Authentic Automotive Sounds on 1950s TV: "Highway Patrol"

Hi folks -- following Ed's suggestion, I started watching episodes of "Highway Patrol" on Youtube. I watched this show when I was a child, but don't remember if I was a faithful viewer or just saw it occasionally. The music on this series is rather ominous, and Broderick Crawford's  brusque nature surely instilled a deep respect for authority. 

What Ed recently pointed out to me about this show is the excellent sound reproduction employed in terms of the automobiles featured.  Machine sounds, was a topic I previously covered in a study on Riverside Records and race car and sports car engines. Watch a few episodes and just listen! Note how these 1957 autos sway in every turn!

From Ed:

One of the things about most of the early TV that featured automobiles is that one rarely heard authentic car sounds over and beyond the roar of an engine.  But the producer of "Highway Patrol" captured the authentic sounds of cars of that era.

If one watches enough episodes you hear:

1. The" tinny" sound when car doors of that period are closed or slammed. Sometimes you can hear the doors rattle.  Just proves how today's car doors are precise, well insulated, and close like a bank vault.  

2. When doors are opened, in many episodes, one can hear the sound that the door handle makes -- much different sound than with today's cars.

3. Trunk lids slammed closed -- the way they sounded in cars of the late 50s and early 60s.

4. Crawford and other drivers in the series typically always come to a rapid stop or get-away, squealing the tires or, with stops, one can hear authentic brake squeaks.  

5. Starters grinding, sometimes for five seconds or more -- typical of many cars of the era, over against today's cars with electronics, almost an instant startup. 

6. In some episodes one can hear the whine of loose fan belts.. 

7. While not a sound, all of the cars seen in the series bounce all over the road when driven hard due to soft suspension systems of the era.  Easy to forget how poorly handling those cars were at speed and in curves prior to the acceptance of the taut "European feel" cars that came later.

8. Related, in many of the episodes when Broderick Crawford (a huge overweight man) gets in the driver's seat, his Buick seems to lean to the side a bit, also typical of cars of the era when a heavy-set person was driving.  In fact, steering often had to be compensated for a very heavy driver.  Today's suspensions are calibrated for some degree of load-leveling.

More from Ed on "Highway Patrol's" Hypocrisy -- 

On Broadrick Crawford's alcoholism:  There is one episode of "Highway Patrol" titled "Stolen Car Ring" where it's clear he has a broken nose that's still healing from an incident where, drunk while on set, he fell out of his Buick during the filming of a prior episode.  And in another episode it's clear that makeup has been applied to his forehead and cheeks to cover up bruises from another drunken fall while on set.   Of course, each episode ended with Crawford providing a 30 second "morality play" where he rails against drunk driving, speeding, and other highway safety concerns.

"Crawford's heavy drinking increased during the filming of Highway Patrol, eventually resulting in several arrests and stops for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), which eventually gained him a suspended driving license. While representing the California Highway Patrol as "Chief Mathews", 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 bitch away from a bottle. I think his license was suspended. Some scenes had to be shot on private roads so that he could drive." Eventually the drinking strained the show's relationship with the CHP as well as Crawford's relationship with ZIV." [the show's production company].