Radioactive

Episode aired Nov 21, 1955
TV-PG
26m

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

111

YOUR RATING

Broderick Crawford and Cyril Delevanti in Highway Patrol (1955)

Action Crime Drama

Dan Mathews and his officers race against time to find a stolen oil indicator device that contains potentially lethal radioactive pellets.Dan Mathews and his officers race against time to find a stolen oil indicator device that contains potentially lethal radioactive pellets.Dan Mathews and his officers race against time to find a stolen oil indicator device that contains potentially lethal radioactive pellets.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

111

YOUR RATING

4User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
The call sign used in this episode, "QTQRT2," is not now, nor has it ever been, a legal call sign. All amateur radio call signs in the United States begin with the letter A, K, N or W.

Goofs
Despite the massive radio publicity of the case and the public assistance sought by the Highway Patrol, as well as the handling of the radioactive pellets by a pregnant woman, Mathews and Hoyt don't ask the woman and her husband a single question about their identities, how they'd acquired the pellets, or who else might have handled them. In real life, an exhaustive trace investigation would have been conducted, and the pregnant woman would have been medically checked for any after-effects of radioactive exposure.

Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: The Highway Patrol is engaged in many ordinary activities. Apprehending criminals is not ordinary, and is occasionally given increased urgency by the nature of the crime involved. On the morning of October third, Herb Williams, a sneak thief, stole an expensive radioactive oil indicator. The Highway Patrol swung into action to save Williams and any innocent victims from the danger of exposure to the radioactive mechanism.

User reviews4

Featured review

8/10

Very suspenseful episode

I found this to be a very tense and even scary episode, perhaps because I grew up in the 1950s and everybody was fearful of atomic explosions. I still remember the civil defense shelters and the drills we had to go through, including crouching under one's desk at school as though that was any protection against a nuclear explosion. But to see the radioactive container pass from person to person, all the time hoping they wouldn't try to open it, made this a swift moving episode. The tracing of the container involved both luck and cop smarts. The ham operating business was interesting - it was a very popular hobby back then. I wonder if that is still so. Remember until next time: "It isn't what you drive but how you drive."