I just bought the complete season 3 of this legendary program of the nineteen fifties. 39 episodes, can you believe that? Not like today! Anyone, in one of them, there is a car chase through a railway yard and it has trolley wire! I can't make out the electric loco sitting on the track but on an adjacent track is what looks like an SW-1. My question is, was there an electric freight railroad in Southern California back then, or would it be a service yard for the Pacific Electric?
If you edited out the superfluous scenes showing Chief Mathews getting in and out of a squad car, you would have 37 episodes. Hopefully, no car had a tail fin touch the trolley wire during filming.
PE did lease from SP a variety of diesels (and in a earlier era, steam) equipped with poles to activate signals and grade crossing circuits so this was a common sight as electric freight operations waned in the fifties, to my eye, most of these episodes appear to have been filmed in the then undeveloped San Fernando Valley, yet PE had virtually ceased operations with the exception of a isolated section, so what's that leave? Burbank, a remote possibilty, or it could be Dominguez Yard which was rural at the time and was one location that employed diesel/electric operations.
Dave
Thanks for that. It is interesting viewing, dusty orange groves, roadside diners, oil fields. No freeways. I imagine we're seeing what the Joads would have seen when they came to pick peaches. Now, where's that roadside restaurant where Lana Turner worked?
Yeah, and if they took out all the scenes of fat old Buicks backing up, they'd be down to about 33 episodes!
You will find at least two episodes have SP passenger trains in them. The filming of the series was pre interstate highways. Most of the filming was done in Southern California.
Most of the filming was done in the then still rural San Fernando and Simi Valley, also Griffith Park / Bronson Canyon area. Alot of rail activity was still prevalent in those valley locations in those days.
And if you cut out all the scenes of Crawford chewing into the radio "21-50 to HQ" you'd be down to 32 episodes
Have fun with your trains
There was one episode where the bad guy gets off an SP train that about 6 baggage cars. Yes, and if you take away all the scenes where he puts on his fedora and barks, "Lets go!" You'd be down to maybe 29 episodes.
I recall a movie where a man gets off a train in a dusty California town. He goes into the first record shop he sees and asks for a copy of the song, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." He had no luck. Every other record shop he visited did not have a copy. No one would talk to him about it. He got back aboard the train and realized, there truly was a town without Pitney.
If I remember right, I used to wonder how he got his tires to squeal on gravel roads.
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"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Well, it does pre-date radial tires. When I look at cars like the Mercury used in the series, I wonder what they were thinking in Detroit back then. Hideous!
You know, if they took out all the scenes where ol' Broderick says "10-4" you'd be down to 30 episodes!
"Whenever the laws of any state are broken..."
That same episode that had the SP local that stopped had a similar Santa Fe local behind steam and an SP streamliner pass through scenes, all supposedly the same train. What's real interesting is how the featured cars stay the same in each episode.
Remember, it's not what you drive, it's how you drive.
There's the same 57 Ford 4-door used in a lot of episodes, sometimes driven by the cops, sometimes by the bad guys, sometimes by an innocent user of the highways. Same license number, too.
Highway Patrol was filmed when radio was coming into wide use by railroads. When trains are shown, is there any indication the trains are equipped with radios? If Chief Mathew's car radio ever died, could he organize a line of patrolmen to rely hand signals back to headquarters?
Broderick Crawford's performance as the blustering Governor Stark, a character based on Huey Long,, won him the Oscar for Best Actor in All the King's Men, in 1949. Crawford struggled with alcoholism most of his life. Once he appeared on SNL as Chief Matthews in a satirical sketch.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
According to IMDB, he had a hard time keeping a drivers license due to his drinking and they would often film on private roads since he wasn't allowed on public highways.
