Golden Radio Theater
Home/Mystery, Crime & Detective/Jeff Regan, Investigator
Private-detective drama · CBS

Jeff Regan, Investigator

July 10, 1948 – September 3, 1950 · 72 broadcasts

Jeff Regan, Investigator is CBS radio noir at its most hard-boiled and most sardonic -- the show that put a young Jack Webb behind a private eye's narration a year before Dragnet. Regan is 'the Lyon's Eye,' the legman who does the dirty work for tightfisted agency boss Anthony J. Lyon of the International Detective Bureau, then narrates his cases in clipped, wisecracking first person. Every week brought a fresh Los Angeles murder wrapped in gaudy, pun-loaded titles -- carnival knife-throwers, phony psychics, counterfeiters, a corpse with a star-sapphire ring. The series ran in two distinct incarnations. It debuted July 10, 1948 (for one week as Joe Canto, Private Eye, then as Jeff Regan) with Webb as Regan, Wilms Herbert as Lyon, and Webb's future Dragnet partner Barton Yarborough as operative Joe Canto, all written by a young E. Jack Neuman. Webb left at the end of 1948 -- by writer William Froug's account, fired for asking a fifteen-dollar raise. After nearly a year off the air the show returned in October 1949 with versatile announcer-actor Frank Graham as a softer, wittier Regan and Jack Benny's foil Frank Nelson as Lyon. The revival was a critical success and a ratings performer, but it ended in tragedy: Frank Graham took his own life in September 1950, and CBS never recast the part. What survives is one of radio's most prized examples of satiric detective noir.

Collection status: 54 of 72 held (75% complete)
◆ ◆ ◆

Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1948

July 10, 1948 Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
July 17, 1948 The Prodigal Daughter Listen (MP3)
A rich man sends Regan to New Orleans to bring back his runaway daughter -- and the girl he finds appears to be laid out for her own funeral.
July 24, 1948 The Lonesome Lady Listen (MP3)
Was John R. Renzo's tumble down the stairs just a bad heart, or murder? Untangling it earns Regan his first lumps of the case.
July 31, 1948 The Lady with the Golden Hair Listen (MP3)
Someone wants a temperamental Hollywood makeup artist dead, and a mysterious hairy lady is somehow knotted into the plot.
August 7, 1948 The Man Who Liked the Mountain Listen (MP3)
An attorney hires Regan to find 'Big Ed' Kittredge, a thoroughly unsavory character missing three days -- though nobody much cares whether he turns up.
August 14, 1948 The Diamond Quartette Listen (MP3)
A simple errand returning a valuable necklace spirals into a double murder, complete with a suspect who is a shameless Sydney Greenstreet knockoff.
August 21, 1948 The Man Who Came Back Listen (MP3)
Murder, crooked politics, and a tidy frame-up all land in Regan's lap at once.
August 28, 1948 The Man in the Door Listen (MP3)
An architect who fears his bank is cheating him turns up murdered -- then is spotted alive and well, dragging Regan into a web of embezzlement.
September 4, 1948 The House by the Sea Listen (MP3)
A stage psychic begs Regan for protection after a red-haired movie actress phones in a death threat.
September 11, 1948 Cain and Able and the Santa Maria Listen (MP3)
Regan is hired to recover a small silver ship that has been stolen.
September 18, 1948 The Gambler and the Lady
September 25, 1948 The Lady with No Name Listen (MP3)
An amnesiac woman collapses dead in the agency office, launching Regan onto the trail of a counterfeiting ring and a supply of dum-dum bullets.
October 2, 1948 The Man with the Key Listen (MP3)
An ex-convict fresh out of a sanitarium hires Regan to wear his safe-deposit-box key around his neck until they can meet at the bank in the morning.
October 9, 1948 Too Many Mrs. Rogers Listen (MP3)
Sent down to La Jolla to guard a dead man and the star sapphire on his finger, Regan meets three women who each claim to be the widow Rogers -- one of them a murderer.
October 16, 1948 The Lost Lady Listen (MP3)
A woman hires Regan to find her missing sister, only for both leads to end at the same cemetery plot the sister has occupied for a year.
October 23, 1948 The Man with the Scar
October 30, 1948 The Kid from Cuba
November 6, 1948 The Lady with Too Much Hair Listen (MP3)
A bodyguard job watching a man's daughter at finishing school runs headlong into murder, a drug racket, and a suspicious wig shop.
November 13, 1948 The Guy from Gower Gulch Listen (MP3)
A man named Davy Crockett is killed the moment he makes bail, leaving Regan to link wounded horses to a roll of film.
November 20, 1948 The Pilgrim's Progress Listen (MP3)
During a holiday turkey shoot, the one who takes a bullet is a man costumed as Miles Standish, not the bird.
November 27, 1948 The Man Who Fought Back Listen (MP3)
Hired as a weekend alibi witness for the LaFarges, Regan watches the wife shot dead and digs into a counterfeit-football-ticket racket.
December 4, 1948 The Lawyer and the Lady Listen (MP3)
A lawyer hires Regan and is promptly shot dead in his own office, as is his wife, while a 280-pound thug with brass knuckles flattens the detective.
December 11, 1948 The Gambler and His Ladies Listen (MP3)
A worried mother is murdered after her daughter marries gambler Louie Desmond, and the reek of cubeb hangs over the killings that follow.
December 18, 1948 The Man Who Lived by the Sea Listen (MP3)
In Jack Webb's final turn as Regan, a psychic's beautiful assistant hires him to keep 'Prince Nemo' alive.

