“An Endless, Glamourless, Thankless Job”

I’m rather too young to have appreciated--or even seen--every episode of Jack Webb’s original Dragnet TV series (1951-1959; 1967-1970). What I remember best from that show, unfortunately, are the scenes in which Webb and co-star Harry Morgan ran like a couple of stiffs, arms down at their sides, leaning forward as if into a strong headwind.

However, after screening the DVD set Dragnet 1967, Season 1, Quick Study’s Scott McLemee proclaims that “Jack Webb was so square that he comes out the other side as the coolest hipster ever to appear on network TV.” To prove his point, McLemee links to a scene from that season’s fourth episode, “The Interrogation,” in which Webb’s Sergeant Joe Friday lays out, for a young rookie, the costs and benefits of being a cop. (Click here to watch that scene for yourself; start at the 16:03 mark.) I admit, Webb’s monologue is both powerful and heartfelt, though someone else with law-enforcement experience will have to judge its basis in fact.

Maybe it’s time for me to revisit Dragnet as a rental.