"Dragnet" The Big Oskar (1958)

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Director:

Jack Webb

Writer:

William Spier (writer)

TV Series:

"Dragnet" (1951)

Original Air Date:

14 October 1958 (Season 8, Episode 4)

Genre:

Drama | Crime | Mystery

Plot:

The detectives take a report of valuables stolen from the home of a somewhat eccentric old lady. They...

Plot Keywords:

Police | Cult Director | Detective | Sergeant | Based On Radio Show

Cast

Fay Roope	...	Oskar Hovejg
Amzie Strickland	...	Elma Face
Jack Webb	...	Sgt. Joe Friday
Ben Alexander	...	Officer Frank Smith

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Check the Scenery for Chew Marks

The case is an interesting one in the way it's rather mysteriously introduced. It's hard to know what to make of Oskar, the elderly Norweigian gentleman. He has all the solemn seriousness of a man carrying some awful secret, but what could it be.

Unfortunately, the episode does not live up to the potential. Producer-director Webb, it would seem, has to make an interesting 30 minutes out of two characters who basically do nothing but talk. Apparently, his solution is to have each act the part of an extreme eccentric. In Oskar's case it works pretty well-- we accept him as a man with a very refined conscience. Amzie Strickland's Miss Face, however, is so outrageously overdone that I had to check whether this was really Dragnet-- a series that earned its reputation on consistent underplaying. But there she is hooting and hollering like the old woman from The Beverly Hillbillies. Even her tearful mode is badly overdone. In the process, Oskar's human interest gets badly overshadowed. With some restraint, this could have been a memorable entry. For me, it still is, but for the wrong reasons.