Dragnet 1967 (TV Series) The Missing Realtor (1967) User Reviews

This episode illustrates that Jack Webb was ahead of his time in one respect.

[bryce-40 · 8/10 · 30 July 2015]

This is a different kind of review (although this is one of the better Dragnet episodes). As noted in the trivia section of the IMDb page on this episode, this show featured black real estate professionals, which was rare for a late 60's show.

Jack Webb, who has the reputation for being starchy and conservative, was actually quite progressive for that time period. If you watch Dragnet regularly, you will see black real estate agents, judges, lawyers, doctors, and nurses. Black criminals are somewhat uncommon. In one episode, the Lieutenant giving directions to Sgt. Friday is black, and Sgt. Friday is clearly displaying respect.

Moreover, the black professionals portrayed in the show are not stereotyped. They are well dressed and clearly well educated.

Yes, at times Dragnet can be inadvertently campy (e.g. "Blue Boy"), but we should also note Webb's willingness to portray blacks in a positive manner (and to make them the victims of crime, rather than the criminals).

Pretty ordinary show, though it was unusual with its mostly Black supporting cast.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 18 November 2009]

Friday and Gannon respond to a call about a missing realtor. It seems that the woman has not been seen for days and she's missed a closing--and her coworkers assume something bad must have happened, as she'd never miss an appointment. The detectives retrace her footsteps until they ultimately find her corpse in one of the homes she is listing.

At first, it looks like the boyfriend might have done it. However, after he's cleared, the police are notified that credit card charges have occurred AFTER Miss Birnham's death. Now to find the people using the stolen cards--and they should have the murderers. Can they find them before another killing? This is a pretty routine episode, though unlike most shows, this one features mostly Black actors. Interestingly, this was never mentioned or alluded to at any time--they were just citizens like any other as far as the show was concerned. For the 1960s, featuring Blacks in such roles was a bit unusual and it's nice to see some inclusion.

Note that William Boyett (who was a regular as Sgt. MacDonald on "Adam-12") appears as Sgt. Williams. Jack Webb produced both shows and he often used and reused actors in various roles.

Wow. Look at that horrible toupee on Scatman Crothers' head! It looks like he's wearing a dead groundhog!

Dragnet 1968: The Missing Realtor

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 11 December 2011]

A missing real estate agent is the case for which Sgt Joe Friday and partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan) are working when they find her strangled corpse strewn out in the back bedroom of a house she was possibly showing to a killer the victim perhaps thought was a potential buyer. Friday and Gannon must find the killer who stole credit cards from her purse before he might seek out another victim not only to rob but maybe strangle. During the investigation, it is determined that the killer/thief has an accomplice posing as the victim (Ms. Esther Jenkins), so Friday and Gannon hope to set up the killer by getting to him before he is able to successfully pull off another "rob and run" or "rob, kill, and run". I have to admit that it was refreshing seeing the characters as African-American for a change because I was beginning to think, according to this show, that LA consisted of mostly white Caucasians! Cool seeing the always excitable and chatty (and just full of life), the great Scatman Crothers as a member of Jenkins' real estate company. Ena Hartman is Ida Walters, Jenkins' secretary, who liked her boss very much. Both Crothers and Hartman are questioned by the detectives as a means to determine her possible whereabouts. At first the detectives believe Jenkins' boyfriend, a bartender, was the possible suspect, but a lie detector test might just clear him of the crime. I think the episode's real novelty is the African-American cast because the case isn't really all that spectacular, although I always enjoy a homicide investigation when a case takes twists and turns from missing-persons case to murder case, with Friday and Gannon depending on developing leads, such as another robbery fitting the MO of their perp from the Robbery Division, in order to solve the crime. Friday and Gannon have to catch the criminal red-handed in possession of cards with the victim in the same vicinity if they really want to close the case satisfactorily.

Nice To See Scatman, But Kind Of Bland Episode

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 14 November 2010]

It appears there is foul play when a real estate agent is missing. The secretary at her place of work is really worried and the boss, although sounding detached, agrees the whole thing doesn't sound good. The agent, he says, wouldn't pull a no-show on a showing in which could make money.

Friday and Gannon have to figure out where the woman went and if she's alive or dead. They find out fairly soon, and then have to go track down the murderer. What's different in this case it that involves almost an all-black cast, probably something TV viewers didn't see that often, even in the "liberated" late '60s. One of them was one of my personal favorites: Scatman Crothers" of "The Shining" and "Bronco Billy" fame, among other films. In this episode, only his voice was recognizable as he had a sizable head of hair.

