The Big Webb: Jack Webb brings Dragnet to Television
by Clive Prentiss-Munsey
In 1948, radio actor Jack Webb snagged the role of a forensic chemist police lieutenant in the movie He Walked By Night, starring Richard Basehart. Real life Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn was technical advisor on the production(which was based on the murder of a California police officer). During the filming, Wynn suggested to Webb that he do a radio show based on the cases of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Up until this point in his career, Webb hadn't been too interested in the police per se. He still wasn't - there were a lot of radio programs out there featuring policemen. But none who told it like it really was, Wynn pointed out. Six months later, Webb visited Wynn at his precinct and asked to ride along with Marty and his partner to see how 'real' policement worked, talked, lived.
Webb decided to do the show. Marty Wynn and other police officers went through the LAPD files looking for material. It was Webb's intention to document real cases, 'changing the names to protect the innocent.' NBC, which had recently lost a lot of actors to rival CBS, agreed to put the show, called Dragnet on the air.
It began in 1949, first as a 'sustaining' program, which meant that the network itself sustained the show, rather than selling commercial time. Co-starring with Webb was actor Barton Yarborough, whom he had first met on another radio program in which he had starred, Jeff Regan.
"Homicide", the pilot episode, aired on June 2, 1949. Friday and Romero are working Homicide division when two officers are gunned down. This first episode set the tone for the entire series. Plodding, relentless police work, no glory, no histrionics. After eighteen weeks, Dragnet was picked up by an advertiser (Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company) who were to sponsor the program for the next seven years. (In the early years of television a single sponsor provided all the commercials for a program).
Dragnet was still going strong in 1951, featuring Joe Friday and Sergeant Ben Romero in their daily routine in tracking down crime - from missing children, to assaults, to robbery, to murder. At this time the show was at the top of its success - listed in the top ten with listeners every week. Webb decided the time was ready to try for television.
A tabletop television (with a 10-inch screen) and radio set, circa 1949
View the external site: Antique radios
Jack organized the cast and the crew for the pilot. The script was an adaptation of one from the radio program and was entitled ''The Human Bomb''. Jack initially wanted Lloyd Nolan to play Friday - but he was busy with Martin Kane, Private Eye. Ben Romero was of course played by Barton Yarborough. Raymond Burr played Chief Detective Thad Brown. The pilot aired on December 16, 1951 in a special edition of Chesterfield Sound Off Time and was a success. In anticipation of success, another episode had already been filmed: ''The Big Actor,'' and filming on the third episode had started.
Then tragedy struck. Barton Yarborough, only 51 years old, died of a heart attack on December 19, 1951, just three days after the successful airing of the Dragnet television pilot.
On the radio, ''The Big Sorrow'' was broadcast on December 27, 1951, revealing that Yarborough's character Romero had died of a heart attack. The radio series continued, with several actors played Friday's new partners for a few months, starting with Barney Phillips as Sergeant Ed Jacobs for a time, Martin Milner for four episodes, and finally settling on Ben Alexander as Sergeant Frank Smith.
The television series went ahead as planned, with the first official episode of the first season called, ''The Big Mother'' airing on January 3, 1952. It (or ''The Big Actor'' - sources differ) was the last television appearance of Barton Yarborough.
The show alternated weekly with Chesterfield Presents (aka Dramatic Mystery) until Webb could find a new actor to play his partner on the show, and gather enough scripts together to start producing the show on a weekly basis.
Jack Webb and Ben Alexander as
Joe Friday and Frank Smith
Actor Ben Alexander became Jack Webb's new partner both on television and on the radio, Officer Frank Smith. He also starred with Webb in the two movies made based on the tv program.
Television was in its infancy, and Jack Webb brought a lot of innovations to the medium. He was one of the first to use the teleprompter. Rather than having actors memorize their lines, he wanted them to simply read them off a screen placed out of camera range.Herbert L. Stock, integral in the creation of the tv Dragnet, designed a method of quick cuts, extremely close shots, and unusual camera angles to set the show apart from the usual fare.
The radio program aired its last in 1956, the televison show didn't retire until September 6, 1959.
Harry Morgan and Jack Webb as
Bill Gannon and Joe Friday
The LAPD was always grateful to Jack Webb for the good press he brought the department - depicting the police as hard working men and women just trying to do their job.
In 1966, Jack Webb brought Dragnet to the small screen once again, testing the waters with a two hour tv movie. Harry Morgan's Bill Gannon replaced Ben Alexander. The audience ate it up, and in 1967, it began again as a weekly series which lasted until September 10, 1970 and which is still in reruns today.
 
Before his death in 1982, Webb was planning on bringing back Dragnet as a series in 1983. Harry Morgan was starring as Colonel Potter on MASH, so, supposedly, Webb was considering Kent McCord as his new partner. Unfortunately, it was not to be, as Webb died of a heart attack on December 23.
The Dragnet parody, starring Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks, hardly did justice to the series. A new Dragnet series, starring Ed O'Brien (most famous as the slob in Married With Children), and put together by the same men who created Law and Order, will air in February, 2003. Based on the clips aired during December, 2002, the notion of Webb's underplayed cops is not going to be employed. The first episode involves a serial killer of women.
External Links
American Legends: Jack Webb - article on Webb's early Dragnet by Charlotte Younger.
Badge 714 - A website devoted to Jack Webb.
Sources:
Just The Facts, Ma'am: The Authorized Biography of Jack Webb, by Daniel Moyer and Eugene Alvarez
Barton Yarborough Biography, by Bob Siler (on the Badge 713 website).
This article uploaded on December 21, 2002.
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