"My Name's Friday. I'm a cop."
(5 of 8)
After two years in radio he was a man with a reputation. With Pat Novak in his background, he did a brisk business as a radio freelance actor. But the jobs dried up: Webb could not resist telling directors how they could improve their shows. He sought motion picture parts. But to the eternal question, "Got any film?" (any previous parts), he could only shake his head. He finally got a bit in an Eagle Lion production called Hollow Triumph. A year later he got another in a picture called He Walked by Night.
Inky-Dinks & Sink. On motion picture lots, as he had at station KGO, Webb carried on his restless and insatiable quest for knowledge. If a sound man hastily "rolled a loop" of track as an airplane passed over (so that the intruding racket could later be dubbed into parts of the scene shot after it had disappeared),Webb asked why. He watched stage carpenters make golden oak out of cheap pine sets with yellow paint and combs. He patiently learned about studio lights (brutes, seniors, juniors and inky-dinks, in order of their size), and the tricks of lighting eyes and burning out mike shadows.
Before he ever dreamed of television triumph, he prepared for it. He tried to project himself into the nerve-racking world of the director, asked endless questions about the art of breaking master shots into closeups (never move the camera straight in, always shoot a little high or a little low, always be sure that the actor who "looks camera left" in the main scene is still doing so when his face is alone on the film). He peered at the "Moviola," the machine film cutters use in their harried inspections. He quizzed sound men as they muttered of click tracking and sink. He remembered an axiom of motion picture musical directors : "A woman will cry even if the music is bad, but if it's good you might make her husband cry too."
"That's What I Mean." On the set of He Walked by Night, Webb met the technical adviser, a rotund, cheerful Los Angeles detective sergeant named Marty Wynn. "It rankles every damn cop in the country when they hear those farfetched stories about crime," Wynn said to Webb. "Why don't you do a real story about policemen?" Wynn forgot the conversation in an hour. But three weeks later Webb arrived with Radio Producer Bill Rousseau at the Los Angeles police academy, where Wynn was taking a refresher course in criminal law and rules of evidence. Webb asked to ride on calls with Wynn and his partner, Detective Vance Brasher. They agreed.
Night after night, Webb sat in the back seat of the police Chevrolet, listening to the radio's unemotional reports of crime and human weakness, watching every move of the two detectives. After hours, he asked for coaching. How did they frisk a suspect? How did they kick in a door? Once he told Wynn: "Talk like a cop." The detective bristled. "We don't talk any different than you do." "Well," said Webb, "what would you do if you had a suspect?" Said Wynn: "Why, I'd go down to R & I [Records and Identification] and pull the package . . ." Cried Webb: "That's what I mean!"