Early Joe Friday, whom we see here, was different from later, more mature Joe Friday. His name was still Joe Friday and he still wore a gray jacket with dark slacks but the jacket sometimes had little STRIPES in it and, in one scene, he wears a DARK BLUE SUIT. I'll tell you the truth. I was shocked.
This feature film is based on the series from the 1950s. It's tougher than the stories that we're used to from "Dragnet 1968" and in some ways not nearly as good. Friday and his partner, Ben Alexander, don't bump into quite so many loopy characters. Most of those we meet here are hardened criminals. There is Virginia Gregg as the pitiful, drunken wife of an executed criminal, true. You can tell she's a wreck because there is a newspaper scattered untidily across the floor. My house looks worse than that every day. If my place looked as good as that of this dissolute, weeping wife, I'd consider it suitable for visits from guests.
The sets provide some continuity with the later series. They're cheap and sparse, and the lighting is high key and flat, as in "I Love Lucy." We can't help notice that this Joe Friday is given to seriousness and gruesome quips, not that the later Friday was ever a barrel of delicate laughs. But here, in questioning a suspect they're already convinced is involved in the initial murder, Friday comes on tough, sarcastic, humiliating, in a way he wouldn't have in 1968. He makes the guy use his own palm for an ash tray although there is a glass ash tray only a few feet away.
The plot is a little complicated, what with all the physical evidence, the hit men called in from out of town, advanced technology like a small tape recorder, and name after name thrown at us without much in the way of introduction. I could follow Max Troy okay. He was the guy with the bad stomach but no ash tray. The other flood of names merely mixed me up.
The movie adheres to the conventions of the time. There are allusions to "the syndicate" and "the organization" but nobody who's a member has an Italian name. As far as I could tell, there was no ethnicity at all.
I found myself a little disappointed in it. It's a fast moving policier. I expected the more relaxed approach of the series I was familiar with. Joe and his partner should have slowed down a bit. His partner should have formed a bond of affection with Pismo clams or Dr. Scholl's foot powder. But for the most part, the beefy Ben Alexander just tags along. Joe Friday himself is younger, sleeker. And when a good-looking policewoman asks if his concern for his safety is personal, he smiles warmly (for him) and replies that he just wants to see her live to make sergeant. I think we'd ALL like to know more about THAT part of Joe Friday's life.
This feature film is based on the series from the 1950s. It's tougher than the stories that we're used to from "Dragnet 1968" and in some ways not nearly as good. Friday and his partner, Ben Alexander, don't bump into quite so many loopy characters. Most of those we meet here are hardened criminals. There is Virginia Gregg as the pitiful, drunken wife of an executed criminal, true. You can tell she's a wreck because there is a newspaper scattered untidily across the floor. My house looks worse than that every day. If my place looked as good as that of this dissolute, weeping wife, I'd consider it suitable for visits from guests.
The sets provide some continuity with the later series. They're cheap and sparse, and the lighting is high key and flat, as in "I Love Lucy." We can't help notice that this Joe Friday is given to seriousness and gruesome quips, not that the later Friday was ever a barrel of delicate laughs. But here, in questioning a suspect they're already convinced is involved in the initial murder, Friday comes on tough, sarcastic, humiliating, in a way he wouldn't have in 1968. He makes the guy use his own palm for an ash tray although there is a glass ash tray only a few feet away.
The plot is a little complicated, what with all the physical evidence, the hit men called in from out of town, advanced technology like a small tape recorder, and name after name thrown at us without much in the way of introduction. I could follow Max Troy okay. He was the guy with the bad stomach but no ash tray. The other flood of names merely mixed me up.
The movie adheres to the conventions of the time. There are allusions to "the syndicate" and "the organization" but nobody who's a member has an Italian name. As far as I could tell, there was no ethnicity at all.
I found myself a little disappointed in it. It's a fast moving policier. I expected the more relaxed approach of the series I was familiar with. Joe and his partner should have slowed down a bit. His partner should have formed a bond of affection with Pismo clams or Dr. Scholl's foot powder. But for the most part, the beefy Ben Alexander just tags along. Joe Friday himself is younger, sleeker. And when a good-looking policewoman asks if his concern for his safety is personal, he smiles warmly (for him) and replies that he just wants to see her live to make sergeant. I think we'd ALL like to know more about THAT part of Joe Friday's life.