Stabilising Detection: Protecting and Serving the Status Quo 1950–68

Abstract

Serialised detective narratives had been popular on radio long before original drama was produced for television. Popular examples are the radio series Dragnet (NBC, 1949–57) and The Fat Man (ABC, 1946–51). In cinema, the film series Dick Tracy (dir. James and Taylor 1937) is particularly well-remembered. The film series was an adaptation of a comic strip about a so-called G-Man (short for ‘Government Man’, a colloquial term for FBI agents), which was later also adapted as a TV series, likewise called Dick Tracy (ABC, 1950–2).¹ The series, aimed at children, was popular, but was cancelled due to the sudden death of its star, Ralph Byrd. The series employs rational-scientific methods of detection and, in its gesturing towards science, seems to draw on the Sherlock Holmes stories and its many adaptations. Tracy and his ‘secretary and lab assistant’ Gwen Andrews (Kay Hughes) investigate crime scenes with tools like torches and a magnifying glass. And though Dick Tracy encounters many action-packed and life-threatening situations during his investigations and the stories are somewhat preposterous, the analysis of clues through science is always emphasised. The series often focusses on technology to analyse clues. Regularly, scenes take place in a lab space filled with technology to decode clues, though sometimes all that is needed is a lighter to make invisible ink visible. The technology in the lab seems like gadgetry — especially as some equipment does not exist in reality or is never used — but it also pre-empts the later CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’s use of technology as spectacle.