Pat Novak for Hire – The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio

Pat Novak for Hire aired from 1946-48 on KGO Radio, and1949 on ABC Radio.Jack Webb (1946 and 1949) and Ben Morris (1947-48) played Pat Novak, a wisecracking freelancer who rents boats “and anything else that sounds like money.”

The plot of most Pat Novak episodes could be summarized as follows:The show begins with Novak talking about the sign he put out, “Pat Novak for Hire,” and then the soliloquy turns into a discussion of what a forsaken hole the San Francisco Waterfront is, and how lowdown corrupt and awful everyone and everything around Pat Novak is.

Novak is then approached by someone who offers him an unseemly sum of money to perform an apparently mundane task. Novak is suspicious of the offer but when pressed agrees to take it against his better judgment because there’s money involved. Novak heads out to a location where he meets up with and mouths off to the wrong person landing him flat on his back unconcious. When he awakes, there’s a dead body beside him.Within a minute, he’s nose to nose with Inspector Hellman, who promptly threatens to prosecute Novak for murder.

Novak and Hellman then trade insults, and then fearing for his life (back in the 1940s, you didn’t have seventeen years worth of appeals on death row) Novak looks up the “only honest guy I know, an ex-Doctor and a boozer by the name of Jocko Madigan. A good guy… ” at which point Novak makes a witty remark about Jocko being a drunk.Jocko waxes philisophical about how Novak got himself into the mess, declaring Novak hopeless, but still agreeing to help, Novak cajoling him all the way. Jocko is off to question witnesses and research public records.

At some point along the way, Novak runs into a woman who says Hello in a seductive voice. Odds are that she’s a manipulative sociopath.In the middle of the case, Hellman will either call Novak on the telephone or taunt him in person and reveal some aspect of the police’s investigation. Jocko will gather some information. And either Novak or Jocko will put it all together, and once the dead bodies are all in the morgue and the surviving suspects are locked up, Inspector Hellman will have only one question and Novak will provide his sarcastic answer to end the episode.

The big difference between Nova 1947 rip-off of Pat Novak, Johnny Madero is that Madero looks up “the only good guy I know,” Father Leahy. Johnny Madero hailed from Pier 23, while Pat Novak was on Pier 19. As a later Jack Webb show would say, “The names were changed to protect the innocent.”

That said, Radio Fans of the era loved Webb as Pat Novak. Breen left KGO and Webb with him. In 1947, KGO and ABC believed it could carry on Pat Novak without Novak and without writer Richard Breen. Letters poured in demanding that Webb be brought back, and in 1949 that’s just what happened.

What makes the series memorable?

Two things. First, the dialogue was rich. As Novak (and Madero) Webb delivered hilarious and rich similes, and transformed the put down into an art form. Jocko Madigan’s soliloquies ranged from the sublimely wise to the hilarious. The show carried a sense of free verse poetry rarely match in old time radio.Secondly, the show had flashes of brillance. When Webb and Breen began their work on KGO, Webb was 26, Breen was 28.

They were on the verge of success. Webb was three years away from creating the police procedural drama that would redefine the genre. Breen was three years away from his first Writers Guild Award Nomination and seven years from an academy award. In Pat Novak, the potential and promise of two young men on the verge of greatness shown through, particularly with the occasional departure from the show’s formula.

And while Pat Novak was hardly Dragnet for Private Investigators (i.e. a portrayal of what real life is like,) Novak was far more real than many of his hard boiled counterparts like the unflappable Sam Spade.

This feed features all the surviving episodes of Pat Novak for Hire starring Jack Webb as well as both surviving episodes of Johnny Madero. The episodes are hosted by Adam Graham with commentary and listener comments and feedback. They are part of the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio podcast.