC, 2003-04), was, at best, only a qualified success. During the first season, it consisted of Detective-Three (the rank of Detective Sergeant having been eliminated in the LAPD some years earlier) Joe Friday (Ed O'Neill) paired up with Detective-One Frank Smith (Ethan Embry), and generally followed the Webb playbook faithfully if not obsessively. The stories were inspired by real-life cases. They were solved by dogged police work. The scripts were laden with the kind of staccato dialog that was Webb's trademark. And the famous “Danger Ahead” theme music was back, now with a kick-ass, jazzy arrangement that played over a series of images showing LAPD's history that eventually morphed into the famous “title over the badge” shot.

On the other hand, Friday was now inexplicably older than Smith. And they worked exclusively out of Robbery/Homicide, which meant they investigated nothing but murders and hold-ups. Most distressing, Wolf did not have the cozy relationship with LAPD that Webb had had (Wolf's main technical advisor was a member of the L.A. Sheriff's Office rather than the city police), and so the rigorous accuracy that Webb strived for was often sacrificed. Further, for legal reasons, Wolf was advised to have his announcer say merely that the story was “inspired by actual events,” rather than flatly stating that it was “true” (although “the names” were still “changed to protect the innocent.”)

Still, it started strong with an episode based on the Hillside Strangler case, and O'Neill, though too old for the part in my opinion, managed the difficult task of evoking Webb without irony, while still putting his own individual spin on the role.

Then the network started tinkering. When the show returned for a second season, Friday was again promoted to lieutenant (a move Webb had already correctly decided was a mistake), and placed in charge of a bi-gender, multi-ethnic unit of under-30 subordinates. The show was inexplicably retitled L.A. Dragnet . It wasn't a bad show, but it was nothing special. Just another ensemble police drama, and with little to mark it as part of the Dragnet tradition, the new series was cancelled at mid-season.

Outrageously, Wolf's version did not give an on-screen credit Webb as the creator of the series and its characters. Even the syndicated version, from which Friday was excised completely, credited Webb. Perhaps this gave the show bad karma.

Wolf's revival passed from the scene quickly, but the legacy of Dragnet continues. Every time an author enrolls in a citizen's police academy or goes on a ride-along to add the frisson of authenticity to the cop novel he or she is writing, that author is following a trail Webb blazed.

Every time a producer hires a police technical advisor to keep a film or TV series accurate, that producer is following a trail Webb blazed.

Every writer who takes inspiration from Ed McBain or J.J. Marric is, indirectly, whether they know it or not, taking inspiration from Jack Webb as well. It's ironic to consider that the unrepentantly Marxist novelists, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, who were got the idea of collaborating on a series of Stockholm-set procedurals after translating some of McBain's 87 th Precinct books into Swedish, were also, in all likelihood without realizing it, also following a trail blazed by the equally unrepentantly right-wing Webb.

And the list of people whose show-business careers Webb had a hand in starting is also quite remarkable.

Lee Marvin got his first major critical notice for playing a serial killer in a first-season episode of Dragnet called “The Big Cast.” One year later he got his first major big-screen role on The Big Heat ( Columbia , 1953). Five years later, he was head-lining his own Dragnet -like TV series, M Squad (NBC, 1957-60). Thirteen years later, he won an Oscar for his performance in Cat Ballou ( Columbia , 1965).

Fess Parker, who'd gain fame as another 1950's television icon on Walt Disney's Davy Crockett mini-series, got a big boost a few years earlier in a Dragnet episode called “The Big Winchester,” as a uniformed beat cop whose analysis of a crime scene points Friday and Smith to the correct solution.

Other actors like Dennis Weaver, Leonard Nimoy, Carolyn Jones, Strother Martin, and Michael Ansara would all go on to have major success in film and television after early exposure on Dragnet .

Aaron Spelling, a young actor who was cast in several episodes of the show, perhaps inspired by Webb's example, left performing to get into the production end of the business, and became perhaps the most successful producer in the history of television; ultimately he would dip into the LAPD well for series inspiration more often than Webb; just a few of his Los Angeles-based cop shows include The Mod Squad (ABC, 1968-73), The Rookies (ABC, 1972-76), S.W.A.T. (ABC, 1975-76), B.A.D. Cats (ABC, 1980), T.J. Hooker (ABC, 1982-85; CBS, 1985-87), Strike Force (ABC, 1981-82), and Wanted (TNT, 2005) .

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, while a young sergeant in the LAPD, was assigned to be Webb's liaison to the Department. His first experience in screenwriting was taking real-life cases from his department's files and boiling them down into two or three paragraph screen treatments that could then be fleshed out into full scripts by Webb or one of his writers. With this Webb-provided experience, Roddenberry was able to graduate to writing full scripts for other police shows like Highway Patrol (Syndicated, 1955-59), Harbor Command (1957-58), and The Detectives (ABC, 1959-61; NBC, 1961-62), ultimately branching out to other genres like westerns, medical dramas, and the form he became most associated with, science fiction.

Another writer, Stephen J. Cannell, after a stint as an executive story consultant on Adam-12 , was able to form his own production company, creating and selling his own crime dramas like The Rockford Files (NBC, 1975-79), Hunter (NBC, 1984-91; 2003), and Missing Persons (ABC, 1993-94).

Not everyone is a fan of Webb's. Some dislike his politics. Others find the stylized dialog and the heavy use of close-ups either quaint or comical.

But, like him or not, his influence is beyond question. In the words of Michael J. Hayde, author of the definitive book about Webb and Dragnet , the Edgar-nominated My Name's Friday (Cumberland, 2001), “Whether [Webb's] viewed as TV's first genius or its biggest joke, his legacy prevails . . . after all the revisionists, critics, and pundits are long gone, Jack Webb will be remembered as one of American television's most notable icons, and Dragnet as its dramatic cornerstone.”