Dragnet

Melodrama

Characters: 5 male, 5 female

Unit set

Based on the famous NBC Radio-Television series. This adaptation of one of the most famous radio and television programs reproduces the authenticity, the terseness, the real-life characters, and the gripping, suspenseful and highly topical incidents for which the original is noted. Taken from the files of the Los Angeles Police Department, the case treated in the play is that of a supposed suicide, Karl Hamlin. Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner, Officer Frank Smith, working out of Homocide, are called to the home of Karl Hamlin's estranged wife, Nora. There they are informed that Hamlin has locked himself in the study and shot himself. The detectives are forced to smash a window to gain entrance to the study, where they find Hamlin dead and, clutched in his hand, a revolver from which one shot has recently been fired. On the surface, it looks like a routine case, with all the indications confirming the suicide theory. But - a laboratory check proves conclusively that the fatal bullet could not have been fired from the revolver, and Friday and Smith are confronted with a seemingly insoluable problem. Through a brilliant feat of detection, Friday is able to unmask the killer in a stunning and totally unexpected climax, and justice is belatedly served.