Dead on Arrival

The toll mounted last week. One man was brained with a monkey wrench as he lay sleeping. A woman, tied to a chair, was tortured with a carving knife until she died; two stripteasers were sliced to death with razors; four gangsters were shot down in a columnist's living room; a bartender was murdered in his own saloon, and a small boy was killed by a drunken hit & run driver. A few victims survived, including the two teen-agers who were only beaten to a pulp, and the woman in the flimsy nightgown who was mauled by masked intruders in her bedroom, and the engraver who was shot through his working hand.

All this slaughter and assault took place, respectively, on TV's Rocky King, Dragnet, The Mask, Front Page Detective, Martin Kane, The Big Story, Big Town, The Man Behind the Badge, and Foreign Intrigue. More people are killed each year on TV's crime shows than die annually by murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the six largest cities of the U.S. But, in one respect, television has a better record than the nation's police: every TV lawbreaker pays the penalty for his crime.

Out on a Case. The best of the crime shows, NBC's Dragnet, is good enough to challenge I Love Lucy as the nation's favorite show. Many of its phrases ("We just want the facts, ma'am") and its bashful but brave hero, Sergeant Joe Friday (played by Jack Webb), have passed into U.S. folklore. Across the country, children shout: "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday!" When asked what happened to Friday, they scream: "He's out on a case!" An orchestration of Dragnet's ponderous musical theme (DUM-da-da-DUM) became No. 7 on the Hit Parade, and the show's deadpan characters have been parodied on such bestselling records as St. George and the Dragonet and Little Blue Riding Hood.

Between Dragnet and the pack is a qualitative difference. CBS's new The Man Behind the Badge, which borrows techniques both from Dragnet and The Big Story, may develop into a close rival. Badge skillfully adds a dash of sex to its sadism, and makes the dose palatable to the squeamish with a high-sounding dedication to such unsung public servants as probation officers, women wardens, youth counselors and tracers of missing persons.

The oldest TV sleuths are Ken Lynch of The Plainclothesman and Ralph Bellamy of Man Against Crime, who have spent the last five years laboriously tracking down evildoers. Most TV cops and private eyes have a tendency to lose their revolvers at crucial points in the narrative. This mishap insures a bang-up last-minute fist fight to get the gun back and has the added attraction, of taking the viewers' minds off the idiocy of the plot.

Punch & Judy. Despite the emphasis on violence, few crime shows are very frightening. The general ineptitude of the writing, acting and direction in such programs as Rocky King, Mark Saber, Big Town, Boston Blackie and Front Page Detective makes it impossible to take them with any more seriousness than so many Punch & Judy shows. Even those done on a slightly higher level of technical competence have peculiar quirks of their own: Treasury Men in Action suffers from a tendency to explain everything twice; Racket Squad aims at exposing the tricks of confidence men but has a hard time working up sympathy for its victims, since they are just as larcenous at heart as the swindlers who fleece them. Martin Kane has changed its leading man four times (William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Tracy, Mark Stevens)--oftener than it has changed its plot. Two crime shows, China Smith and Du Mont's Colonel Humphrey Flack are played for laughs, while two others, Foreign Intrigue and Orient Express, gain some freshness of face and background by being filmed and largely cast in Europe.

TV crime seems to have reached a saturation point of about 20 network shows a week. Most abide by an unwritten rule not to go on the air before 9 in the evening, when impressionable moppets are supposedly in bed. But ABC's hour-long The Mask has broken the taboo by starting at 8 p.m. on Sunday nights. Only two future network shows are scheduled (a revival of Mr. & Mrs. North; and 21st Precinct, starring Paul Kelly) but they will probably do no more than replace other crime shows due to expire because of sponsor failure.

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