This week we continue our month of saying thank you to our listeners! For this episode, we are joined by Aimee! Not only is Aimee the creator of the fantastic Twelve Chimes It’s Midnight podcast, she’s also a Patreon supporter at the highest tier! She invited us to listen to “The Big Confession” from Dragnet! A troubled young man wanders into the police office to confess to a murder, but Sergeant Joe Friday suspects something about his story doesn’t add up. Will the facts establish a murder happened as the man said? What reasons would he give to justify such a crime? What bit of trivia does Aimee provide to top references to Magilla Gorilla and the Pentateuch? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
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This is an excellent Dragnet episode. It reminds me of a couple of other sort-of similar Dragnets, as they also consist largely of Friday simply talking to someone and generating a remarkable level of suspense. One, from 1951, consists almost entirely of Friday and his partner interviewing a murder suspect and gradually getting a confession out of him. The script was reused a year or so later for the TV show, with Lee Marvin doing a brilliant job playing the suspect. The two versions can be compared here: http://comicsradio.blogspot.com/2018/06/fridays-favorite-otr.html There’s another Dragnet I heard years ago on “When Radio Was”… Read more »
I have a friend who is working his way through the Dragnet radio series in chronological order. I’ll run that description past him and see if he recognizes it…
Thank you.
It was so much fun to talk with you guys about this episode…thanks again for the opportunity! On a side note, never listen to holiday-themed Dragnet episodes expecting warm and fuzzies. I listened to “A .22 Rifle for Christmas” on Christmas Eve one year and was reduced to anguished tears…never again! Brutal!
We had a blast too. Thank you for joining us. For the last two years, I’ve considered featuring “A .22 Rifle for Christmas” on the podcast as my holiday selection but ultimately decided against it because, as you said, the anguish and the tears. Next year though…
Whenever I think of tangential, naturalistic conversations in Dragnet, I think of a conversation that Friday and his partner had about turtleneck sweaters. I don’t remember what episode it was in. Dragnet does have a more uplifting Christmas episode, with the delightful title “The Big Little Jesus” (https://archive.org/details/itotr-dragnet-thebiglittlejesus). If you’ve never heard Jack Webb’s Pat Novak, be prepared for a feast of film noir similes. “She sauntered in, moving slowly from side to side like a hundred and eighteen pounds of warm smoke.” “I had a nice mess to juggle. It was like trying to walk the baby on a… Read more »
Best Pat Novak one-liner is when he expressed disappointment by saying:
“It was like washing your kid’s face and finding out he’s ugly anyways.”
Loved this. If I had to pick one all-time favorite radio series (and fortunately, I don’t), it would be Dragnet.
If Eric has never heard any other radio Dragnets, he really needs to listen to some of the early ones, because he will love Barton Yarborough as Ben Romero.
Also, I want to see a bumper sticker that says “Talk to your kids about Dragnet.”
I was pleased to hear this! I’ve been hoping you would do more of a straight crime show, and this episode of Dragnet is a corker. Like Gunsmoke, Dragnet was extremely well-written and well-acted and maintained its high standards over a long run. I like the Pat Novak Show too – the stories aren’t as well-constructed, but the dialogue is fantastic. Unfortunately, there’s so many great lines coming so fast that by the time an episode is over, I’ve usually forgotten them all.
Oh man, I love Dragnet. I love Dragnet so much. Friday is just *kisses fingers* – this is a great episode, it was dark and noiry, and also I’m hungry for prawns? Lorraine, ugh, what a number, that one. Her introduction I thought was so wonderful, putting on lipstick as they enter, she glances up to look at them and then goes back to putting on her lipstick, that said SO MUCH about her, and as we get to know her (and try to get past the squick factor of her being only 16), she’s so awful, how did Paul… Read more »