bkoganbing 20 years before Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox started issuing tickets to motorists on California's highways, we had the Highway Patrol series that starred Broderick Crawford for four years. His role of Inspector Dan Matthews became one of two signature roles for him, the other is his Oscar winner from the big screen Willie Stark in All The King's Men.This man was a criminal investigator and he commanded searches for criminals on California's highways. Be it looking for a radioactive part or a fleeing fugitive Matthews was out on the job directing the CHIPS officers in whatever case he was assigned.Crawford's style was no nonsense, a lot like Jack Webb without the staccato speech pattern. The half hour stories were mini- documentaries unto themselves. And in those more innocent days, Crawford always nailed his quarry.I'm surprised no one ever revived this on the big or small screen.

mschuetz2 I was a viewer of this show when it originally aired. Now it's one of the few shows I record to view on Time Warner Cable.It shows small town 50's USA with it's shops, businesses, cafes, motels and back roads in CA.I am amused by the "machine gun fire" speaking by Broderick Crawford even when giving orders to subordinates, I have never heard one of them ask of him "Would you repeat that, and speak a little slower and a bit more succinctly?" It also is an amazing look into the social fiber of America at that time, it showed an angry Korean Veteran that couldn't find a job using his faked knowledge of bazookas to help do robberies, innocent vacationing honeymooners being kidnapped as well as interesting dialogue.Do you wonder if American TV today is showing a positive or repulsive, ugly America to the rest of the world? Should it matter?

telegonus Nearly everyone who grew up watching Highway Patrol remembers its opening stentorian narration, "Whenever the laws of any state are broken a duly authorized law enforcement agency swings into action...". Fifty years ago this show was everywhere on the small screen, and it remained a favorite in syndication for many years to come.It's easy to see why. Academy Award winner Broderick Crawford brings his charisma along as chief Dan Mathews, and he appears in every episode. However the semi-doc style of the series emphasizes the story, not the star, thus the focus is seldom on Crawford himself. As Crawford was overweight, drinking heavily at the time, and, to the perceptive viewer, an east coast big city fish out of water in the then still heavily rural California of the 1950s, this is just as well. On the plus side, Crawford was, for reasons I still can't fathom, a riveting performer even when he was doing very little. With a lesser player, this still would have been an excellent show, but it's Crawford's brusque, ineffable authority that puts it over.The episodes themselves are, from what I've seen of them lately, uniformly good, and some are better than that. Wisely, the producers chose to shake things up a good deal, thus some shows focus on cold-blooded criminals, others on lost children, some deal with cops in trouble, and there are those that feature amateur or accidental criminals, decent people who have, for various reasons, got in over their heads. Producer Fred Ziv filmed this one on the cheap, as was his custom, and he made a fortune from it. The series channels the style of the semi-documentary films Louis de Rochemont made in the late 40s,--House On 92nd Street, Boomerang!, Street With No Name--while the late Art Gilmore's opening and closing narration at times gives the show the feel of old-time radio. Crawford's closing remarks, as himself, not Dan Mathews, are priceless, the most famous one being "leave your blood at the Red Cross, not on the highway".

pozy I remember watching reruns of Highway Patrol with my mother back in 1973 that aired from Philadelphia, PA on a syndicated station at 9:00 every morning. I loved seeing Broderick Crawford (who was from Philadelphia) and his gravely voice and those lovely jet black patrol cars, in glorious black and white. Right after this show was over we switched the channel to the Senate Watergate hearings which were fascinating, to say the least.