Overall, the story really wasn't all that much, kind of bland what the TV show usually offered in the way of kinky suspects. The key was to find the thief holding missing credit cards.

I don't think we get the whole story on this one

[cynic2all · 14 April 2011]

Of course, we don't get the WHOLE story on any Dragnet episode, I'm sure, as they had to take a case file and make a 25-minute drama out of it that viewers will want to come back to after a commercial break. It starts off believable enough, as the 2 officers, working Homicide Division, on a Monday are given a case where a person is missing and 'could' be in trouble or dead. They get the basics-- her business it was certain she wouldn't abandon, her car, her boyfriend-- and find she was apparently last seen by any acquaintance at her boyfriend's apartment the previous Thursday night. The boyfriend is suspected, but he has no record and has been calling her office, and he says he tried but could not reach her over the weekend. Her car is found in a parking lot, but the culprit was really ignorant to leave a fuel receipt, a near-full tank of gas, and her book of real estate listings right in the seat. They begin checking the houses listed and find her body in a vacant unit-- but Friday only becomes aware of it as he walks into that room, while we later learn that she has been dead for 3 days... I get the idea he wouldn't have had to see it to know it was there ["...it was warm in Los Angeles..."]. After determining that her death was caused by strangulation, and her beaded necklace is broken, and the same kind of beads are found in the boyfriend's apartment, obviously he has now become the prime suspect, and his guilt is further suspected when they know he lied about his birthday having been that previous Thursday and had withheld that they had a quarrel that night. But a polygraph indicates that he did not take her car, know where the car was abandoned, or know the location of the house where her body was found. They decide he must be released.

Then a credit card of hers has been used for a purchase the day after her time of death had been fixed. The officers send a report to other big city departments and a real estate trade journal, and learn of a bail-jumper from Phoenix who has used this same M.O., then a short time later he is identified by his alias as the thief of another agent's credit cards. Finally the call comes in from still another female agent who has an appointment to show a house to a man who fits the description of the suspect. He is apprehended with the woman's cards in his wallet, and we learn he is found guilty of the first woman's murder and is scheduled for execution. But Friday says a line here that I consider unwise, and possibly (though I don't know) against almost any P.D.'s policies-- he says, in front of the agent, "You killed a Realtor by the name of Lillie Burnam, just like you would have this woman is she'd found out you stole her credit cards." Would a cop say that?-- tell her that she was that close to being murdered? It makes me wonder just what the trade journal bulletin said about the man, as well as when she reported her appointment with him what the LAPD told her (just go on and enter the house alone with him??) And as to appointments, one scene ends with the offices gazing at a sign in the real estate office that says "Positively -- By appointment only" Why didn't they go by her list of appointments, which the secretary should have had? But, since it was her company, I suppose she could "make" an appointment on the spot and not call in to her secretary, unwise as that may be.

But then... how did she make the acquaintance of the man who killed her, who had used the credit-card-theft-from-a-female-Realtor's-purse scheme many times before, if he did not call (or go to) her office to make an appointment to see a house? (Or, if he did have an appointment, why did the secretary not know his name or what property?) Might her boyfriend have had something to do with it after all? He could> have known that man and set her up with his scheme, after having the quarrel with her, and the man said he was in a big hurry and wanted to see a house, so she, the boss, didn't bother calling her office to make known her whereabouts. So the boyfriend could have had a motive and been an accessory without knowing where she was killed or where her car had been left (thus, the polygraph affirming those things). I just don't think he should have been exonerated completely after the polygraph. And maybe he wasn't-- that's the part of the story that maybe they left out because of time and other constraints.

Realtor Abuse.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 28 June 2010]

The story itself is pretty routine for "Dragnet," meaning it has most of the satisfying elements that we've come to expect from the series. It differs from most in having a largely black cast that includes Scatman Crothers. Crothers has some difficulty hiding his endearing personality behind the conventional mask the script provides him with. He also has trouble with his toupee.

The murder itself isn't spectacular in any way. The dead woman's body lies fully clothed and decorous on the floor of an empty house. She's in pretty good shape considering she's been there for two days or so.

Although I guess the resolution of the mystery actually happened -- "the story you have just seen is true" -- it's hard to believe that a man would deliberately strangle a woman just because she discovered him stealing credit cards from her purse.