u/Spitebott

When Jack Webb left Pat Novak the first time, be was replaced by Ben Morris. I didn't think he was suitable at all. His voice was much too deep and in my opinion the scripts were pretty bad, but I still liked the replacement Jocko Madigan actor, Jack Lewis (whoever he was). I can understand why listeners complained.

When Webb left Jeff Regan, Frank Graham stepped into the role. I'm working my way through these episodes. I'm spotty on them, having heard only a handful before, but I understand Graham was replaced at least temporarily by Paul Dubrov. Graham has another deep, resonant voice, although I'm told he could do any number of different voices and accents. He seems to be channeling Gerald Mohr for a lot of this. Again, not a good voice to replace Webb. Dubrov is excellent, though -- he doesn't sound like a deep-radio-voiced muscleman, but more like a regular guy you'd meet on the street, which is how Regan should sound.

Another side note, and I just found this out literally minutes ago -- there were *three* 1951 movies loosely based on Pat Novak? Starring Hugh Beaumont?!? The main character's name was changed to Dennis O'Brien, but he also rents out boats on Pier 19 and gets into trouble. The movies are Danger Zone, Roaring City, and Pier 23, and they're all on YouTube. I'll be checking them out.

There are only a handful of existing episodes of this show, as it only ran for two months in 1951, and Jack Webb did it at the same time Dragnet was running. I listened to it before, and I didn't like it much. After a few years I tried again, and it's much better now. In many ways it's a 1920s reworking of Pat Novak, with Tudor Owen playing Barney Rickets, a drunken ex-bootlegger who's a lot like Jocko Madigan. Webb's frequent co-collaborator Richard L. Breen created it but didn't write the scripts, or they would have been much better. I don't know how it was received in 1951, as Dragnet was very popular at the time. I do know there was a 1955 movie based on it, and it's very good. Peggy Lee won and Academy Award for it. Anybody else heard it? Thoughts?