Review of Dragnet (1987) by Edith N — 30 Jul 2011

A Contemplation of Anachronisms.

Why is it that no one else comments on the fact that the uptight police commissioner in this is named Jane Kirkpatrick? (Played by Elizabeth Ashley.) I wouldn't have noticed that the first time I saw it, given I was maybe twelve at the oldest, but I do not believe it can be a coincidence. I believe it must be a reference to Jeane Kirkpatrick, a one-time Socialist who ended up as Ambassador to the UN under the Reagan administration. Kirkpatrick was a rabid anti-Communist who believed that it was okay to work with dictators as long as they were on our side. It's so appropriate to the character in the movie that I can't imagine it's merely a coincidence. Admittedly, that gives the movie an even deeper political meaning than the plot does, but as is appropriate for my beloved summer movies, you don't actually have to think about it. It's just there, underneath, if you care to look at it.

Sergeant Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd), LAPD, was named for his uncle and went into the same field. His partner has just retired, and he's got a new one, fresh of the narcotics bureau. Detective Pep Streebeck (Tom Hanks) is very different from up-tight straight arrow Friday. He has plenty of girlfriends, a loose attitude toward dress code, and a hip attitude. Friday hates him. Together, they investigate a series of incidents perpetrated by a group calling themselves PAGAN, "People Against Goodness and Normalcy." Among other things, PAGAN has stolen the entire print run of [i]Bait[/i] magazine, a [i]Playboy[/i] or [i]Hustler[/i] sort of thing published by Fake Hefner Jerry Caesar (Dabney Coleman). Friday and Streebeck end up at a PAGAN rally, where they rescue the Virgin Connie Swail (Alexandra Paul). Connie has seen the face of the leader of PAGAN. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the leader is someone so improbable that no one will believe her--except Friday, who is willing to risk all for her.

Once again, I don't get the hate here. As with so many of my favourite movies, it's incredibly quotable. It's also a world inhabited by characters, not just a bunch of funny people saying funny lines and nudging you in the ribs about it the whole time. It's young Tom Hanks, back when he was pretty much just thought of as a light comedian. It's Dan Aykroyd, which I admit is hit-and-miss, but this is very much a hit moment. Yes, okay, incredibly dated. It's 1987 and you can tell. But there are movies out there which don't have quite so much antagonism built up toward them which are also quite obviously the product of their times. I think there's something about lesser-known Tom Hanks movies, honestly. A lot of people have love-hate relationships toward Tom Hanks, and you don't get the obvious glory or flopness involved in a, say, [i]Philadelphia[/i] or [i]Bonfire of the Vanities[/i]. (And boy, finding that flop is harder for Tom Hanks.) It doesn't even have the polarization of a [i]Da Vinci Code[/i].

I think this might have been one of my mother's summer movies. It seems right. You have to understand that my mother is still a [i]Dragnet[/i] fan, to the point that she listened to it on the radio at night when our local news channel did vintage radio dramas every night. Certainly we watched the show. And my mother was not, at the time, particularly interested in Tom Hanks, and she's never been much interested in Dan Aykroyd. Mom and I have a lot of shared pop culture interests, more than it might seem to listen to either of us talk, but a lot of our favourite summer movies are pretty well identical. I've seen a great number of very silly movies with my mother, because that was what he did on very hot summer weekends. It's what I do on very hot summer weekends to this day. And I am often delighted to discover them available streaming, which is where I found this. Actually, the bigger surprise to me was that I hadn't reviewed it yet.

So, then. Is [i]Dragnet[/i] set in Mythic Los Angeles? Of course it is. It knows it is. There's unnecessary Muscle Beach, which exists in the film for the express purpose of showing attractive people in tight clothes. Also Emil Muzz (Jack O'Halloran), but he's an anomaly to be ignored. There's our fake Playboy Mansion full of scantily clad women. There's the Hollywood Sign for no reason other than, look, Hollywood Sign. There's the Griffith Observatory, which is admittedly not that far away. The zoo is in Griffith Park, too. But I don't think it's possible to have a police precinct cover both Griffith Park and the beach, any beach. One of the key traits to Mythic Los Angeles is that it manages to be quite small despite containing an enormous amount of places and even different geography. It's true that this is vaguely hinted at, but I'm curious as to the jurisdictional issues involved in the Virgin Connie Swale. She is, after all, from Anaheim, and that's across the county line.