Highway Patrol
Highway Patrol: Season 1
Season 2

Air Date

October 3, 1955

Episodes

39 episodes

Highway Patrol

Season 1

Episodes

1. Prison Break / Road Block

October 3, 1955
28 min

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.

2. Machine Story Copter / Machine Napping Copter

October 10, 1955
28 min

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.

3. Reckless Driving

October 17, 1955
28 min

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.

4. Lookout

October 24, 1955
28 min

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.

5. Gambling

October 31, 1955
28 min

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

6. Hitchhiker

November 7, 1955
28 min

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.

7. Desert Town

November 14, 1955
28 min

8. Radioactive

November 21, 1955
28 min

9. Reformed Criminal

28 min

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

10. Father Thief

28 min

11. Retired Gangster

28 min

12. Phony Insurance

28 min

13. Escort

28 min

14. Resort

28 min

15. Girl Bandit

28 min

16. Mountain Copter

28 min

17. Lie Detector

28 min

18. Scared Cop

28 min

19. Harbor Story

28 min

20. Hit And Run

28 min

21. Car Theft

February 20, 1956
28 min

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

22. Human Bomb

28 min

23. Plane Crash

28 min

24. Desert Copter

28 min

25. Plant Robbery

28 min

26. Released Convict

28 min

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

Motorcycle A

27. Motorcycle A

April 2, 1956
28 min

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!

28. Mental Patient

28 min

29. License Plates

April 16, 1956
28 min

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

30. Hitchhiker Dies

28 min

31. Blast Area Copter

28 min

32. Anti-toxin

28 min

33. Dead Patrolman

May 14, 1956
28 min

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

34. Art Robbery

May 21, 1956
28 min

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.

35. Runaway Boy

28 min

36. Taxi

28 min

37. Missing Witness

28 min

38. Prospector

June 18, 1956
28 min

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

39. Christmas Story

28 min