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*Front Page Detective*
Front Page Detective
Genre	Crime drama
Directed by	Arnold Wester
Starring	Edmund Lowe; Paula Drew; Frank Jenks
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	46
Production
Executive producers	Jerry Fairbanks; Riley Jackson
Cinematography	Lester Shore
Running time	30 minutes
Production company	Jerry Fairbanks Productions
Original release
Network	DuMont
Release	July 6, 1951 –; November 13, 1953

Front Page Detective is an American crime drama series which aired on the DuMont Television Network on Fridays at 9:30 p.m. ET from July 6, 1951, to September 19, 1952, and in October and November 1953. The program was then in broadcast syndication for several years thereafter.^[1]

Synopsis

Front Page Detective stars Edmund Lowe as David Chase, a newspaper columnist who helps police solve especially difficult mysteries. The title derived from a popular true-crime magazine of the same name, and stories were based on material from the magazine.^[2]

Other cast members were Frank Jenks as Lieutenant Rodney, Paula Drew as Sharon Richards, and George Pembroke as Lieutenant Andrews.^[2]

Production

Jerry Fairbanks was the producer and distributor, and Arnold Wester was the director. Gene Levitt and Robert Mitcher were the writers.^[3] Episodes were filmed in Los Angeles^[4] on sound stages, with stock film used for exterior shots.^[5]

Episode status

UCLA Film and Television Archive has 17 episodes of this series.^[6] Internet Archive and TV4U also have one episode each.

Unlike many other programs which aired on DuMont, the series was produced on film by an outside production company.^{[citation needed]} A few episodes are available on DVD and online, usually as part of early TV compilations.

Critical response

The trade publication Variety described one episode of Front Page Detective as "a dull affair, which the actors seemed to realize and refuse to help."^[3] The review called the actors' performances "unimaginative" and said that work behind the cameras "was slipshod and oftentimes embarrassing."^[3]

A review in The New York Times of the series's initial episode found that its drama paled in comparison to that of the Kefauver Commission hearings that were then being televised. The reviewer suggested that the killer was fairly obvious and described the episode as "too cut and dried".^[7] A review in the trade publication Variety panned the June 27, 1952, episode, describing it as "a dull affair which the actors seemed to realize and refuse to help".^[3] The review also noted "slipshod and oftimes embarrassing" off-camera operations.^[3]

Bibliography

David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1

References

^ Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earle (1979). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows: 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-25525-9. P. 213.
^ ^a ^b Terrace, Vincent (2014). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010, 2d ed. McFarland. pp. 369–370. ISBN 978-0-7864-8641-0. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Front Page Detective". Variety. July 2, 1952. p. 24. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
^ McNeil, Alex (1996). Total Television: the Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (4th ed.). New York, New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc. p. 307. ISBN 0-14-02-4916-8.
^ Irvin, Richard (2 November 2022). Pioneers of "B" Television: Independent Producers, Series and Pilots of the 1950s. McFarland. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-4766-4770-8. Retrieved July 26, 2024.
^ "UCLA Film and Television Archive entry". Archived from the original on 2013-01-06. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
^ "Television in Review: 'Front Page Detective,' a New Channel 5 Serial With Edmund Low, Takes Back Seat to Kefauver". The New York Times. March 17, 1951. p. 27. Retrieved December 18, 2021.