Mother's March

Highway Patrol has a knack for spotlighting the most stupid of criminals, such as this case. This guy did all he could to drop clues pointing to himself as the robber, when in actuality, it could have been the perfect crime. First, he used a mask made from material taken from the shop where he worked. This would implicate everyone at that shop, which wouldn't take long to eliminate the innocent. Second, he doesn't provide any vehicle to drive after the robbery - he has to steal the victim's car, and then drive it to a motorcycle, which he hid miles away. (How did he get from the hidden motorcycle to the beauty shop in the first place?) Third, after he had gotten clean away with the loot, for some reason known only to him, he returns to the beauty shop, breaks into the shop, (with an absurd excuse to "plant" some of the stolen money to implicate the shop owner), and then immediately gets caught red handed by the shop owner. Duh. Fourth, as usual, the chase action takes place on seemingly abandoned dirt back roads with no other vehicles in sight. And, of course, they set up a road block quickly and exactly where the thief shows up on his motorcycle - and he makes a U turn right in front of the HP (that's not suspicious, of course), and then is quickly blocked in and apprehended. Finally, I liked the nice touch at the end of the episode where the lady is picking up all the spilled currency/bills (coins too, don't forget) and determines that after she collects it all from the ground, she is $30 short. Even with these silly plot lines, I still enjoy HP as an historical window into the past to see how 1950s shows were put together.

Plot-- Respectable neighborhood mothers go door-to-door collecting donations for hospital improvements. But once the aggregate amount is collected, a masked robber steals the money before it's taken to the bank. But where did he get his inside info. Now it looks like an inside job, but which of the mothers is guilty of tipping him off.

The series strengths are mostly in evidence—brisk pacing, location photography, ordinary looking people. Trouble is the shoot-outs are poorly staged. For example, a shot is fired into a door that leaves no mark! Then too, the fusillade between Patrol and robber again show no effects. Come on series producers, how much does it cost for exploding caps in the woodwork, the way it's usually done. Then too, there's the roadblock on a deserted dirt road with no backstory for why it's in such an isolated spot (Did I maybe miss something). All in all, the half-hour is definitely not among the series best.