Acccording to Wiki, the following anecdotes: " Crawford was known with considerable embarrassment by the CHP as "Old 502" due to his habit of driving under the influence of alcohol ("Code 502" was the CHP police radio code for drunken driving). According to the show's creator, Guy Daniels, "We got all the dialogue in by noon, or else we wouldn't get it done at all. He [Crawford] would bribe people to bring him booze on the set." The show used their CHP technical advisor, Officer Frank Runyon, to keep the actor sober: "I was told to keep that son of a female dog away from a bottle. I think his license was suspended. Some scenes had to be shot on private roads so that Brod could drive." Eventually the drinking strained the show's relationship with the CHP as well as Crawford's relationship with ZIV.
I watched this show on This TV a few years ago. Fell in love with Sea Hunt, Combat, and rewatched the Patty Duke Show for the first time in years but Highway Patrol sadly didn't do much for me.
Nice to see the ZIV catalog getting some attention on retro tv stations and DVD in the past few years (They did Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, and several other tv series in the late 50's and early 60's). Need to track down a DVD set of Harbor Command soon. Was about the Coast Guard and I've never seen an episode of it.
Another thing I found interesting about HP- in one episode, a crop duster pilot picks up several bags of DDT and later on the chief cuts one open, dust is flying everywhere. Nasty!
On the show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" I recall seeing a very old Claude Rains and very young Robert Redford and Peter Fonda. On "Naked City" I've seen a young Robert Duvall, Eli Wallach and Peter Falk. On HP, the bad guys have all been played so far by a bunch of bindlestiffs that I've never heard of until last night there was an episode with a very young Leonard Nimoy! It involved some kind of radioactive powder in a leaking drum. He gets it on his hands, then wipes his hands on his pants. Not logical! No wonder he grew those ears that led him to being cast in Star Trek!
"Harbor Command?" I've never heard of it!
Highway Patrol and all the rest, how often when the writer called for a train to be seen did they simply splice in some stock footage. The sound man could get wrong as well. The name of the late 1960's show I do not remember. Of course, Southern California was the location.
I do remember a scene beside a railroad yard. No locomotives were shown. Beside a box car advertising Hydra-Cushion was a '68 Dodge squad car. Behind the dialouge could be heard the sound of a steam locomotive starting to move.
schlimm Once he appeared on SNL as Chief Matthews in a satirical sketch.
Once he appeared on SNL as Chief Matthews in a satirical sketch.
54light15On HP, the bad guys have all been played so far by a bunch of bindlestiffs that I've never heard of until last night there was an episode with a very young Leonard Nimoy!
Well, what do you know...
watch?v=2F7Ib0S COM
watch?v=kXvDNQEgKyE
Nope, that wasn't the one I saw with Spock. It was called "Hot Dust."
"Clowns in the circus are funny, but on the highway, they're murder!"
54light15 ,,, that wasn't the one I saw with Spock. It was called "Hot Dust."
This isn't the best rendition in the world, and it's missing the beginning, but it captures the flavor...
watch?v=r8WC24u93Wk
High camp!! great stuff. Thx
Overmod, that is the one! One I saw last night, "Revenge," there's scenes at a railroad station, everyone waiting for the ex-con who was away for five years. First, a steam locomotive passes pulling a bunch of box cars and baggage cars and one lone coach. Couldn't make out the wheel arrangement, but it's number was 3735. Then, a passenger train goes by pulled by an Alco PA! The bad guy wasn't on either train. He got off at a different station from another train with lots of baggage and box cars and one coach only this was pulled by an F7 or F3. ( I think, anyway, the A & B units each had 3 portholes down their sides.) Good stuff!
54light15 I recall a movie where a man gets off a train in a dusty California town. He goes into the first record shop he sees and asks for a copy of the song, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." He had no luck. Every other record shop he visited did not have a copy. No one would talk to him about it. He got back aboard the train and realized, there truly was a town without Pitney.
Unpunished as well.
Gene! What a pitney you guys have to stoop so low.
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henry6 Gene! What a pitney you guys have to stoop so low.
Just as I was starting to get my appetite back...
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