We are re-watching a favorite series of mine from my childhood, Highway Patrol. It's a Saturday and Sunday thing for us now. Yesterday it was Episode 156 and today it is Ep 1. According to something I found elsewhere, "Prison Escape" was filmed April 11-13, 1956. So, 61 years ago tomorrow the program commenced.
My favorite thing about the show is the look at Southern California and American cars in the late 1950s. I also enjoy seeing actors whose careers were very young at the time. It is a program I actually pay attention to.
In this premier, the thing that really struck me was the use of close-ups. That technique is the bread-and-butter of today's crime shows (which I do not watch, in part because of the overuse of close-ups) but it seemed unusual to me. I will have to take note as we work our way through the DVD set again and see when the close-ups stopped.
Here we have Dan Mathews and his dispatcher. The actress is Diane Brewster, who later appeared as Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver. The actor, of course, is Brod Crawford.
It wasn't just the big shot who got a close-up. Here is actor Charles Seel, the driver of the school bus that got commandeered by the prison escapee.
And here is a member of the Patrol. There were a lot in this episode and I don't know the actor's name. Maybe Paul Hahn, as Officer Brown. He had a big part in the episode.
The thought unfortunately occurred to me that if this scenario were on TV today, things would play out differently. But in this case, he pistol-whipped the elderly driver, who fell out of the bus. The kids were told to get off the bus and render aid to him. And the escapee drove off in the bus to his scheduled rendezvous with a compadre.
I love the location shooting. This is what I like to see!
My favorite thing about the show is the look at Southern California and American cars in the late 1950s. I also enjoy seeing actors whose careers were very young at the time. It is a program I actually pay attention to.
In this premier, the thing that really struck me was the use of close-ups. That technique is the bread-and-butter of today's crime shows (which I do not watch, in part because of the overuse of close-ups) but it seemed unusual to me. I will have to take note as we work our way through the DVD set again and see when the close-ups stopped.
Here we have Dan Mathews and his dispatcher. The actress is Diane Brewster, who later appeared as Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver. The actor, of course, is Brod Crawford.
There was even a close-up shot of two crooks' feet and another one of a pistol. So the director was having some fun. I especially liked this. The escapee asks the schoolchildren who were headed home on the bus to come and help him. The criminal is actor Robert Forrest (later known as Robert Stevenson). He was a member of the Los Angeles City Council at the time of his death in 1975.
I love the location shooting. This is what I like to see!
