Highway Patrol

5.8
195528m

Highway Patrol was a syndicated, fictional police action series produced from 1955 to 1959, concerning the activities of the highway patrol and their leader, Dan Matthews (who held no rank). Although filmed in and around the Los Angeles area, the state setting for the stories was never identified, and city and street names were fictionalized.

Seasons

39 Episodes • Premiered 1955

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 1: Prison Break / Road Block

1. Prison Break / Road Block

A hardened criminal, whose personality belies his viciousness, escapes from prison, killing a guard. Dan Mathews swings into action, and as the man commits one ruthless act after another to break through the trap closing in on him, it becomes apparent that there's almost a personal conflict between the two men - that ends only when they meet face to face in the final scene.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 2: Machine Story Copter / Machine Napping Copter

2. Machine Story Copter / Machine Napping Copter

An expensive, giant computer, one of the twentieth century wonders, which does a tremendous amount of administrative work in just hours, is ingeniously 'kidnapped' from an electronics company by two men. The firm's owner is told to get $100,000 from his bank at two o'clock the next day and wait for instructions. A helicopter chase helps Dan stop the men from collecting the ransom or getting away.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 3: Reckless Driving

3. Reckless Driving

Systematic traffic checks and increased patrols begin on a high accident freeway. Hoping to determine causes and cures, Dan questions drivers who get too many citations there. One man refuses to accept Dan's safety philosophy. When his license is suspended, his wife drives him to an important business meeting. En route, her eyeglasses break and he takes over at the wheel. Encountering a traffic check, he panics and flees, resulting in a severe accident in which his wife is critically injured. He learns the hard way - and too late - what Dan had earlier tried to impress upon him.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 4: Lookout

4. Lookout

An uninvolved man happens to be in the company of two brothers who hold up a diner and kill its owner. Fearing the police and terrified of the vengeance he may expect from the criminals, he flees. As Dan searches for him, one man winds up dead, two critically wounded, and the man who a few short hours ago was an average law-abiding citizen is harried to the point where he is willing to shoot it cut with the police - until Dan manages to show the error of his ways.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 5: Gambling

5. Gambling

Dan Mathews and his officers assist a county sheriff in closing down a club that offers illicit gambling.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 6: Hitchhiker

6. Hitchhiker

A series of fraudulent insurance claims is discovered after Dan Mathews and his officers learn that the "accidental" death of a migrant worker was actually a homicide.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 7: Desert Town

7. Desert Town

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 8: Radioactive

8. Radioactive

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 9: Reformed Criminal

9. Reformed Criminal

Dan Mathews has reason to suspect the worst when a courier with a criminal record disappears with $31,000 after an automobile accident.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 10: Father Thief

10. Father Thief

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 11: Retired Gangster

11. Retired Gangster

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 12: Phony Insurance

12. Phony Insurance

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 13: Escort

13. Escort

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 14: Resort

14. Resort

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 15: Girl Bandit

15. Girl Bandit

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 16: Mountain Copter

16. Mountain Copter

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 17: Lie Detector

17. Lie Detector

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 18: Scared Cop

18. Scared Cop

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 19: Harbor Story

19. Harbor Story

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 20: Hit And Run

20. Hit And Run

Dan Mathews must cope with a family's effort to protect an emotionally fragile young woman who fled after striking a pedestrian with her car.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 21: Car Theft

21. Car Theft

Car thieves purchase wrecked vehicles and transfer the VIN plates to stolen ones in order to escape detection.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 22: Human Bomb

22. Human Bomb

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 23: Plane Crash

23. Plane Crash

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 24: Desert Copter

24. Desert Copter

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 25: Plant Robbery

25. Plant Robbery

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 26: Released Convict

26. Released Convict

A patient parolee decides the time is finally right to attempt the recovery of $250,000 stolen in an armored car robbery.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 27: Motorcycle A

27. Motorcycle A

Two bikers (Clint Eastwood as 'Joe Keeley', John Compton as 'Nick West') ride stripped-down Harleys into town and stop at a cafe. They are shocked when the cafe owner (Jack Edwards as 'Bernie Sills') confronts them with a shotgun and orders them to leave. As his wife calls the Highway Patrol her husband provokes the bikers, until Nick takes the gun from Sills and punches him. The bikers jump on their bikes and roar out of town. When Sills learns his wife has called the law, he hides the gun and lies to the responding motorcycle cop, telling him the cyclists started the trouble. The cop takes off after the bikers, only to be struck and killed by a trucker who runs a red light. Broderick Crawford’s ‘Chief Dan Mathews’ quickly sorts truth from fiction and arrests the café owner for assaulting the bikers. A nice (albeit unlikely) twist on the ‘bad guy bikers’ trope!

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 28: Mental Patient

28. Mental Patient

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 29: License Plates

29. License Plates

An alert boy is able to give Dan Mathews information that provides a critical break in the pursuit of a recidivist thief.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 30: Hitchhiker Dies

30. Hitchhiker Dies

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 31: Blast Area Copter

31. Blast Area Copter

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 32: Anti-toxin

32. Anti-toxin

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 33: Dead Patrolman

33. Dead Patrolman

A Highway Patrol officer is murdered while pursuing a car stolen from a lonely bookstore owner.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 34: Art Robbery

34. Art Robbery

Two thieves attempt to steal valuable paintings and demand ransom of $500,000. but they are forced to commit murder when the plan goes awry.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 35: Runaway Boy

35. Runaway Boy

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 36: Taxi

36. Taxi

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 37: Missing Witness

37. Missing Witness

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 38: Prospector

38. Prospector

A poor prospector arouses suspicion when he suddenly begins paying off long-standing debts from a large roll of new $100 bills.

Still image for Highway Patrol season 1 episode 39: Christmas Story

39. Christmas Story

Cast

Photo of Art Gilmore

Art Gilmore

Narrator (voice)

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