My book the Benefit of Steel is reviewed in this month's issue of the Saskatchewan Anglican, on the occasion of my Aunt Peg and Uncle Steve's recent visit to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. It's good to see more promotion for the book, it continues to be bought and read by new people every month!
4 comments:
Happy New Year! I look forward to more of your OTR analysis in the coming year. You are the only one I have found that is contemporary to my generation and we like a lot of the same things. I have been listening to a ton of Dragnet on Internet Archive and it is fascinating.
First, it's a great series but it has these utterly bizarre and now contemptible cigarette ads interspersed. Dragnet is one of the first shows to have three commercial interruptions all for either Chesterfield cigarettes or usually for Fatima, their long cigarette brand. Some times the ads focus heavily on the cigarettes length and width but pretty much always, the point of the ad is that Chesterfield cigarettes are best for you. They have pseudo-non-random scientific "studies" proving that Chesterfield Cigarretes don't harm health. They also continually touch it's low nicotine content which is bad science since studies show that the lower the content, the more you smoke meaning more filler and carcinogens. They also tout their cork filters. Again, these decrease nicotine content so people suck harder.
I don't know all OTR cigarette ads since often they are expunged but Lucky Strike commercials were classics and entertaining. These Fatima ads you sort of dread when they become repetitive but still, I prefer uncensored shows but it's good to point out that we still read and hear a lot of the same prophylactic tales about nicotine and content and filters. I think Camel which was the third big brand back then also had a series of Doctors prescribe camels to athletes. It was all nonsense. There is something about cigarettes and we don't know what it is exactly but cigarettes per se are far, far more hazardous than alternate ingestion methods.
Back to Dragnet, the show, it's an interesting show. I am a lawyer with a background in public defender work and this was the 40's and 50's but except for one episode, none of the accused even have lawyers. In every single episode, the accused just blurt out their guilt and confess, without either a lawyer or a plea deal. According to the show, every single case goes to trial, always with a guilty plea and often with the sentence of death in the gas chambers.
The show is both noir and campy somehow. The best characters are Romano, Smith and the chief while Joe Friday prances around with all of his rapid return quips ready to go. The Christmas shows are unlistenable because they are so morbidly maudlin. The Stanley and Stevie and Lost Christ Child episodes are famous even on the television version, but that does not make them good. I try to skip these and all of the ones with bizarre accents.
But Joe Friday's schtick is pretty good. The dialog is well written and punchy and adult in a way that no other OTR show that I know of is. The best episodes tend to be the marijuana, heroin and dirty book episodes where we see Joe become indignant over Tijuana Comic books. Talk about making a federal case out of something. There are two or three of these dirty book episodes. But it seems like in almost every other episode, Friday is barking, roll up your shirt! Show me your arm, Mister. Nobody has to do those thing now. If you didn't stop when Friday ordered, he would try to shoot you in the back, this being well before a later Supreme Court case saying you could only shoot fleeing criminals if they were armed or dangerous, essentially. This is back in the Stop or I will Shoot Days.
I notice how nowadays we mostly say Sir. even policemen but just 75 years ago, they said Mister, more and it definitely was said with less respect. The forensic science on this show for the period is fantastic. The show features many Hispanics and not always in bad lights. Romano has no accent but he appears to be from Texas. His dead-panning and complaining about wife and life, give the show a light side. There's an episode called the Big Girl where they find out that the beautiful robber was apparently XY and Friday deadpans for Romano to go take care of something that he will stay with glamour boy, which seems to be expressive for the era. The geography of the show appears to be real, even some of the terms that we no longer use, like Bunco fugitive, which appears to have been an office in charge of capturing both fugitives and con artists. You hear the term again and again and it's hard to look up: Bunko? Bunks?
Anyway, I recommend this show for anyone looking for something semi-serious and even avant-garde Taxi Driver-levels of depravity and filthy when normally we remember everything being Father Knows Best. The shows repeat well too.
Thanks for the great articles on the show Escape. I think you could do Dimension X and X-Minus One and Exploring Tomorrow. Those shows are up with with Escape and Dragnet and Gunsmoke.
War is Over, if We Want It.
Best,
Janey
And Kudos on your book. You are an excellent writer, scholar and gentleman.
And I forgot to add my favorite bit of constant dialogue on Dragnet. Basically, Friday and Romano break into someone's home without a warrant and they start searching. The person wanly complains and then Friday or Romano always says, if you have nothing to hide then you won't mind us searching. Twang!
That's the statement that ultimately leads to the end of liberty, along with take out your pockets, Mister and show me your left arm.
Somehow these guys still come off as heroes but it's laughable from a liberal western democracy in terms of civil rights and freedom from search and seizure so eh, we have made some progress.
Let's hope for a good one, without any fear....
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