There were so many great Christmas season stories on radio in the golden days. It points up so dramatically how far we have descended from the Christian nation we once were. A price will be paid.
Apologies for the truncated “Jesus” in my introductiin comment.
Memories bump
Thank you for posting the link to this old Dragnet Christass story.
Amazing how much our culture has changes in 61 years!
This is what “normal” used to be.
bump for later
If The Big .22 Rifle for Christmas proves Dragnet wholly (and perhaps uncharacteristically) capable of a tragic tear-jerker, then tonight's episode—aired a year later—proves the customarily no-nonsense crime drama could deliver a tear-jerker that may well leave you with gentle admiration for a holiday thief.This, too, would be taken to the show's original television version and to its mid-to-late 1960s television remake. And, neither will feel quite as embracing as the radio original that lets your mind's and your heart's eyes operate.
TUNE IN TONIGHT:
Dragnet: The Big Little Jesus (NBC, 1953)Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) are rather baffled on Christmas Eve day when the oldest church in Los Angeles reports a theft—an old, slightly battered, but still valuable statue of the infant Jesus Christ from its equally old Christmas nativity scene.
They come to concentrate on an unlikely, down-and-out suspect (James Griffith), and to face their possible forced return to another investigation, before they can recover the missing statue in time for Christmas morning's first mass, when the statue returns to the church under a very surprising escort who tells an equally surprising—and touching—story of its disappearance.
If you can think of any other classic radio crime drama in which you stand an excellent chance of wanting to give the culprit a hug instead of the hoosegow, you're better than I am.
Father Rojas: Harry Bartell. Capt. Bernard: Walter Sande. Shopkeeper: Ralph Moody. Hotel clerk: Herbert Vigran. Paco: Joe Carioca, Jr. Announcers: George Fenneman, Hal Gibney. Music: Walter Schumann. Director: Jack Webb. Writer: Jim Moser.
(Fair disclosure: I have a collection of over 13,000 old-time radio shows, including every known surviving episode of Dragnet. My personal favourites among the old-time radio crime dramas are Broadway is My Beat and The Whistler, but Dragnet is one of the radio jewels, too.)