DRAGNET (1954)

Curiouser and curiouser.  As tv viewership rose and movie attendance sank in the ‘50s, two competing ideas fought to reignite box-office: WIDEscreen vs. DEEPscreen; CinemaScope vs. 3D.  And, much like a later battle between Blu-Ray and HD, the fight all but over before it began.  About a year after it started, films shot in 3D were being released ‘flat.’  Whereas WideScreen formats took off in a multitude of aspect ratios & systems.  Which gets us to this feature-length edition of Jack Webb’s popular half-hour tv police procedural; the one with his odd staccato speaking style and underdressed sets.  (Webb never met a wall he didn’t want to strip bare and paint over in matte gray or green.)  The film is soporific, neither a 2-part tv episode reedited to feature length (see DAVY CROCKETT or THE MAN FROM UNCLE/THE SPY WITH MY FACE); nor a free-standing story using little but the tv title (Don Siegel’s THE LINEUP*).  Instead, typical DRAGNET thirty-minute content (a mob murder to solve) drawn out to fill 88" in WarnerColor.  To all intents & purposes, shot as if they were making a 3D film when they ain't.*  Why else action scenes with multiple items directed straight at the camera?  Why else knockout blows delivered right at the audience?  Why else an eighty-eight minute running time? (Due to technical limitations having to do with only two film projectors in most projection booths, those 3D films ran in two 45-minute chunks with an intermission.)  Was director Jack Webb too lazy . . . er, cost-conscious/efficient, to bother restaging for 2D, without gimmicky 3D POV camera positioning, after finding out Warners not only weren’t releasing in 3D anymore, but weren’t shooting in 3D?  Instead, merely cropping the usual 35mm Academy Ratio Aspect (1.37:1) down to 1.85:1?  Webb’s lack of response almost as weird as his mannered ideas on filmmaking & acting.  On the positive side, a fair amount of L.A. location shooting, cool ‘50s men’s ware for the police detectives and a high gloss on the lacquered up/latest model cars to keep interest up in the first act.  But things quickly turn sleepy when 30 minutes of plot get stretched over an hour & a half.  Early views of Dennis Weaver and Richard Boone help, just not enough.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  For a look at Jack Webb stylistics, try his next, PETE KELLY’S BLUES/’55 in WarnerColor and CinemaScope (2.55:1).  OR: *For something considerably better, Don Siegel’s eye-popping THE LINEUP/’58, mentioned above.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/08/pete-kellys-blues-1955.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-lineup-1958.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *This is largely supposition, but was there another Hollywood production planned & designed for 3D only to have the rug pulled out on them when the format was dropped by their studio, then continued in 2D as if nothing had changed?