The detectives break up a gambling ring. Friday is undercover.The detectives break up a gambling ring. Friday is undercover.The detectives break up a gambling ring. Friday is undercover.
Ralph Brooks
- Gordon Westerfield
- (uncredited)
George Fenneman
- Main Title Announcer
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
George Holmes
- Legion Member
- (uncredited)
Clyde McLeod
- Bookie
- (uncredited)
John Stephenson
- Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Preston Wood
- Jack Webb(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaSidney Miller reprised the "Jay Simmons" character three years later in the Adam-12 episode Log 35: Easy, Bare Rider (1970).
Featured review
Keep the Kleenex handy.
There is a back story to this episode that makes it a lot more interesting. This episode stars Bobby Troup as a rather pitiful small-time criminal and the show was a great showcase for him as an actor. Now here's the interesting aspect. Jack Webb (Sgt. Friday and the show's guiding force) was married to Julie London. After they divorced, London married Troup. Yet Webb apparently harbored no grudge towards Troup. On the contrary, he was given several chances to appear on "Dragnet" and was even given a regular job working on "Emergency" was one of the doctors. As I said, an interesting back story.
The episode begins with Friday and Gannon attending an interdenominational prayer breakfast for a police fraternity. Afterwords, Friday is given a special assignment with the police chaplain who did the benediction at the breakfast. According to the story, Gannon was too well-known in this part of LA and this might jeopardize his cover.
Friday and his new partner have heard that a bartender named Clinger (Troup) is the contact person for people wanting to do some illegal gambling. They do an undercover investigation and cozy up to Clinger--hoping they'll get him to place bets for them.
In an unusual bit of comic relief, Sidney Miller appears in the bar at the end of one evening. He sits down with Joe and does one of the funniest drunk routines I've seen. He was awfully funny and I didn't mind this bit of padding in the show.
Later, Friday finds out that Clinger has a young daughter who is sick with a severe heart defect. His wife is dead and you get the impression he's a very nice guy despite being the contact man for the gamblers. The show did a good job of building sympathy for the hard-luck guy.
I won't go into what happens next--you can see it yourself. But I gotta admit that this is one of the only episode of "Dragnet" that really hit me emotionally. Though I've seen the episode several times, when I just watched it again it had me tearing up by the end. A very good episode and one that takes a lot of emotional risk. One of the better written episodes, even if the story is very, very simple.
The episode begins with Friday and Gannon attending an interdenominational prayer breakfast for a police fraternity. Afterwords, Friday is given a special assignment with the police chaplain who did the benediction at the breakfast. According to the story, Gannon was too well-known in this part of LA and this might jeopardize his cover.
Friday and his new partner have heard that a bartender named Clinger (Troup) is the contact person for people wanting to do some illegal gambling. They do an undercover investigation and cozy up to Clinger--hoping they'll get him to place bets for them.
In an unusual bit of comic relief, Sidney Miller appears in the bar at the end of one evening. He sits down with Joe and does one of the funniest drunk routines I've seen. He was awfully funny and I didn't mind this bit of padding in the show.
Later, Friday finds out that Clinger has a young daughter who is sick with a severe heart defect. His wife is dead and you get the impression he's a very nice guy despite being the contact man for the gamblers. The show did a good job of building sympathy for the hard-luck guy.
I won't go into what happens next--you can see it yourself. But I gotta admit that this is one of the only episode of "Dragnet" that really hit me emotionally. Though I've seen the episode several times, when I just watched it again it had me tearing up by the end. A very good episode and one that takes a lot of emotional risk. One of the better written episodes, even if the story is very, very simple.
helpful•131
- planktonrules
- Nov 16, 2009
Details
- Runtime30 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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