VLVL2 (15): Crime Drama

[monroe at mpm.edu]

"Here came some sentimental pitch, delivered deadpan--cop solidarity, his
problems with racism in the Agency, her 59 [cents] on the male dollar, maybe
a little 'Hill Street Blues' thrown in, plus who knew what other licks from
all that Tube, though she thought she recognized Raymond Burr's 'Robert
Ironside' character and a little of 'The Captain' from 'Mod Sqaud.'  It was
disheartening to see how much he depended on tehse Tubal fantasies about his
profession, relentlessly pushing their propaganda message of
cops-are-only-human-got-to-do-their-job, turning agents of government
repression into sympathetic heroes.  Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore,
no more than the routine violations of constitutional rights these
characters performed week after week, now absorbed into the vernacular of
American expectations.  Cop shows were in a genre right-wing weekly TV Guide
called Crime Drama, and numbered among their zealous fans working cops like
Hector who should have known better.  And now he was asking her to direct,
maybe write, bsically yet another one?  Her life 'underground,' with a heavy
antidrug spiel.  Wonderful."  (VL, Ch. 15, p. 345)


"delivered deadpan"

It's the walk. If you study Jack Webb's walk, especially in the later
episodes of "Dragnet," the 1950s police drama he created, and starred in as
the no nonsense Sergeant Joe Friday, you see that Webb's body language
telegraphs "square" and "control freak." His arms may swing, but Webb holds
them stiff as boards; his posture is as rigid as a drill instructor's (a
role he played in one film). His legs march to a monotonous beat that only
he can hear. His head nods or shakes; his facial expressions are few: a
raised eyebrow, the hint of a smile, that frown--but mostly his mouth forms
an inscrutable straight line. His famous staccato delivery of lines (mostly
interrogatives) only adds to the effect. How is it, then, that Jack Webb and
"Dragnet," have earned such a firm place in the pantheon of cool? Why are
they included in Gene Sculatti's Catalog of Cool, along with such other cool
cats as Jack Kerouac and James Dean?

"Dragnet," Sculatti tell us, was "TV's equivalent of cool jazz, with
dialogue like a bass solo." Were Webb alive today (he died in 1982, at 62),
he'd be pleased with that description, for nothing was as important to the
real man behind Badge 714 as jazz. Webb had a collection of over 6,000 jazz
albums. He told the story of the down and out jazz musician who for a time
had a room in the same tenement where Webb grew up. (Jack was raised by his
mother and maternal grandmother in downtown Los Angeles.) The musician
introduced young Webb to jazz and blues, and when the musician was either
arrested or evicted (or both), he left his cornet for the budding jazz
aficionado.

Webb practiced for hours on that cornet. He never mastered it, but he moved
easily and with pleasure in the world of jazz musicians. His first wife was
the golden-haired, smokey-voiced singer Julie London, with whom he had two
children.... Like a lot of jazz musicians in the late 1940s, Webb went
through many women (he was married four times) and cigarettes
(Chesterfields--many packs a day). You can see him often lighting up in his
Sergeant Friday role on "Dragnet." Unlike a lot of early jazz and blues
musicians, however, Jack wasn't a vagabond (or outlaw). His politics were
strictly right-wing squared, and he was very much a homebody when he wasn't
working--which wasn't often because he could fairly be called a workaholic.

Artistically, "Dragnet" was modeled upon the gangster and underworld movies
of the 1940s--a genre we now call film noir. The TV show was shot on
location in Los Angeles--the pre-freeway city of wide boulevards, rundown
rooming houses, lonely people. Webb captured the stark atmosphere with quick
camera shots, sparse dialogue, and action that often took place at night.
The show portrayed police work as hard, tough, dirty--summed up in Webb's
classic prologue: "The city is Los Angeles. I work here. I'm a cop."

Ironically, Webb's genius has been overlooked because of the show's lack of
pretension. The acting and stories were so simple and straightforward that
their accomplishment was missed. Only in retrospect do we finally recognize
that as a director, Webb was an original and an artist. So next time you
catch an episode of "Dragnet" on TV, try to remember that, though by the end
of the show's run Webb and his world view of hippies and the domino theory
of drugs may seem dated, underneath that gray tweed sports jacket and behind
Badge 714 there beat the heart of a man who knew more about syncopated cool
than any of the "juvies" or the hippies he busted. Jack Webb was cool.

http://www.americanlegends.com/jackwebb/

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/dragnet/dragnet.htm

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/webbjack/webbjack.htm

In Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003--definitely q.v.), the narration refers to
Webb as a "transcedental" filmmaker on the order of Ozu and Bresson ...

Schrader, Paul.  Transcendental Style in Film:
   Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.  New York: Da Capo, 1988.

http://www.dacapopress.com/focus.asp?ISBN1=0306803356


"59 cents on the male dollar"

Since the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, the wage gap has been closing at
a very slow rate. In 1963, women who worked full-time, year-round made 59
cents on average for every dollar earned by men. In 2002, women earned 77
cents to the dollar. That means that the wage gap has narrowed by a less
than half a cent per year! 

http://www.pay-equity.org/info-time.html

However ...

http://www.menweb.org/throop/economic/fiftyninecent.html


"Hill Street Blues"

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hillstreetb/hillstreetb.htm

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-269/


"Robert Ironside"

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/ironside.htm

http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/TV/Drama/ironside.asp

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/burrraymond/burrraymond.htm

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-974/Ironside/

That siren-like theme featured on the Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack, by the
way, is from Quincy Jones' theme for "Ironside" ...

http://www.maverick.com/releases/99/

http://www.rhino.com/store/ProductDetail.lasso?Number=74363


"'The Captain' from 'Mod Squad'"

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0028872/

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-39100

The Mod Squad was probably the ultimate example of the establishment
co-opting the youth movement of the late 1960s....

http://timstvshowcase.com/modsquad.html

And see as well ...

http://www.chezgrae.com/modsquad/

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/mod-squad.htm

http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/TV/Drama/Mod_Squad.asp

http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-677

I do have the Topps Linc "Hippie Cop" trading card and the Johnny Lightning
Mod Squad "Woody," by the way ...

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/diecast/images/johnny/jl-modsquad.jpg


"Tubal fanstasies about his profession"

While fans of The Mod Squad saw it as "relevant," tackling such charged
issues as the My Lai Vietnam massacre, draft resisters, militant priests and
slum lords victimizing ghetto tenants, the show's three stars dismissed talk
of relevancy as absurd when interviewed in 1971.

"It's nothing but escapist entertainment, man," insisted Clarence Williams
III, who plays hip undercover cop Linc. Michael Cole, who portrays hip
undercover cop Pete, agreed. "Our job is to entertain, not to write social
documents."

Summing up, Peggy Lipton (who stayed away from series TV until she played
Norma Jennings in 1990's Twin Peaks) said: "It's all cop stuff."

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/cops/modsquad.htm


"Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore"

See, e.g., ...

Althusser, Louis.  "Ideology and Ideological State
   Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation."
   Lenin and Philosophy.  London: New Left Books, 1971.
   New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978.  127-186.

http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~mfrangos/althusser.html

http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfwc/wiu/culturecrit.html

http://dogma.free.fr/txt/RW_IdeologicalApparatuses.htm

http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/1997althusser.html

http://www.sla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/marxism/modules/althusserISAs
mainframe.html


"right-wing weekly"

http://tvguide.com/