Dragnet (1987 film)

Dragnet is a 1987 film starring Dan Aykroyd, Tom Hanks, Christopher Plummer, Dabney Coleman, Harry Morgan, and Alexandra Paul, directed by Tom Mankiewicz. The screenplay is written by Dan Aykroyd, Alan Zweibel, and Tom Mankiewicz. The original music score was composed by Ira Newborn. The film was marketed with the tagline "'Just the Facts.'"

Overview

Acting as both a parody and homage to the long-running Dragnet television series, Aykroyd plays a very accurate Joe Friday (nephew of the late Joe Friday from the series) while Hanks plays Pep Streebeck, his brand-new and very unconventional partner. Harry Morgan reprises his role of Bill Gannon (partner of Joe's late uncle), now their captain. Alexandra Paul plays "the Virgin Connie Swail" while Plummer plays the villain, a soft-spoken televangelist who manages to get under nephew Friday's skin. Coleman plays the publisher of a skin magazine called Bait; his character is a direct parody of Larry Flynt.

As did the original TV series, the movie begins with Sergeant Friday's voice-over narration about Los Angeles and (nearly) ends with a mug shot of the villain and a stern voice-over describing the sentencing.

The title credits featured an update to the series original theme by the British group Art of Noise. They set the Dragnet theme against a hip-hop style breakbeat with soundbites such as Friday's "Just the facts, ma'am" timed to the music.

The soundtrack is also notable for one of its original songs, "City of Crime." The track features a hip-hop style collaboration between Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks and is performed with bassist/ vocalist Glenn Hughes and guitarist Pat Thrall. The track is played over the film's closing credits. The best selling single, also had a music video shot for the track, which was played in heavy rotation on MTV in the summer of 1987.

Plot summary

Sgt. Joe Friday's nephew is involuntarily assigned to a smart-alecky, street-wise partner, Pep Streebeck, and they are charged to investigate a series of religious cult crimes in Los Angeles. The two cops follow the trail to a phony televangelist, the Reverend Jonathan Whirley. From there, they are only a step away from uncovering an Orange County-based religious cult calling itself P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness And Normalcy). After sneaking into a secret ceremony, Friday falls in love with the sacrificial virgin Connie Swail. So much so that even his superior Captain Bill Gannon orders him off the case, but Friday continues on.

Main cast

Box Office

• The film was a moderate success earning 57,387,000 dollars at the box office.

Trivia

• Granny Mundy's house is the house that was used most famously for The Munsters.
• Dragnet represents the most recent time (as of 2007) that Tom Hanks appeared in a leading role in a movie and did not receive top billing.

Memorable Quotes

• Whirley (during pagan ritual): "A virgin! Pure and clean and white as snow! From Orange County, here we go!"
• Joe Friday (narrating): "After losing the two previous vehicles we had been issued, the only car the department was willing to release to us at this point was an unmarked 1987 Yugo, a Yugoslavian import donated to the department as a test vehicle by the government of that country and reflecting the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology."
• Pep Streebeck (interrogating Emil Muzz) "Now it's just you...and me...and your balls...in this drawer." (slams shut the desk drawer.)

External links

• Video of the Art of Noise performing Dragnet
• Analysis of the City of Crime Music Video