Dragnet: Part Parody, Part Homage (Review with Link)
In the summer of 1987, Universal Studios released Dragnet, the third feature film based on the long-running radio and TV police procedural series created in 1949 by actor-director-producer Jack Webb. The show, which ran on-and-off from ’49 to 2003 on various media platforms on two networks and in syndication, is famous for its musical theme (“Dum - - - de - DUM - DUM"), its cinema verite approach to storytelling, and Webb’s deadpan delivery of his dialogue. Five years after Jack Webb’s death (which came just as a new version of Dragnet was in pre-production), writer-director Tom Mankiewicz teamed up with actors Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks to create a comedy which was part parody and part loving tribute to Webb’s very straight-faced drama. Here, Ackroyd, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mankiewicz and Alan Zweibel, stars as Joe Friday, nephew and namesake to Webb’s famous Los Angeles Police Department plainclothes sergeant. The younger ...