Pat Novak; For Hire (Digitally Restored) with Jack Webb - Old Time Radio

Category: Crime, Full Cast, Radio Productions
Language: English
Keywords: Celebrity Narrated Full Cast Hard-boiled- Pulp Jack Webb Noir Private Dick Private Eye Private Investigator Raymond Burr

Written by Old Time Radio
Read by Various, Celebrity Narrated, Jack Webb, Raymond Burr, Full Cast
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Dramatization

Pat is hard boiled, I mean 20 minutes hard boiled. Just listen and you can almost smell the cigarette smoke and stale beer. It’s as real as it gets.

Classic old time radio showing starring Jack Webb (1946, 1949) and Ben Morris (1947-48) as Pat Novak, a street wise guy who rents boats and anything else a good man pays a bad one to do.

Novak is always getting into scrapes when taking on jobs for hire or occasionally as a favor to a friend. When he does, he goes to see “The Only Honest Guy I Know” an ex-Doctor and a boozer named Jocko Madigan (played by Tudor Owens). Novak’s nemesis is Lieutenant Hellman of Homicide (played by Raymond Burr and others) who’s constantly trying to get Novak sent to the gas chamber.

The show is formulaic, but it’s a work of art, with fantastic poetry. From Novak’s fantastic similes and brilliant descriptions of the Femme Fatales to Jocko Madigan’s philosophical drunken speeches, and the verbal (and sometimes physical) fisticuffs between Novak and Hellman, Pat Novak for Hire is memorable from start to finish.

The stories stay with you like a cheap tattoo on a boozin’ maiden aunt - you feel you’ve seen them before but the wrinkles keep you from turning away….

Digitally restored over several years from every source that I could find, including Vinyl, Cassette and Digital. Each episode sounds very good/excellent beginning to end. Audio has been cleaned and the Volume normalized throughout so you can easily hear the dialogue and action scenes are not 10x louder. This set was difficult as the quality of many of the episodes was poor even from original vinyl or cassette, but came out pretty good overall.