1949

October 5, 1949 The Lady by the Fountain Listen (MP3)
October 12, 1949 The Man in the Church Listen (MP3)
October 19, 1949 The Lady from Brazil Listen (MP3)
A visitor from Brazil named Irene Santino puts Regan on the trail of the sister she has lost.
October 26, 1949 The Lady Who Wanted to Live Listen (MP3)
A nightclub singer hires Regan for protection from the Diamond Club owner she spurned two years before.
November 2, 1949 The Man in Black Listen (MP3)
Regan keeps a gymnasium appointment with a man who turns out to be a priest, Father Petucinni.
November 8, 1949 Little Man's Lament Listen (MP3)
November 9, 1949 The Little Man's Lament Listen (MP3)
Inside crumbling Margate Mansion, a household of oddballs surrounds young 'Junior' -- half genius, half playboy -- whose idea of play runs to poison.
November 16, 1949 The Two Little Sisters Listen (MP3)
At a traveling carnival, a threatened knife-thrower and her look-alike sister leave Regan to work out which blonde is deadly.
November 23, 1949 The Lady Above High C
November 30, 1949 The Five Hundred Santa Clauses from Mexico Listen (MP3)
December 7, 1949 The Hundred Dollar Guy
December 14, 1949 The Friday Nite Off
December 21, 1949 Some Enchanted Car-Hop Listen (MP3)
A carhop at Hamburger Heaven, known around the lot as 'the girl who hated men,' pulls Regan into trouble.
December 28, 1949 The Man on the Hook Listen (MP3)

