• Main Cast: Jack Webb, Ben Alexander
• Release Year: 1954
• Run Time: 30 minutes

Plot

Sergeant Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) continue to seek out "just the facts, ma'am" as Dragnet enters its fourth season on NBC. The series' popularity was affirmed a few months earlier when a theatrical feature-film version of Dragnet was released by 1954, posting huge profits -- thereby disproving (in this case at least) the theory that fans would not pay cash to see what they were getting at home for free every week. The huge grosses of the movie version had persuaded Jack Webb to continue seeking out movie projects, beginning with the 1955 filmization of Webb's old radio series Pete Kelly's Blues. There was also talk in the industry that Webb was planning to bring Dragnet to a close, or at the very least to cast another actor in the role of Joe Friday, leaving Webb free to concentrate on producing and directing. Needless to say, this did not come to pass, and Dragnet would remain an NBC TV fixture for several seasons to come. Season four gets off to a good start with the episode "The Big Bible," featuring a pre-Gunsmoke Dennis Weaver as a police forensics technician. Not all of the subsequent episodes were on the same high level; indeed two of the fourth-season efforts, "The Big Mailman" and "The Big Number," are regarded by many Dragnet aficionados as the series' low points. Still, the season yielded several first-rate installments, including "The Big Note," with Martin Milner and Carolyn Jones as high school kids; and "The Big Rod" which is so careful in exonerating "responsible" hot rod enthusiasts from the accidents caused by less careful drivers that it received a special commendation in several publications catering to hot-rodders. Although Dragnet had dropped from second to third place in the overall TV ratings, the series still remained NBC's most-watched weekly program. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Jack Webb - Sgt. Joe Friday
• Ben Alexander - Sgt. Frank Smith