I remember it was seventy-two years ago tonight, July 7, 1949, when Dragnet was first heard on NBC radio. It was like no other police drama or detective program I'd ever heard before.
I was used to hearing police/detective shows like Dick Tracey, Perry Mason, the Green Hornet, I Deal in Crime (my favorite) with William Gargan, etc., and I loved them. But those were all obviously fictitious situations even to a kid my age; Dragnet seemed like real life to me.
Police stories on radio goes back long before the premiere of Dragnet with an especially strong heritage in Los Angeles. The show took its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
The real-life
Private Investigator Nick Harris presented dramatizations drawn from
his own true-life case files as far back as the 1920s, and the Los Angeles Police Department collaborated closely with director and producer William N. Robson of the Don Lee Network for the 1930's series Calling All Cars.
Others who worked for the Lee Network were Don Wilson, Ralph Edwards, Art Linkletter, Harold Peary, Morey Amsterdam, Merv Griffin, John Nesbitt, and Bea Benederet who would later work with George Burns and Gracie Allen.
But
these formats fell from favor by the 1940s, with the advent of the
"hard boiled dick" (an expression that definitely engages the old cremaster!) genre of crime programs. An ordinary policeman just
doing his job had little chance against the legions of smart-mouthed
gumshoes parading across the ether during the postwar years. But
inevitably, that genre collapsed under the weight of its own clichés and
when Dragnet premiered it was a breath of fresh air.
No
wisecracks, no impossibly exaggerated characterizations, no
too-purple-for-belief dialogue, just a dedicated law enforcement
officer, determined to do his job as completely and as thoroughly as
possible. Joe Friday is one of radio's great Everyman figures, just
another workaday guy in a cheap suit, trudging thru his daily routine
but in the hands of Jack Webb, the characterization takes on a
fascinating edge of realism. The deliberately-low-key direction and the
stylized flat-voiced delivery of the supporting cast adds to this
downbeat, it's-really-happening style, giving Dragnet a feeling and a mood unlike that of any other radio program of its era.
The original theme for the show was credited to Walter Schumann, however, it seems he may have "borrowed" the theme from the score for the 1946 film The Killers, composed by Miklós Rózsa, which resulted in a major lawsuit (link below).
There were pop chart hit covers of the theme that were recorded by Ray Anthony and his Orchestra with a jazzy beat in 1953 and with a syncopated dance beat by the Art of Noise in 1987.
Viewfinder links:
Great Detectives of Old Time Radio ~ Dragnet
Open Culture ~ Dragnet radio programs
Syracuse University ~ Dragnet! A Musical Controversy
Radio Archives ~ Dragnet Volume 1
YouTube links:
Miklós Rózsa ~ The Killers
Walter Schumann ~ Dragnet