1950

January 4, 1950 A Thousand Violins, Almost Listen (MP3)
January 11, 1950 Sure, a Little Bit of Murder
January 18, 1950 A Streetcar Named Schultz Listen (MP3)
January 25, 1950 The Barefoot Boy with Shoes-Gone Listen (MP3)
February 1, 1950 All the Queens Men
February 8, 1950 Had To, Dead You Know
February 15, 1950 Mama Inez
February 22, 1950 The Gorilla That Always Said, Yeh-Ah Listen (MP3)
March 1, 1950 The Lyon Went Out Like a Lamb!
March 8, 1950 Mother Wore Snowshoes
March 15, 1950 Loe, the Gentle Earth Worm Listen (MP3)
March 22, 1950 The Hollywood Story Listen (MP3)
March 29, 1950 Cloudy as Crystal
April 5, 1950 A Tree Grows in Encino Listen (MP3)
April 12, 1950 The Man Behind the Rod Listen (MP3)
April 19, 1950 The Smell of Magnolias Listen (MP3)
April 26, 1950 It All Comes Back to Me Now Listen (MP3)
A woman calling herself 'Miss Smith' cannot remember her real name, but the loaded .32 in her purse is real enough.
May 3, 1950 A Cure for Insomnia Listen (MP3)
May 12, 1950 Oil for the Lamps of Burbank Listen (MP3)
May 19, 1950 A Claw, a Corkscrew, a Coffin, a Crab Listen (MP3)
May 26, 1950 This May Hurt, Just a Little Listen (MP3)
June 2, 1950 A Horse in My Hot Springs
June 11, 1950 For Every Man There's a Manikin
June 18, 1950 They've Got More Than Coffee in Brazil Listen (MP3)
A rebroadcast of the October 1949 case: the Brazilian visitor Irene Santino needs Regan to trace a sister who has vanished.
June 25, 1950 No Sad Clowns for Me Listen (MP3)
A stooped little client named Crackly wants Regan to track down a man called Bliss, in a case that leads straight to the circus.
July 2, 1950 If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Wrecked a Train Listen (MP3)
July 9, 1950 She's Lovely, She's Engaged, She Eats Soy Beans Listen (MP3)
A pin-up swimsuit model caught up in the promotion of a new health-food product hires Regan to keep her safe.
July 16, 1950 All His Sisters and His Cousins and His Uncles and His Aunts Listen (MP3)
July 23, 1950 99 Men on a Dead Man's Chest
July 30, 1950 A Fire for Romano Listen (MP3)
Bigots torch the Romano family's grocery to the ground and kill Mrs. Romano in a bid to drive the immigrant shopkeepers out.
August 6, 1950 There's Nothing Like a Pork Chop When Supper Rolls Around Listen (MP3)
A dictaphone holds more of the answer than anyone wanted heard, while the blonde at the center of the case will not say a word.
August 13, 1950 A Streetcar Named Schultz
August 27, 1950 Gentlemen Prefer Horses Listen (MP3)
A washed-up jockey named Boots Crenshaw, peddling can't-lose racing tips, buys a hundred dollars' worth of Regan's help.
September 3, 1950 The British Are Coming Listen (MP3)
The Story

Jeff Regan, Investigator is CBS radio noir at its most hard-boiled and most sardonic -- the show that put a young Jack Webb behind a private eye's narration a year before Dragnet. Regan is 'the Lyon's Eye,' the legman who does the dirty work for tightfisted agency boss Anthony J. Lyon of the International Detective Bureau, then narrates his cases in clipped, wisecracking first person. Every week brought a fresh Los Angeles murder wrapped in gaudy, pun-loaded titles -- carnival knife-throwers, phony psychics, counterfeiters, a corpse with a star-sapphire ring. The series ran in two distinct incarnations. It debuted July 10, 1948 (for one week as Joe Canto, Private Eye, then as Jeff Regan) with Webb as Regan, Wilms Herbert as Lyon, and Webb's future Dragnet partner Barton Yarborough as operative Joe Canto, all written by a young E. Jack Neuman. Webb left at the end of 1948 -- by writer William Froug's account, fired for asking a fifteen-dollar raise. After nearly a year off the air the show returned in October 1949 with versatile announcer-actor Frank Graham as a softer, wittier Regan and Jack Benny's foil Frank Nelson as Lyon. The revival was a critical success and a ratings performer, but it ended in tragedy: Frank Graham took his own life in September 1950, and CBS never recast the part. What survives is one of radio's most prized examples of satiric detective noir.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
Gallery
Art pending