Saturday, September 21, 2013

"The Suicide Attempt" or "L'architecte Suicidal"


In this episode, the film stock kinda goes to hell. It's a neat episode, though!


Just look at these new establishing shots of Los Angeles!


This episode also features the most Hollywood and Vine establishing footage:





A fresher establisher of Parker Center:




Art Balinger is the boss this week.


We spend very little time on the Parker Center soundstage this week.


Here is some familiar footage of exiting the police administration building.



Some equally familiar footage of driving the 1966 Ford Fairlane out.





Luana Anders is back, but she's not running a flower shop now… She's running her husband out of their apartment!


I HOPE THAT PLANT BEHIND YOU ISN'T HUNGRY


OH NO A PLANT IS GOING TO EAT ME ALL UP


Gannon: Would you two stop clowning? I'm only going to say this once;


"HOLD THE PHONE."

Thanks, Bill. We'll be on our way.


To some other apartment lobby


on some other sound stage


where at last we meet


Jill Donohue.




We're just a short fake elevator ride to another corridor.


IT'S JUST ONE OF VERY VERY MANY IN THIS EPISODE.


THANKS, JILL. SAY, THEY MADE YOUR PLACE RATHER LIKE A CORRIDOR, AS WELL.


Keep an eye on the far bottom of the farm for her *amazing* flokati rug!



WHAT IS ALL THIS TALK ABOUT FLOOR COVERINGS AND - AND CORRIDORS?!



"I can't honestly tell you, but I do sort-of wish that interrobang had become a real typewriter key."


YOU TELL 'EM, JILL.



"Hey, there's a phone over here; do you think we should hold it?"


"Never mind. I got this."


HOLD THE PHONE


A lot of swing gang and set decor love went into the Nina Draper apartment:


Another beloved night driver:




Back to the Hotel Elsinore, same location as when we busted the scam artists.



The lobby has changed in some ways. Maybe it really is a soundstage.



They retooled the Elsinore since we were last here.




Barkeeps in red jackets - a Dragnet staple.



Welcome back, Herb Vigran. Well, kind of an orangey-red. I'll give it a pass.


YEAH GO EASY ON HIM, SUZY - HE WAS ON THE SHOW IN THE FIFTIES


Some neat costuming on the Oryx Go-Go extras:


Welcome to Dragnet, Quinn O'Hara:




Back to the Elsinore to try and find the suicidal architectural artist.

There are 1209 rooms - he could be in any one! So tense! 


The remainder of the photos are a bit of a blur - we run all over the set in a blur, but the details are there, if blurry:



Blue and gold; a seasonal color-arc.



Don Ross is usually in latent prints, but he's managing the Elsinore here:







Yep, there he is. Zonked out on reds.



Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 - National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; by all means, hold the phone.



Ralph Harmon was taken to County General Hospital for emergency treatment.



Ralph Harmon

Now released.


Yes, we are short on puns and jokes this week.
That's because suicide isn't funny.

S2e24 (aired out of order)

Starred
Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday
Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon
Jill Donohue as Nina Draper
Luana Anders as Anna Marie Harmon
Don Ross as Eugene Dickson
Art Balinger as Captain Brown
Quinn O'Hara as Tami Avalon
Herb Vigran as John Hagen
Dee Carroll as Jean Wagnall
______ as Ralph Harmon

Art Direction - Russell Kimball
Set Decor - John McCarthy & John Sturtevant
Costumes - Vincent Dee

Aired 29 January 1968

Written by Robert C. Dennis

Keep yourself alive,
Suzy Dragnet

P.S. This episode goes out to you, Cookies. Namaste.

9 comments:

  1. The City National Bank is still at the site in 2013, on Sunset Boulevard and Dohney Road in West Hollywood. I believe Jack Webb lived near there at the end of his life.

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    Replies
    1. Oh! Good eye. Thank you. :)

      I haven't read any biographies of Jack Webb. I think I'll wait until after I do all of the episodic observations/photo novels.

      See you soon.
      Suzy

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  2. I wonder how many people this gave the idea to of committing suicide by pentobarbital -- supposedly one of the most reliable methods out there. It's not so common nowadays, since modern sleeping pills don't contain barbiturates.

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    Replies
    1. I think that there were too many accidental overdoses as time went on and better (I guess?) products came out. I think that they are mostly illegal, right?

      Suzy Dragnet

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    2. Yeah, either accidental overdoses or overdoses that people could plausibly make to look like accidents. It's a lot to harder to make it look like you accidentally got your toe caught in the trigger guard of a shotgun and shot yourself in the mouth. Modern sleeping pills generally won't kill you, no matter how many you take, as a lot of people have found out the hard way.

      Veterinarians and the euthanasia community still consider pentobarbital and secobarbital the most humane ways to put down the terminally ill. There's even a highly concentrated pentobarbital solution called "Lethobarb" used for putting animals to sleep. Barbiturates are illegal to possess or distribute without a prescription, since they're also a dangerous and addictive way of getting high, but lately the government has been more concerned about drugs like meth, crack, etc.

      Hardly any barbiturates are prescribed for humans to use these days, so there's not much opportunity for it to be diverted in the same way that widely-prescribed drugs like oxycontin or cannabis could be. Rumors of pentobarbital's being totally impossible to acquire have been exaggerated, though, since the controls on pharmaceutical-purity pentobarbital are sometimes looser overseas.

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  3. When Friday and Gannon met the go go dancer at the club, they were playing the same jazzy music that was playing at the house party in "The Grenade" episode...why waste a good tune!

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  4. I was wondering how that go-go dancer's dress gets laundered or dry cleaned. With Formula 409 or Armor All?

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  5. You can tell Art Ballinger is the boss. He has buttons on his phone.

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  6. Can’t believe nobody said anything about the red headed bellhop. Apparently there was a breakdown in communication between casting & wardrobe. Yikes!

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