Last night, I grabbed a CD of Jeff Regan, Investigator to take with me to work—and though I realize some of this may be a rehash of earlier material (I contributed the liner notes to a Premier Collection of Regan for the First Generation Radio Archives back in April) I’ve decided the series deserves a full hearing here on the blog.

Jeff Regan, Investigator premiered over CBS’ West Coast radio network on July 10, 1948, and starred Jack Webb as the titular gumshoe, an operative for the International Detective Bureau, an agency based in L.A. and supervised by the wily and parsimonious Anthony J. Lyon (Wilms Herbert, Herb Butterfield). Jeff Regan was the program that provided a transition between Webb’s two better-known radio offerings, Pat Novak For Hire, a detective series that was so hard-boiled it bordered on camp, and Dragnet, Webb’s seminal and groundbreaking police procedural. Truth be told, Regan has much more in common with Novak than Dragnet; it portrays Webb as a cynical, tough-as-nails investigator who’s never at a loss for a wisecrack—but the series unfortunately was without the services of Richard Breen, the writer who brought a snap, crackle and pop to the superior Novak. (Regan’s hard-boiled scripts were penned by E. Jack Neuman and Larry Roman.)

In the first of two episodes—“Pilgrim’s Progress,” from November 20, 1948—we get a feel for what Jeff Regan, Investigator was like as our nihilistic hero engages in a conversation with his boss, Lyon. According to Regan, the boss man is sucking on a twenty-five cent cigar and is looking pleased, “like a fat lady locked in a creampuff factory”:

LYON: …man I know had a baby…plumber named Broman or Groman or something like that…

REGAN: Mazeltov…

LYON: Cancel any arrangements you’ve got for tonight…I got something for you to do…got your car?

REGAN: It’s in the lot…

LYON: Gas it up…you’re takin’ a trip…

REGAN: Where to?

LYON: Calabasas…a man wants to see you…

REGAN: I got no friends out there…

LYON: A friend of mine, name’s Hendrix…he counts his money with an adding machine, and his finger’s always swollen…

REGAN: Well, what’s the problem?

LYON: I don’t know—he didn’t say…just called and told me to send out a man…

REGAN: How much did he give you for a retainer?

LYON: When an important man like Hendrix calls, you don’t insult him by asking for money…

REGAN: Oh, stop it, will ya…you’re the kind of guy who’d steal pennies out of parking meters…

LYON: That’s enough, Regan…

REGAN: …if one of them turned up empty, you’d sue the city…

LYON: Here’s the Hendrix address…now get out there!

REGAN: All right…

LYON: Regan!

REGAN: Yeah?

LYON: Remember…do a good job and I’ll give ya Thanksgiving off…and I’ll pay ya…

REGAN: With what? Cranberries?

The script—written by Roman and Jackson Gillis—is better than the usual Regan fare; there’s a conversation between Webb and a drunken “Miles Standish” that’s worth the price of admission, and the top-notch supporting cast includes Mary Lansing, Marvin Miller and Paul Frees. The second entry, “The Man Who Fought Back” (11/27/48), comes up a little short, though—a convoluted plot that has Regan hired by a man named LaFarge (Ken Christy) that forces Regan to investigate a series of murders that follow.

Webb’s tenure on Jeff Regan, Investigator was fairly short—the series left the airwaves on December 18, 1948. Shortly after its cancellation, Webb offhandedly remarked to a Radio Life reporter that his next character “might be called Joe Friday”—and after a brief revival of Pat Novak For Hire (broadcast coast-to-coast over ABC from February 13-June 18, 1949), Webb did just that, kicking off the highly-successful Dragnet which ran on radio for seven years and had an equally popular run on television as well.

Regan producer Sterling Tracy reorganized the program in October 1949, replacing Webb with actor-announcer Frank Graham in the Regan role. Graham’s Regan was sort of a “kindler, gentler” gumshoe—a champion for the underdog that lacked Webb’s chip-on-his-shoulder quality. The part of Anthony J. Lyon was also made over into that of a buffoonish cartoon caricature—with a Grade-A comedy relief performance from Frank Nelson, famed nemesis of Jack Benny. The scripts for the show—from writers William Froug, William Fifield and Gilbert Thomas—also took a lighter, tongue-in-cheek approach. This version of Jeff Regan, Investigator continued as a CBS West Coast offering until August 27, 1950. Approximately thirty-four episodes of the series are extant today, and though I certainly enjoy both interpretations (Webb and Graham) of Regan, I’d have to give Webb the edge.
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