21 Beacon Street is an American detective television series that originally aired on NBC from July 2 to September 10, 1959.
Produced by Filmways,Irvin, Richard The Forgotten Desi and Lucy TV Projects, Bear Manor Media, 2020 the summer replacement series for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show consisted of 11 black-and-white 30-minute episodes. The show starred Dennis Morgan as private investigator Dennis Chase. Other cast members included Joanna Barnes, Brian Kelly, and James Maloney.Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946 – Present Ballantine Books, 1979, page 647
The series pilot was broadcast as an episode of Panic!. The show aired on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Reruns were broadcast on ABC-TV on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. from December 1959 to March 1960.
Leonard Heideman was the show's creator. The series' first episode was "The Rub-Out".
Premise Dennis Chase was a private investigator with an office on 21 Beacon Street, in an unspecified city. Chase was aided by Joanna Barnes as Joanna, who was a combination of beauty and brains. She was able to glean information and then act as a decoy. Brian Kelly was Brian, a young law school graduate; and James Maloney played Jim, an expert on dialects, as well as a skilled craftsman.21 Beacon Street Is New Half Hour Crime Series, The Modesto Bee, June 28, 1959, page 41
Chase and his assistants worked to discover who the criminals were, but then notified the police to come and apprehend the law breakers.
Forerunner to Mission Impossible The producers of Mission: Impossible were sued for plagiarism by the creators of 21 Beacon Street. The suit was settled out of court. Bruce Geller claimed never to have seen the earlier show; Beacon Street's creator, under the name Laurence Heath (a pseudonym Heideman adopted following his release from a mental institution after murdering his wife during a psychotic breakdown), would later write several episodes of Mission: Impossible.
Episodes
References
External links
Cimaclub Online 21 Beacon Street on DVD