Dennis Chase (21 Beacon Street)

Created by Leonard Heideman
(1928-2007)

Quiet, humble DENNIS CHASE (good name, that, if maybe a trifle too on-the-nose, for a P.I.) was the mild-mannered hero of 21 Beacon Street, a short-lived television show on NBC that sounded like a 77 Sunset Strip clone, but wasn’t.

The bow tie might have been a clue.

Instead, it followed the high-tech (for 1959) Chase Detective Agency that specialized in on cases the cops hadn’t been able to solve–often with their blessing. Possibly because after cracking the case Chase and his team always called the police in to make the arrest. Despite his last name, he rarely chased down any of the bad guys himself.

Chase utilized all the latest gadgets, and worked out of his office at–you guessed it–21 Beacon Street, in an unnamed city, although presumably it’s Boston.

His “team” consisted of  Brian (a young, ambitious law student), Jim (a jack-of-all-trades with a particular facility for electronics and disguises) and, of course, the obligatory attractive “secretary” Lola.  But Lola being described (which she was, often) as a “secretary” was just a prime slice of the era’s sexism–she was there for more than typing or answering the phone. She  just happened to have a Ph.D and was a vital part of the team, serving as lab assistant, undercover operative and investigator.

And Dennis would need all the help he could get. Meticulous to a fault, he would devise elaborate schemes to solve the case, which he and his team would then carry out slowly and methodically, before dropping a dime on the miscreants.

It was those slow-burn schemes, in fact, and the use of all those high tech gizmos and gimmicks (Truth serum! Computers! Electronic bugs! Hidden cameras! Wiretapping! Radio-transmitting eyeglasses! Disguises!) that led to 21 Beacon Street often being considered a forerunner of Mission Impossible, which came along seven years later. So much so that eventually the creators of 21 Beacon Street sued Bruce Geller of Mission Impossible for plagiarism. The suit was settled out of court.

A summer replacement for NBC’s popular The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, the show fared relatively well with critics and was supposedly the highest rated replacement series that year, it failed to find much of network support, and wasn’t renewed, although it was later rerun on rival network ABC (along with three final unaired episodes) in the second half of the 1959-60 season.

And that was that. The show seems to have slipped through the cracks, never to be seen again. Literally. Not only was it forgotten, but it seemed it may have been lost as well–until it resurfaced in 2023, on DVD

Fortunately, the scripts proved to be a little more imaginative than the naming of the characters–or it was the most extraordinary example of coincidental casting in the history of television. Really! Dennis Morgan played a character named Dennis, Brian Kelly played a character named Brian and James Maloney played a character named Jim?

What are the odds?

It was the first TV series produced by Filmways Pictures Corporation, which would later put out such fan favorites as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and The Addams Family, among many others, and while former Warner Bros. leading man Dennis Morgan did make occasional guest appearances on television, 21 Beacon Street was his first, and only, shot to star in his own TV series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (TALES OUTTA SCHOOL)

21 Beacon Street‘s creator, Leonard Heideman, also served as the story editor, a position he’d previously held for Flight, an American television anthology series that aired in syndication from 1958 to 1959. He assumed the same role for the top ten western, Bonanza. But ever ambitious, he walked away from the job  after less than a year, and began to write for Checkmate, a big-budget detective series created by Eric Ambler, confident his career was on the rise.  It wasn’t, and the mounting stress of professional, financial and domestic difficulties were piling up. Eventually they would lead to a psychotic episode, and in February 1963 he stabbed his wife to death. Declared unfit for trial, he was committed to a mental hospital and stayed there for fourteen months, before being released. He was found not guilty of his wife’s murder, by reason of insanity, and changed his name to Laurence Heath, and went back to writing for television, where he ended up writing a couple of dozen episodes of… Mission Impossible. He went on to write episodes for Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, The Invaders, Lancer and Murder, She Wrote. He committed suicide in 2007.

TELEVISION

• 21 BEACON STREET  | Buy the DVD
• (1959, NBC)
  13 30 minute episodes
  Black & white
  Writers:  Leonard Heideman, Robert C. Dennis, David Chandler, Fenton Earnshaw, Tom Gries, Jack Kelsey, Jack Laird, John Meredyth Lucas
  Story Editor: Leonard Heideman
  Directors: Maurice Geraghty, Jean Yarbrough, Harold D. Schuster
  Produced by Al Simon
  A Fairways Production
  Starring Dennis Morgan as DENNIS CHASE
  With Joanna Barnes as Lola
  Brian Kelly as Brian
  and James Maloney as Jim
  Guest stars: DeForrest Kelley, Jerry Paris, Whit Bissell, Anthony Caruso, Steve Brodie, Ted DeCorsia, Barney Phillips, Paul Bryar, Paul Dubov, Harry Bellaver, Henry Corden, Sally Fraser, John Hoyt, Myron Healey, Jean Willes, Alberto Morin, Paul Richards, Joan Taylor, Cyril Delevanti
  • SEASON ONE | Buy the DVD
  • “The Rub Out” (July 2, 1959)
  • “Safety Deposit” (July 9, 1959)
  • “The Payoff” (July 16, 1959)
  • “Double Vision” (July 23, 1959)
  • “The Swindle” (July 30, 1959)
  • “The Execution” (August 6, 1959)
  • “The Break-In” (August 13, 1959)
  • “The Trojan Horse” (August 20, 1959)
  • “The Hostage” (August 27, 1959)
  • “The Trap” (September 3, 1959)
  • “Dilemma” (March 6, 1960, on ABC)
  • “Close Call” (March 13, 1960, on ABC)
  • “Nothing is Impossible” (March 13, 1960, on ABC)

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Ah, Boston, You’re My Home
  Beantown Eyes

THE DICK OF THE DAY

• August 10, 2021
  THE BOTTOM LINE: This late 50s PI show is now almost totally forgotten, but it begat MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. Plus, it had… bow ties! Anyone remember this?

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.