Dragnet has a reputation for its no-nonsense, tough-on-crime stories. Particularly in the 1960s, Sergeant Joe Friday was known for bringing down the hammer on scummy criminals, which was particularly cathartic in the midst of rising crime. Friday told off criminals in a satisfying way, as when he confronted a racist child molester. “Now you listen to me, you gutter-mouthed punk. I’ve dealt with you before, and every time I did, it took me a month to wash off the filth.”
Yet Dragnet was dedicated to realism and reality, which is often more complex in the ways that human brokenness can lead to crime. Among the perpetrators Sergeant Friday came upon were kids with negligent parents, desperate people, lonely people, and others who’d just lost their way. Despite the pop culture image, Friday didn’t try to throw the book at everybody, and the series didn’t try to make the audience hate them. There are many more examples from both the 1960s TV series and the original radio and TV series of criminals getting a more sympathetic portrayal.
Below are my Top Five. Note when I refer to Friday’s partner, he had one partner in the radio version and another in the TV version.
Spoilers ahead for programs that were all broadcast more than 50 years ago.
5) Virginia Sterling from The Big Shoplift
Radio Air Date: October 11, 1951
Original TV Air Date: March 11, 1954
Mrs. Sterling (Peggy Webber) isn’t an obvious choice for a sympathetic criminal. She is the well-dressed wife of a wealthy doctor who commits a string of acts of shoplifting that throws suspicion on an innocent sales associate and costs that sales associate her job. When she finally confesses, she reveals that her shoplifting is part of a long-running kleptomania that is aggravated by her loneliness and feelings of low self-esteem. After telling her story, she asks Friday if there is an answer. He laments that there is, but she won’t find it in jail.
4) Stanley Stover in Burglary DR-31
Original TV Air Date: March 6, 1969
Stover (Tim Donnelly) commits a series of burglaries of superhero movie memorabilia. He is in costume as “The Crimson Crusader” and claims to be such. The costume looks silly, as it reflects both being homemade and a bit of 1960s color palette. It is only under questioning that Stover reveals what drove him into a fantasy world and a life of crime. He reveals that he was abandoned by his father and was bullied and beaten up in school. He says the pain didn’t bother him as much as the fact that he hadn’t done anything. He was a fat kid. “Why should people hate a kid for being fat? It’s hard enough being a fat kid without people hating you for it.”
3) Majorie Lewis in The Big Show
Original Radio Air Date: April 10, 1952
Original TV Air Date: January 25, 1953
Lewis (Virginia Gregg) reports that she found a seven-week old baby that had been abandoned by his mother on a bus Lewis had been riding from Phoenix. Friday and his partner investigate and find the truth: the young mother was invented. The driver tells them that Lewis got on the bus with the baby. They confront her with the evidence and she tells them what happened. She had been married to an Army Captain who left her alone when he went overseas. She had gone to a party and ended up having one night stand that led to the pregnancy. She had to choose between her husband and her baby. She asks Friday to help tell her husband about what happened and he and his partner agree to help.
2) Elroy Graham in The Big Present
Original Radio Air Date: November 24, 1953
Original TV Air Date: October 21, 1954
Friday and Smith are searching for a burglar who has committed eighteen small burglaries and leaves behind a bottle of milk at each robbery. The culprit turns out to be a nearly fifteen-year-old boy named Elroy Graham (Sammy Ogg). He refuses to talk until he can be assured he’ll appear in the newspaper. One of the other officers pretends to be a newspaper reporter. Eventually, he breaks down and tells his story in tears. He has been bullied by the other kids because he’s small (4’7″, 85 pounds). The only way he could think of to gain respect was do something big, and the only he could think of was the burglaries. “I didn’t mind the kids saying I was little, but I didn’t want them to think I was small.”
1) Roberta Salazar in The Big Mother
Original Radio Air Date: November 9, 1950
Original TV Release Date: January 31, 1952
Friday and his partner are called to a hospital where a baby has been kidnapped from a nursery. They get a few tips and are able to locate the baby. A Mrs. Salazar (Peggy Webber) had taken the baby from the hospital and claimed him as her own. They arrive at the Salazar home to find a party going on for the baby’s baptism. When confronted, Mrs. Salazar reveals what had happened. She and her husband had gone through more than a decade of infertility, and finally got pregnant. Her husband (Harry Bartel) had to continue to work but sent her to a relative in Phoenix to have the baby because he thought the climate would be better. However, the baby died at birth and she feared having to tell him what happened, when she walked by the hospital and saw her chance due to a hospital security lapse.
Webber turns in a beautifully tragic performance, and Bartel deserves plaudits for his performance in the TV version as he conveys Mr. Salazar’s heartbreak that he doesn’t really express verbally, as he’s trying to be there for his wife. It’s one aspect that the TV version offers that the radio performance can’t.
Of course, these sort of episodes could stir up controversy. Some accused the TV version of The Big Show of condoning adultery.
None of these episodes pretends the crimes committed were right or somehow excusable. Dragnet maintained a strong moral core throughout its radio run and both TV runs. However, the series also reflected compassion and understanding for those whose crimes were the result of mental disturbances and human frailty. Dragnet saw no contradiction between those two ideas.
