January 26 - Dragnet (1969)

Today’s movie is a crime drama with a scene that happens on January 26. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

DRAGNET   

Sgt. Joe Friday returns early from vacation and is corralled into going to work as part of a security detail for a visiting Soviet official. He is pulled off of this to work on a case involving three missing girls. His partner Bill Gannon is getting ready to go on forced medical retirement due to ulcers.  An interview with the brother of one of the missing girls turns up the fact that she was a member of a “Lonely Hearts” dating club. They go to the club.  When the address “J. Johnson” gave turns out to be a fake, they get police artists to draw sketches of the suspect. The sketch from the brother’s description doesn’t match the one given by the dating club owner, Mrs. Kruger. The next day January 26, 1968 [31:58 to 1:23:55] Joe tries to get a child molester to confess.  Then a body is found that matches the sketch given by the girl’s brother. They track the dead man to a hotel and the name Charles LeBorg. They go to the house he called from the hotel and find the dead man’s brother. They get a lead on where the dead man had dinner with someone last night. At the restaurant they get a description of the two men he dined with and their car.  They turn out to be ex-cons, who are arrested by Friday and Gannon. Then another girl Betty Mason is reported missing after the time when LeBorg was killed so he can’t be the one kidnapping girls. At Betty Mason’s apartment they find a receipt for the two candy bar wrappers that were in the apartment. The store where they were purchased gives them a lead to a trailer park, but they find the suspect left the park only twenty minutes ago. The suspect is tracked and trapped in a dead end. He parks the trailer on the edge of a cliff in a driving rain storm. He holds the police at bay by threatening to push the trailer with the missing girl over the edge. Friday goes around, climbs the cliff from below, beats up the suspect and stops the trailer from going over the edge. After his arrest the suspect, Don Negler tells them where his tool box is located. Inside are photos of the kidnapped girls in bondage.  Negler confesses to the murders. Gannon takes his forced medical retirement. However eight months later, Gannon has gotten rid of his ulcers and rejoins the force.     

A decent police procedural. Fans of the sixties TV show will especially enjoy this. It is a time capsule view of another era in police procedure.

The date is given in the film at 32:00-01.     

Producer – Jack Webb      

Director -  Jack Webb        

Screenplay – Richard L. Breen                                 

Runtime – 1 hour 35 minutes                                    

Released – January 27, 1969                                                                        

Cast –

Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday

Herry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon

Vic Perrin as Don Negler

Gene Evans as Capt. Hugh Brown

Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Kruger

Gerald Michenaud as Claude LeBorg

Elizabeth Rogers as Eve Sorenson

John Roseboro as Sgt. Dave Bradford

Bobby Troup as George Freeman

Tom Williams as Melvin Gannon

Jack Ragotzy as Carl Rockwell

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015