Highway Patrol Season 1, Episode 26: Released Convict

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.

28 min

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.

28 min

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.

28 min

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.

28 min

Gambling

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

28 min

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.

28 min

Desert Town

28 min

Radioactive

28 min

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.

28 min

Father Thief

28 min

Retired Gangster

28 min

Phony Insurance

28 min

Escort

28 min

Resort

28 min

Girl Bandit

28 min

Mountain Copter

28 min

Lie Detector

28 min

Scared Cop

28 min

Harbor Story

28 min

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.

28 min

Car Theft

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

28 min

Human Bomb

28 min

Plane Crash

28 min

Desert Copter

28 min

Plant Robbery

28 min

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!

28 min

Mental Patient

28 min

License Plates

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

28 min

Hitchhiker Dies

28 min

Blast Area Copter

28 min

Anti-toxin

28 min

Dead Patrolman

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

28 min

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.

28 min

Runaway Boy

28 min

Taxi

28 min

Missing Witness

28 min

Prospector

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

28 min

Christmas Story

28 min