Season Two of the original TV version of Dragnet begins with an episode adapted from a Dragnet radio program first heard on January 11, 1951. Sgt. Joe Friday (Jack Webb) is dispatched to a high-rise LA office building, where psychiatric patient Walter Harrison (Paul Richards) is threatening to jump off a ledge. All efforts to coax Harrison back into the building have failed--indeed, it appears as though the man is willing to kill anyone who tries to stop him. Can Friday defuse the situation with some improvised "reverse psychology." Herb Ellis appears as Sgt. Eugene J. Bechtel, the actual name of a detective who worked on the case which inspired this episode. Also appearing is Milburn Stone, Gunsmoke's future "Doc", as Captain Lohrman (a role ironically played by Stone's future Gunsmoke costar Dennis Weaver in the 1954 theatrical-movie version of Dragnet).
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
