Racket Squad [TV Series] (1951)

Synopsis of Racket Squad [TV Series]

Racket Squad was among the more successful independently produced television crime series of the early-middle 1950s, and endured long past its first run -- indeed, most viewers born after 1946 who remember it recall the series from countless syndicated reruns that lasted well into the 1960s. But in its time, it was one of a relatively small group of dramatic series to make the leap from first-run syndication, which was how it started out, to one of the major networks. Like Jack Webb's Dragnet, Racket Squad sought the imprimatur of realism by announcing that its stories were taken from actual police cases. The series star was movie and radio veteran Reed Hadley, who portrayed Captain John Braddock, the head of a city police department's Racket Squad (more often referred to as the bunco or frauds squad). Each episode would begin dramatically enough, with a patrol car pulling up in tight close-up on the words "City Police" filling the screen to a dramatic three-note theme, before cutting to a police office at a board, announcing through a microphone, "Captain Braddock, Captain Braddock -- ready!" Then it was into Braddock's office where Hadley, in his rich baritone voice, would explain the truth behind the dramatization we were about to see. The tale would then be told using a varying company of actors, some of them -- such as James Gleason (in one of the more poignant portrayals) -- known from films, playing out stories of fraud and deception, involving crooked charities, phony inventions, land swindles, rigged gambling operations, and other scams. In the end, as with most American television series of the era aimed at a mass public, Braddock would swoop in near the end of the story, after an initial investigation, and make the arrest. This was sometimes laced with bittersweet consequences, however, as when a key sympathetic figure died, or when terrible cruelties were inflicted on innocents in the course of whatever scam was being perpetrated (this was especially true in an episode involving a fraudulent old-age home whose residents were being abused and neglected). Produced at Hal Roach Studios, Racket Squad initially went on the air as a first-run syndicated series, but was picked up by the CBS television network in 1951. The original episodes (total 98 shows) ran for a total of three seasons, after which the series enjoyed more than a decade of life in reruns on local stations across the United States. Although the opening credits featured only a few bars of dramatic music, the much more elaborate end-credits were set to a piece of music called "Parade of the Chessmen," composed by Joseph Mullendore, which received a full commercial recording and release on RCA Victor by Boddy Morrow. The series became so well-known, that there was even a Walter Lantz cartoon starring Woody Woodpecker that parodied Racket Squad. Braddock's speech at the beginning of the show became as familiar as anything on Dragnet, as was his usual sign-off: "I'm closing this case now - or rather, the courts will - but there'll be others, because that's the way the world is built. There are people who can slap you on the back with one hand and pick your pocket with the other. And it could happen to you." As with many other syndicated crime series of the 1950s, Racket Squad disappeared from television late in the 1960s, partly owing to over-exposure earlier in the decade and, more importantly, the switchover by local stations to color broadcasting, and the preference of advertisers for color shows. It has since turned up on DVD, mostly in the form of public domain episodes whose individual copyrights have lapsed. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Theatrical Feature Running Time:

105 mins

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