Highway Patrol (TV Series) Credit Card (1958) User Reviews

Highway Patrol - Credit Card

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 18 February 2015]

This is one of those episodes of Highway Patrol that doesn't emphasize the item and reason behind the theft or crime (this case credit cards from kind motorists who offer one of the crooks a ride while his accomplice awaits them at a distance to steal from them) as much as the pursuit and capture of criminals. Instead the focus detours to a stubborn gas station owner/attendant who doesn't heed the advice of Highway Patrol warnings of not trying to apprehend these two crooks on your own (when they pass they are to instead phone the police when they encounter the criminals), pulling a gun on one of the thieves while his partner (hiding in a paneled truck out of plain sight) shoots him in the back for his attempted heroism. Of course the attendant's wife is coming out of hysterics because despite her pleas for him to leave the gun in the house living room drawer, he insists on taking it "for protection." Meanwhile the Highway Patrol (led by Broderick Crawford's Dan Matthews) work from different locations (at headquarters, cars stationed at pinpoints where the latest hold up and theft took place, at the home of the gas station attendant (badly wounded but surviving) and his wife, etc.) hoping to get a position on where the remaining criminal at large might be passing through. Matthews doesn't mince words but is of few. He does agree with the attendant's wife that her husband shouldn't have gotten involved, but he knows she is a wreck and holds his tongue. The frustrating part of the job as seen in this episode is what neither the attendant nor wife was able to get in details/description to assist in the apprehension of the crook on the lam. Conclusion has Matthews and a HP officer having to outwit their criminal who is packing a high powered rifle from the car of a hunter he steals (he pops that hunter across the noggin pretty good, too!) in the woods in rural California. Not a bad episode at all, the plot is very, very simple, but there's a message here about trying to do the job of the trained police, not prepared to face the consequences of playing hero. The criminals in this episode aren't as developed as typical of the show which likes to give them as much time as the cops…pretty nondescript, colorless thieves who steal credit cards and use them to buy things they need. The crime of the episode that sets everything off starts as if the two are going to take a woman driver into the woods for something quite sinister, but thankfully they just tie her up, taking her car and credit card.

It's All About the Cars

[williammaceri · 10/10 · 16 February 2024]

Back in the 60s when I was just a kid, I was a total American cars Gearhead so naturally I loved the Highway Patrol series because the show did a great job of featuring the great American cars. Another reason I like the show is because it was filmed in the greater Los Angeles area including the San Fernando Valley which is where I live. It's fun to recognize landmarks to see how they looked then as compared to now. Most of the area was undeveloped, so it's fun to see how they used to look. Also since I grew up in the area I do remember a lot of the shooting locations. But I love the cars. I also love that the cars are all my American favorites. They featured a lot of mid-50s Fords, Mercurys, Plymouths, Dodges and a few Oldsmobiles and Buicks. They were all such magnificent machines. They use a lot of Ford Country Sedan wagons, especially from the 57 model year. Many of the Patrol cars were Mercurys and 58 Buicks. These are all huge cars and they of course used them like we use small cars today. Good old Dan Mathews was pretty hard to take. He would talk really, really fast and he would really put his foot into those cars as he was speeding after some crook. Between the cars and the scenery, I love the show, even with the obnoxious Dan Mathews. It's filled in black and white so we don't get to see the 50s car colors. In tonight's episode, the crooks steal a 1958 Plymouth Belvedere 4 door sedan, and one victim drove a 57 Ford County Sedan. It's a two-tone, I'm guessing tan and white, and they mention the Belvedere was light green, but we can't tell. The show brings back some great memories of living in the San Fernando Valley. Tonight's episode was filmed around Chevez Rivene, which home to Dodger Statium today. I remember going on drives with mom and dad in that area when we just had Sepulveda Blvd that ran through the Santa Monica Mountains. I remember one Sunday drive we ended up on the Mulholland drive Interstate 405 bridge but the 405 was just a wide dirt graded, flat area, which was the way it looked as they were grading the 405 before paving. As I grew up I spent most of my life sitting in 405 traffic commuting back and forth to work. The show is very well done, by the way, did I mention it's all about the cars? L Iol.