1954’s Dragnet opens with a gangland slaying.  We watch as a man is brutally gunned down in a field in Los Angeles.  The rest of the film deals with the efforts of the LAPD to track down and arrest the killers.

Based on the televisions show that gave birth to the whole “cop show” format, Dragnet features Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday, calmly and efficiently investigating the slaying.  Working with Friday is Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) but the film (just like the show) is ultimately about how the whole criminal justice system works together as a machine designed to protect the citizenry and to punish crime.

Or, at least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.  Especially if you’re only familiar with Dragnet from its late 60s incarnation and the countless parodies that followed, the 1954 Dragnet can seem surprisingly cynical and rough-edged.  The killings are violent, the criminals are ruthless, and the cops are often frustrated in their attempts to solve crimes.  In this film, at least, justice is not guaranteed.

The shooting victim is identified as a low-level gangster named Miller Starkie and Friday and Smith immediately suspect that he was killed on the orders of West Coast mob boss Max Troy (Stacy Harris).  Friday and Smith know that Troy is guilty and they even figure out who worked with Troy to kill Starkie.  But, throughout the film, they struggle to get any sort of concrete evidence tying Max to the crime.  Dragnet is a police procedural that follows every bit of the investigation, including the attempts to convince a grand jury to indict Max.  One of the more interesting moments in the film is when Friday gives his grand jury testimony and it becomes obvious that the district attorney was right to be skeptical about trying to bring charges.  Friday really doesn’t have enough evidence to justify arresting Max for the crime that everyone knows he committed.  To the film’s credit, it doesn’t attack the grand jury system or suggest that the system is unfairly rigged for the criminals.  Friday may be frustrated but he understands that the system has to protect the rights accused first.  One has to be presumed innocent until proven guilty even when everyone knows that person is guilty.

That said, Friday and Smith and the entire LAPD end up harassing Max Troy in a way that would probably not fly if the film were made today.  At one point, a line of police cars park in front of Max’s house and then all shine their lights into his windows.  Friday and Smith end up following Max everywhere that they he goes, stopping him and randomly frisking him before ordering him to empty his pockets.  Today, I imagine this would lead to lawsuit.  Even in the film, it doesn’t exactly pay off.

What does pay off is sending a police woman (played by Ann Robinson) into Max’s nightclub undercover, with a recording device.  This whole sequence is interesting because it’s apparent that the idea of a tiny recording devices — something that we take for granted nowadays — was apparently a new and exciting concept in 1954.  (Indeed, the one used in this film actually looks a bit bulky.)  For a few minutes, the action stops so Dragnet can show off the LAPD’s latest toy.

I liked Dragnet.  It’s an nicely-paced time capsule and, despite its docudrama style and television origins, director Jack Webb manages to come up with a few memorable visuals.  As someone who has binged the late 60s version of Dragnet, it was interesting to see a tougher and much more cynical version of the series.  While Webb was hardly an expressive actor, his dour demeanor serves him well as Joe Friday and Stacy Harris is appropriately sleazy as the crime boss.  Despite all of Friday’s frustrations, the case eventually comes to a conclusion in the 1954 film, even if it’s not the one that Friday and his bosses wanted.  Max may be able to escape the police but he can’t escape his own health.  Friday and Smith move on to investigate the next case.  As always, the names will be changed to protect the innocent.