21 Beacon Street
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| 21 Beacon Street | |
|---|---|
 Dennis Morgan and Joanna Barnes | |
| Starring | Dennis Morgan, Joanna Barnes, Brian Kelly and James Maloney |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Production company | Filmways |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | July 2 – September 24, 1959 |
21 Beacon Street is an American detective television series that originally aired on NBC from July 2 to September 10, 1959.
Produced by Filmways,[1] the summer replacement series for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show[2]: 146 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.[3]
The series pilot was broadcast as an episode of Panic!.[2]: 146 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.[3]
Leonard Heideman was the show's creator.[2] The series' first episode was "The Rub-Out".[4]
Dennis Chase was a private investigator with an office on 21 Beacon Street, in an unspecified city.[3] 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.[5]
Chase and his assistants worked to discover who the criminals were, but then notified the police to come and apprehend the law breakers.[3]
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.[6]
