Bureau of Missing Persons

Not a Davis vehicle, since she only appears halfway through, playing a girl wanted for murder. Based on a book by former police captain John Ayres, it cross-breeds an attempt to document the range of work covered by the NY Missing Persons Bureau (a number of unconnected cases are developed in parallel) and a healthily cynical vein of macabre humour. With Del Ruth directing at screwball pace, things sometimes get a little too jokey; but at its best, in noting the obsessive quirks developed by officers, it has some claim to be considered an ancestor of Hill Street Blues.