The Worst Episodes of Highway Patrol
Every episode of Highway Patrol ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Highway Patrol!
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.
Lowest Rated Episodes Summary
The worst episode of "Highway Patrol" is "Stolen Plane Copter", rated 7/10 from 71 user votes. It was directed by N/A and written by N/A. "Stolen Plane Copter" aired on 5/6/1957 and is rated 0.3 point(s) lower than the second lowest rated, "Dead Hunter".
7.0/10 71 votes#1 - Stolen Plane Copter
Season 2 Episode 31 - Aired 5/6/1957
Two convicts steal an airplane to escape from prison.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.3/10 75 votes
#2 - Dead Hunter
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/10/1957
Mathews investigates a businessman's accidental death. Mathews: Broderick Crawford. Foster: Joe Haworth. Tom: Pierre Watkins.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 108 votes
#3 - Reckless Driving
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/17/1955
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.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 95 votes
#4 - Lookout
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/24/1955
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.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 75 votes
#5 - Prospector
Season 1 Episode 38 - Aired 6/18/1956
A poor prospector arouses suspicion when he suddenly begins paying off long-standing debts from a large roll of new $100 bills.
Director: Lew Landers
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/10 79 votes
#6 - Art Robbery
Season 1 Episode 34 - Aired 5/21/1956
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.
Director: Don Brinkley
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/10 78 votes
#7 - Ranch Copter
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 1/21/1957
A woman suspects her husband is trying to kill her. Iris: Virginia Dale. George: Douglas Henderson. Mathews: Broderick Crawford. Ted: Robert Cavendish.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 101 votes
#8 - Gambling
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 10/31/1955
Dan Mathews and his officers assist a county sheriff in closing down a club that offers illicit gambling.
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 108 votes
#9 - Radioactive
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 11/21/1955
No description available
Director: Paul Guilfoyle
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 78 votes
#10 - Oil Lease
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 10/1/1956
An Army bazooka is stolen by two men who use it to capture the payroll from an oil drilling company.
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 70 votes
#11 - Psycho Killer
Season 3 Episode 30 - Aired 4/28/1958
A mentally disturbed man murders women who seek husbands through "Lonely Hearts" clubs.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 151 votes
#12 - Prison Break / Road Block
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/3/1955
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.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 107 votes
#13 - Machine Story Copter / Machine Napping Copter
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/10/1955
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.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 74 votes
#14 - Reformation
Season 2 Episode 30 - Aired 4/29/1957
An ex-con wants to return money stolen in an armed robbery, but his erstwhile partner has other ideas.
Director: George Blair
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 74 votes
#15 - Witness Wife
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 12/3/1957
Mathews tries flushing out two gunmen who are holding a farmer and his wife hostage. Mathews: Broderick Crawford. Ruttman: Tom Holland. Collins: Robert Swan. Martin: Ted Lehman. Jane: Gail Gregg.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/10 103 votes
#16 - Hitchhiker
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/7/1955
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.
Director: Lew Landers
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/10 86 votes
#17 - Car Theft
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 2/20/1956
Car thieves purchase wrecked vehicles and transfer the VIN plates to stolen ones in order to escape detection.
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/10 87 votes
#18 - Dead Patrolman
Season 1 Episode 33 - Aired 5/14/1956
A Highway Patrol officer is murdered while pursuing a car stolen from a lonely bookstore owner.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/10 80 votes
#19 - Statute of Limitations
Season 2 Episode 18 - Aired 2/4/1957
Mathews tries to prove the guilt of three holdup men---before the statute of limitations runs out. Mathews: Broderick Crawford. Eddie: Bing Russell. Wyatt: Mike Regan.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/10 121 votes
#20 - Desert Town
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 11/14/1955
No description available
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/10 182 votes#21 - Motorcycle A
Season 1 Episode 27 - Aired 4/2/1956
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!
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/10 73 votes
#22 - Fake Cop
Season 2 Episode 34 - Aired 5/27/1957
One member of a three-person holdup team impersonates a Highway Patrol officer in order to deceive robbery victims into thinking that they need not notify the Patrol themselves.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/10 99 votes
#23 - License Plates
Season 1 Episode 29 - Aired 4/16/1956
An alert boy is able to give Dan Mathews information that provides a critical break in the pursuit of a recidivist thief.
Director: Paul Guilfoyle
Writer: N/A