Dragnet The Big Trunk (1951–1959) watch online HD

"The Big Trunk" is an oddity. While this old public domain show is posted for download at archive.org, the mp4 is of a different episode ("The Big Bird"). If you want to watch what REALLY is "The Big Trunk", try watching the show directly on archive.org--and don't download the file.

In a rooming house mostly consisting of wannabe show people, a young woman is found bound and beaten to death with a pipe. There are no suspects but the place has been ransacked. It also appears as if the murder (or murderers) was looking for something in the dead woman's steamer trunk. But what? And, is it really enough to kill the woman?! Hardly.

Soon the detectives get a lead---three transients were talking recently about the lady and her trunk. But when they bring them in for questioning, they learn nothing. So, on a lark, they decide to bug one of the rooms and let the suspects sit there and stew and, hopefully, talk among themselves. What's next? See this very good episode and find out for yourself.

Usual great camera work helps keep viewers involved through lengthy talk sessions. Notice the many revealing close-ups. That way, personality shares spotlight with the talk. Also, the setup in the murdered woman's fleabag room is especially eye-catching with her bound corpse in the foreground and the cops in the back. Plot-wise, an ex-vaudevillian is found murdered, the contents of an old trunk scattered about and no suspects. Friday and Smith are assigned to find the culprit and maybe unravel the trunk mystery.

I may be wrong, but seems the script flirts with whether the victim's just a skid-row denizen or maybe a hooker murdered by a John. Of course, hookers couldn't be so portrayed in those days, so writers had to skirt the edges, so to speak. Among an accomplished cast, look for period toughie James Anderson as one of the suspects, along with Attack of the Crab Monsters' Richard Garland. Anyway, it's the usual strong human interest from Webb and Co. that really is kind of sad as reviewer Hafer points out.

Review - The Big Trunk Season 3 Episode 19 Aired 1-7-54 There was an episode similar to this where the victim was a man, murdered for no reason, nothing in a trunk but memories from a long-gone era. The victim in this episode is a woman, a widow, part of a former vaudeville act as the memorabilia pinned around her hotel room indicated. She talked about the days when her husband and her performed. She talked too much in front of the wrong kind, the kind of scum that would kill for no gain, but curiosity. So sad is the story as it unfolds through a process of investigations, leads, tips and finally some men talking in a bar about what the victim could have stashed in her steamer trunk full of memories.

Police work gets familiar with the use of audio surveillance at HQ with the suspects sitting around until someone blabs. The episode has a common theme throughout with suspects talking amongst themselves, really between two of them, until one spills the hard facts while the police are eavesdropping. Worth a watch to see the bad guy got what he deserved for killing an innocent woman; execution at San Quentin.

Just noting the actress portraying Babs Sheldon has a strong resemblance to a man as she is seen putting on make-up while talking to the police.

A burglar has been hitting new homes in the valley. In addition to taking valuables he kills all birds in the houses. The press refers to him and the "Bird Man." The case is getting so much publicity that the LAPD is being bombarded by demands from animal lovers that they catch the perp. To catch him, the LAPD sets up a sting operation. Sargeants Friday and Smith pretend they have just purchased a house in the valley. With furniture supplied by a local department store they wait and wait and wait.

Various merchants come to the door and offer to sell them goods. They get offers for newspaper subscripts and the like. One young man comes to the door and offers to mow and water the lawn.

One of these visitors in the Bird Man himself. Through a good interrogation the criminal is revealed and arrested. Another crime solved by the LAPD.