Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- 1 The Future Catches Up with the Past: Peter Bogdanovich's Targets
- 2 Surrealism and Sudden Death in the Films of Lucio Fulci
- 3 Flash Gordon and the 1930s and '40s Science Fiction Serial
- 4 Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television's Dragnet
- 5 The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky
- PART II HISTORY
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
4 - Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television's Dragnet
from PART I - GENRE
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- 1 The Future Catches Up with the Past: Peter Bogdanovich's Targets
- 2 Surrealism and Sudden Death in the Films of Lucio Fulci
- 3 Flash Gordon and the 1930s and '40s Science Fiction Serial
- 4 Just the Facts, Man: The Complicated Genesis of Television's Dragnet
- 5 The Disquieting Aura of Fabián Bielinsky
- PART II HISTORY
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
All I want to do is make a million dollars.
—Jack Webb, 1953 (Hayde 2001, 59)Jack Webb had a lot of help when he created the hit series Dragnet. The series marked a significant departure from existing models of “crime and punishment” police and detective shows — which had, in the past, existed only in exaggerated versions. With Dragnet, the quotidian, everyday aspects of police work came to the fore, portrayed in minute detail. But the origins of Dragnet are shrouded in a good deal of contentious disputation and it's clear that series creator, Jack Webb, was not the only person involved in establishing the format for the show. Born in Santa Monica, CA, on 2 April 1920, Webb never knew his father, Samuel Webb, who deserted Jack's mother and filed for divorce shortly before Jack's birth (Hayde 2001, 9). Samuel Webb then vanished completely from Jack's life — swallowed up by the Depression — leaving Jack, his mother, Margaret, and her mother, Emma, to get by as best they could (Hayde 2001, 9—10).
As a child, Jack Webb was plagued by a variety of debilitating illnesses and thus forced to spend many hours in bed. There, he compensated for his incapacity by becoming an omnivorous reader of books borrowed from the public library or magazines scavenged from trash cans outside the family's cramped apartment (Hayde 2001, 10).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cinema at the Margins , pp. 31 - 42Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013