User Reviews

DRAGNET – 'The Big Hit - Run Killer" – 1954 There has been a late night hit and run accident. An elderly woman is killed, and her 10 year-old grand son is badly hurt. Detectives Jack Webb and Ben Alexander draw the case.

They hit the downtown street where the incident happened. They grill various witnesses on if they saw anything. They catch a break when the teller, Mary Shipp, at an all night movie theater gives them a lead. "It was a Ford panel van with some sort of bakery sign on the side in black letters." The boys thank Shipp and return to the office.

They go through the files and narrow the possible trucks down to 156. They belong to the same fleet of trucks used by a bakery for day-time deliveries. They also find out that the drivers all take the trucks home with them in the evening. That means 156 visits. Oh well, it is the job.

Webb and Alexander though, catch another break when a damaged delivery van is found parked on a street. The van number is called into the bakery, and the driver is soon identified. A quick visit is paid to the man's home. There, they find that the man, James Anderson, works a second job at a small diner as a counter man.

Webb and Alexander question Anderson on his whereabouts at the time of the hit and run. Anderson tells them he was at the diner from 7 till 12 that night. Just then, a regular customer comes in and asks Anderson where he had been last night when he came in for a coffee. Webb and Alexander look at each other, then at Anderson. All three pile in a car for the trip to the station.

Webb gives Anderson a good bout of 3rd degree on what really happened. The more he talks, the more his story changes. A call now comes in telling the Detectives that the young boy has died. Anderson now agrees to tell the Detectives the truth. He had slipped out for bit to say good-bye to a friend who was leaving town for the east. "I was only gone for 15 minutes." As for the van, he had lent the delivery van to a regular customer earlier in the night. The fellow, Walter Reed, needed a vehicle for an hour and Anderson had given him the keys. "I have not seen him or the van since!" My boss will fire me." Webb and Alexander are not sure if they believe Anderson or not. Anderson has no address or phone number for this Reed fellow.

They arrest Anderson and lock him up on vehicular homicide charges. The next day, a lawyer gets Anderson out on a five day writ. Anderson pays Webb and company a visit. He offers to help find this Reed and clear his name. While still not sure if Anderson is on the level. Webb and Alexander spend the next 4 days looking for this Reed.

On the fifth day, they find there is indeed a Reed. They run him to ground at a fleabag hotel and grab him up.

Reed denies anything to do with the hit and run. I was out of town is his story. Webb brings Anderson into the room to identify Reed. Reed now caves and admits it was he who was driving the van. He had been drinking and was afraid to go to the Police. Anderson's charges are dropped while Reed ends up getting one to five in San Quentin.

The more of these early episodes I see, the more I like them, rapid-fire dialogue and to the point stories. This one was directed by Jack Webb and is a TV version of a story used on the DRAGNET radio series. (b/w)

Review - The Big Hit-Run Killer Aired 3-18-54 Boring tale of a serious nature, made more pathetic when justice is sentencing someone longer for shoplifting than for killing two innocent pedestrians. Driver did not see the victims because he had been drinking. The shoplifter had a history of kleptomania, stealing the mink stole made it a felony.

It takes a lot of police work to track down the guilty hit-and-run driver when the original driver of the company fleet vehicle is so careless giving the keys to a stranger. The truck belonged to the company, a bakery, therefore was not the property of the bakery's driver who moonlights in a diner lending the truck to some guy he only knows by his first name and sees randomly at the diner. Really? The bakery employee is not too responsible, nor bright, for giving away keys of a vehicle he does not own, and to a man he waits on a diner. Something wrong here, you can see Friday rolling his eyes.

What is missing in the story is the bakery employee not taking the fatal accident seriously. The actual driver, the guilty party could not believe the results selfishly, too. Nice couple of citizens represented here. The bakery employee was released on bail fortunately providing information to the police to nail the guilty man. He killed two people and still got presumably less a sentence than the lady stealing the mink and other items. She deserved her sentence, but the system should have punished the drunk as much if not more. He killed two people.

Friday, Smith act out their parts acceptably finally finding the killer, but the person responsible for the truck in the first place would have saved two lives being more responsible.

"The Big Hit-Run Killer" is an episode of "Dragnet" that it like another episode in the series, "The Big Casing". This is because in both it seems very certain that the cops have caught the guilty party and any sane person would think they were guilty--but they weren't.

The episode begins with the report of a hit and run. A grandmother and her grandson were run over and the driver didn't slow down at all. Unfortunately, the witnesses aren't able to give a lot of clues as to the guilty party and with scant evidence, Sergeant Friday and Officer Smith do a lot of legwork looking for answers. Eventually, they find a guy who sure looks guilty AND whose alibis keep changing. Plus, every person he gives as a witness says they did not see him the night of the crime! The guy sure looks screwed! Overall, this is a good episode of "Dragnet"--about average, but with such a good show, average is awfully good. The only negative is one the show couldn't help since these were based on real cases, but the sentence for the killer was amazingly lenient. So much for the tough old days.