Joe and Bill are assigned a task to find a purse snatcher. They are surprised to learn it is a dog snatching the purses.Joe and Bill are assigned a task to find a purse snatcher. They are surprised to learn it is a dog snatching the purses.Joe and Bill are assigned a task to find a purse snatcher. They are surprised to learn it is a dog snatching the purses.
- Main Title Announcer
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
- Mrs. Emery Downey
- (uncredited)
- Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Henry Irving
- Jack Webb(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDragnet has often used the same actors for different roles, whether cops, suspects, or supporting characters. Sometimes the actor plays the same cop in several episodes. In this episode, Art Gilmore plays Captain Howe, as he did in 4 other episodes. In the very next episode in the series, Gilmore plays Captain Lambert, as he did in one other episode. He has also been Captain Green, Captain Brown, Captain Walton, Captain Milemore, Captain Colwell, and Captain Nelson, as well as Lieutenant Moore. All tolled, he appeared in 14 episodes, playing 9 characters.
- GoofsIn The Bank Examiner Swindle (1967), Bill says he raised homing pigeons. Here, he says he's allergic to feathers and hadn't started taking allergy pills until now.
- Quotes
Sergeant Joe Friday: [Aerial footage of LA plays as Friday begins Opening Narration] This is the city, Los Angeles, California. It's made up of industry, education, commerce, agriculture, research and recreation. And, it's a living testimonial to the imagination of 20th century man.
[Camera zooms in on a group of protestors, one holding a sign saying, "Because of a few must all suffer"]
Sergeant Joe Friday: Imagination also turns solid citizens into strange characters. It's been said that Los Angeles is the 'strange character capitol' of the country.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Dragnet 1967: Auto Theft: Dog-Nappers (1970)
So goes the (ahem) waggish script by Henry Irving, which, to build the suspense in what turns out to be an unusual but low-key caper, decides to have a little fun with the investigation pursued, er, doggedly by the detectives.
Wanda Kravitz (Jean Inness), an elderly welfare recipient whose social worker thinks she's a boozer, believes that a "wolf" stole her purse. Married couple Lars (Doodles Weaver) and Cynthia Lowell (Monty Margetts) begin to bicker almost immediately as they deliver conflicting descriptions of the four-legged footpad while Lyn Murray's incidental music sounds a screwy electronic arpeggio. Dee Staley (Bonnie Hughes) has a sober but potentially embarrassing account: Robbed after she had come out of a camera shop, she managed to snap a photo of the perp--it was a police dog (a German shepherd) with her purse in mouth.
Animal-act agent Bert Silver (Phil Arnold) confirms that dogs can be easily trained to do purse-snatching, but then notes that dog trainers who can do that can also easily make good money working in show business, so why bother stealing?
Finally, the detectives lead a detail of policewomen, including Dorothy Miller (Merry Anders), acting as decoys to attract the assailant, but as the days wear on and Captain Merton Howe (Art Gilmore) prepares to pull the plug, it seems as if the pup-etrator might actually get away with it.
Well, this being "Dragnet," it's hardly likely that crime will pay, right? Moreover, it would be a crime not to mention the unabashed highlight of this amusing but slight tale.
Playing the owner of the Cry of Sweet Pleasures and the Stems of Dear Love flower shop who, only an hour before Friday and Gannon arrive to take her statement, changed her "contrived" name of Noradelle de Leone to Agnes Hickey, Luana Anders owns "The Big Dog" outright as she completely owns Irving's contrived dialog and Webb's presumed direction to subvert the hippie caricature she's been handed by meshing with the straitlaced squares in her own flowery fashion as she describes the details of her purse being snatched by the "misguided dog." Anders is absolutely hilarious as she's the one keeping the straight face while wryly burbling her over-the-top lines, dancing effortlessly around Morgan and Webb until it's impossible to tell whether the latter's exasperation is acting or actual. "Rrrrrowfff!"
It's a shame that Anders's glorious turn occurs so early in "The Big Dog" because everything that follows is anti-climax. Ah, but blooming flowers fade too quickly, don't they, love?
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- darryl-tahirali
- Apr 27, 2023
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Filming locations
- Studio Motor Inn, 4055 Lankershim Blvd., Los Angeles, California, USA(dog snatches purse in front of this location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime30 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1