User Reviews

Sargeant Friday is investigating smut being distributed in and through the high schools of Los Angeles. One suspect leads to another until he gets the perp. The perp is an old washed up movie director who, along with his cameraman, has been reduced to supporting himself by manufacturing and distributing porn. He would sell it for 75 cents a copy to a high school student who would resell it to other students for $1.00. We never get to see the actual porn but we get various reaction shots of the faces of actors seeing the smut.

The perp is played by Ralph Moody who creates a poor soul who has been reduced by fate to a pathetic wretch. He takes Friday and his parter out to an abandoned studio of Jefferson Street where he lives and recalls his old life of making westerns back in the 1920. The entire scene is quite touching and Friday seems to pity the old man. Of course when Ralph Moody says he did it because he had to support himself Friday replies that there were honest jobs he could have taken.

In addition to the production and distribution of porn the old producer also set up parties where hard liquor was given to teenage girls. What actually happened at these parties is not told to us. But that is the way Hollywood handled these problems back then.

The episode is moving and painful to watch, but it still works even though it is more than 50 years old and it paints a picture of a Los Angeles which no longer exists except in our memories. Watch it if you get the chance.

Review - The Big Producer Airing 8-26-54 Dragnet covers all the facets of criminality when they delve into the obscene literature world and the policework it entails. Friday, Smith work the case the same, with patience, tracking each suspect until a conclusion is realized. The story is believable taken from actual case history working the high school students in peddling smut. The top guy being someone formerly in the legitimate movie business, but choosing to resort to this kind of illegal work to make a living.

First, Friday, Smith visit the high school kid pushing the product, learning his buddy's name, they are both booked, the stash is confiscated and the name of Mr. Big is provided. The girlfriend is questioned, she is shown the nasty work the top guy is making, and a lead comes from her pointing to the maker.

After literally being lead around an silent film studio lot, a confession is coaxed from the old movie producer. For the time period this episode was aired, it proves policework is mundane but thorough; Friday, Smith get their bad guys. No gunfire necessary in this one. Worth a watch for the campiness of the story, but for the time, it was relevant, true to life. Smut peddling is real today, but print material has been reduced, because according to police today, there are things going on in schools exceeding the severity encountered by Friday, Smith.

Sad biography note on Carolyn Jones dying of colon cancer. She must have been a favorite of Jack Webb for appearing in five episodes. The fact she was an accomplished actress from the start qualified her. Marty Milner guest appearances total six, indicating he worked well with Webb, right from the start, and continuing for many years. Ralph Moody's fifteen episodes in this early TV version was an indicator of his talent and he worked well for Webb; always.

Apparently the producers wanted to kick off the 4th season with a different kind of episode. Most notably, the usual documentary style is abandoned in the second half for a psychological approach, which pulls the audience into the old movie-maker's sentimental recollections of glories past . Sound effects are also used to heighten the "inner" reality, along with a rising crane shot framing the expressionistic very last shot. It's all a rather heavy-handed elegy to old Hollywood, and a bit "arty" for such an unpretentious series. Whether you like this rather extreme departure is, I suppose, a matter of taste. But if my own recollection serves, this was one of the more talked-about episodes of the time. So I guess someone figured right, at least in terms of ratings.

The case itself concerns selling pornography to high-schoolers, including the clearly over-aged Carolyn Jones and Martin Milner. The project, of course, is master-minded by the old movie-maker (Ralph Moody) now down on his luck. Frankly, my viewing was hampered by Moody's paste-on mustache that appears ready to fall off at any moment.

The set of an old abandoned silent movie studio, a washed up producer of silent movies, his washed up cameraman, and the enlisting of teens to sell and distribute porn for money are all wrapped neatly into this package. When Friday first finds young Marty Milner here, the kid seems to know nothing. Then with a lot of prodding more and more information pumps out of him. Eventually his character leads Friday to a young 17 year old girl who by the account got drunk at the smut producers party and maybe more.

The girl- is blonde here, but later would become the beautiful brunette Morticia Addams of the 60's series. Just like Marty would become a cop on Adam-12, the 2 young actors are growing their resume here working in Webbs production company. The old producer they finally find has a phoney mustache but very real memories of the past and eventually admits distributing the porn because a man needs money to live.

This is one of the rare shows where Friday becomes secondary as the old producer fades back into the past for about 10 minutes of this episode. Friday and Smith make the collars but in the process get shelved for a view of another era of Hollywood. Must see this episode to appreciate the bygone era it represents, more sneitmental than Abbott & Costello Meets The Keystone Kops though the same sentiment is used in that movie lighter, without the tears.