gordonl56 I managed to dig up a few of these great oldies. Here is a review of one of them.Warner Anderson and Tom Tully play a pair of San Francisco Police detectives in this 50's standard. The two are assigned to find who is behind a string of armed robberies. The bandits simply walk in, calmly stick a gun in the clerks face and ask for the cash. The victims are so frightened that not one of them can give the police an accurate description. The police catch a break though when a witness catches the plate number off the get-away car. They trace the car to a rental outfit. They then follow the leads to a less than sober woman who tells the detectives her new boyfriend had borrowed the car. This info leads them to a seedy rundown hotel. A talk with the desk clerk gets them a room number. A quick boot to the door and the detectives catch a man laying out the doings for a drug fix. As they are slapping the cuffs on the first suspect, the second shows up with the heroin. A gun is stuck in his face for a change as he is relieved of the drugs and his pistol. The two are drug addicts and the string of hold-ups were to feed the habit. This episode was directed by Felix Feist who did the noirs DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE, THE THREAT, TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY and THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS. A DRAGNET style police procedural with the added bonus of great location shooting.

jglapin I was raised in SF during the years of this TV series. The outdoor scenes of the old city before the high rise buildings, the 1950 Ford sedan the two detectives drove, the old SFPD telephone call boxes (two way radios in police cars were just coming in. Police cars had radio receivers but not a transmitter. They would receive a message over the radio and then hunt down a blue painted police telephone call box to reach HQs), the overcoats and hats, the old Hall of Justice building, the dignified and grave manner of Inspector Grebb and Lt. Guthrie, all of this is long gone and very nostalgic. The SFPD of Chiefs Ahern and Cahill is a long way from the multi-ethnic, multi-gendered SFPD pf today. When this TV series was filmed the SFPD was largely a club of Irish American gentlemen. And it was a good thing, too, to be sure! I am afraid the video masters of this show have long since decayed along with "Highway Patrol".

legaleagle968 Growing up in the SF Bay area as a kid in the 50's I always looked forward to San Francisco Beat coming on the tube every Saturday night. All the SF locales such as the Japanese Tea Garden,the old Hall of Justice on Kearny Street, Playland at the Sea. Filmed before the "Manhatanization" of downtown SF when the highest point in the city was Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. I can't remember any details of the episodes but clearly recall the "feel" of the show which encapsulate everything that was San Francisco just after WWII. Fog horns, sea gulls, the wharf, this show had it all with a real film noir feel. The two detectives would stop at the police call boxes to talk to headquarters.

JRabbit This series is a nostalgic monument to Old San Francisco;i.e., before the development of high rise buildings. One can hear the old fog horns and feel the dampness as Inspector Grebb and the Lt. walk about in Top Coats and Fedoras. They also frequently use the old Police Call Boxes(dedicated phone lines on the street), painted blue of course. After all, portable two-way radios were still less than reliable. The series also makes use of the old Hall of Justice building on Kearney Street. This elaborate old building was torn down to make way for a new hotel. It is a very different city depicted in this series than was shown in "The Streets of San Francisco" or the Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood movies.