Tag: Columbo

Columbo: By Dawn’s Early Light (TV)

September 17, 2022

Season Four, Episode Three
Preceded by Negative Reaction
Followed by Playback

Originally broadcast October 27, 1974

Written by Howard Berk
Directed by Harvey Hart

Plot Summary

Colonel Rumford is the commandant of a military academy that is struggling to maintain enrollment as fewer young men consider a career in the military. When the chairman informs him that he will push ahead with his plan to make the school into a co-educational university and dismiss him, Rumford kills him, making the death appear to be a tragic accident. Unfortunately for Rumford, he didn’t anticipate Lt. Columbo investigating the case…

My Thoughts

The Prisoner is one of my favorite television shows of all time and it has been one I have often revisited over the years. I hugely enjoy McGoohan’s intensity and charisma in the lead role of Number Six – a former spy who finds himself in a strange village where an antagonist, Number Two, plays games with him to try to learn his secrets. It was a format that really suited McGoohan’s abilities as an actor, typically pitting him one-on-one for intense interactions with other charismatic actors as they each try to break the other’s will.

While Rumford’s status as a killer leads to us wanting him to fail rather than triumph, that intense battle of wills is very much a part of this Columbo story, making McGoohan ideal casting for the part. This would be recognized after the fact with McGoohan picking up an Emmy for his performance. Perhaps the bigger sign of his success though is that he would return several times over the years that followed, not only contributing to the show as an actor and winning another Emmy but also as a writer and director.

It’s curious to think though that this episode could have turned out quite differently. According to Shooting Columbo, the original actor cast to play the role of Colonel Rumford was Ed Asner who dropped out after Peter Falk’s contract dispute led to delays in shooting. While Asner was certainly a fantastic performer, I find it hard to imagine anyone playing the part quite as well as McGoohan – an actor every bit as unpredictable and fascinating as Falk himself.

There’s lots to love about the interactions between these two intense performers. McGoohan’s role requires him at times to act with great force and show his anger but he balances these beautifully with moments in which he tries to ingratiate, placate and gently lead Columbo to the positions he hopes he will take. Those moments could easily have been played with high energy to draw your attention to them but instead McGoohan underplays them, allowing us to see him think and similarly observe how Falk is responding. At other points Falk takes the lead, encouraging us to wonder what lies beneath his questions but also how his counterpart is responding.

The relationship reminded me a little of a waltz with both characters trying to lead while also retaining their sense of grace and poise. McGoohan’s Rumford could so easily have gone into a hammy, over-the-top militarism – and he certainly has moments where we see flashes of that – but he also plays with subtext, allowing us into his character’s head and, in the process, rendering him as a significantly more complex and interesting individual than I think he would have been based on the script alone.

Falk seems to be noticeably engaged with this script and performance turning in an equally restrained and dry performance of his own. There are moments of comedy – hand Falk a map or a couple of bread rolls and he will inevitably make something amusing happen but while those moments can be pretty funny, they feel noticeably scaled back. My feeling is that Falk would often add to the comedic business of an episode when he wasn’t sure if it was working – here he seems to trust that the material will work. Which it does.

One of the ideas I like most about this episode is Columbo’s decision to place himself in the barracks, spontaneously deciding to stay on site. This not only allows the production to make the most of the setting, the striking Citadel campus in Charleston, South Carolina, but it also provides some entertaining moments as a disheveled Columbo is startled awake by the reveille or trying to borrow socks off some of the residents.

I think it also allows us to see a slightly different Columbo than we often see in these episodes as he is so clearly out of his element and comfort zone. This exposure to new pressures provides an opportunity to see some newer sides to this character even after four seasons. On a similar note, I also really enjoyed the character’s interactions with his very frustrated subordinates who clearly are used to the detective’s chaotic methods and just want to go home – we so often focus on Columbo working a case alone that it’s always interesting to get these little moments that give insight into how he is viewed by his colleagues.

In terms of the scripting, I think that the episode is surprisingly tight for a ninety minute story with little sense of any extraneous materiale. While I know from reading David Koenig’s book that a scene was added at McGoohan’s request, I was struck by how integrated it feels to the rest of the production. While it doesn’t necessarily advance the plot much, it does enrich the characters and give us a better understanding both of their dynamic and also some of the workings of the academy itself.

My only qualms about the plot are that I feel that the Colonel doesn’t really have a solid endgame in committing the murder. While I admire the way he anticipates and controls the scene in the lead up to the ‘accident’, I feel there are legitimate questions to be asked about just how things would have unfolded had Columbo never been assigned the case. Would the school have survived with its significantly declining enrollment? Would no one on the board have been aware of what the victim, Haynes, had in mind for the school? What would he have done if Haynes had not responded to his manipulations prior to the murder?

While I think you can ask some questions of the episode’s premise, I do really appreciate the slow build-up to the end. This is not the type of story that has a gotcha moment or some dramatic trick or reveal but rather it is much more like Columbo is operating a slowly tightening noose working its way the killer’s neck, leaving him confused and at a loss for how to get out until it is too late and the evidence seems to utterly incriminate him.

This makes for a splendid and compelling conclusion to a really interesting case. McGoohan proves to be inspired casting as the killer and I really enjoyed the rapport the two lead actors share. It is easy to see why the producers would bring him back several times in the years to come – it’s a great performance.

The Verdict: While not the flashiest or starriest of Columbo stories, this is a compelling and entertaining tale featuring a wonderful performance from Patrick McGoohan.

Columbo: Negative Reaction (TV)

September 4, 2022

Season Four, Episode Two
Preceded by An Exercise in Fatality
Followed by By Dawn’s Early Light

Originally broadcast October 15, 1974

Written by Peter S. Fischer
Directed by Alf Kjellin

Plot Summary

Photographer Frank Galesko is tired of Frances, his ‘domineering, nagging, suffocating’ wife and perhaps a little interested in Lorna, his pretty, young assistant. Determined to be rid of her, he stages her kidnapping and ransom with the aid of an associate and kills her, framing the man who unwittingly helped him pull it off. He seems to have crafted an unbreakable alibi for himself. Unfortunately for Frank, he didn’t anticipate Lt. Columbo being assigned the case…

My Thoughts

There are some Columbo killers whose names you see on the titles and think to yourself that they were obviously perfect casting for the killer. People like Donald Pleasance and Leonard Nimoy come to mind. It’s not just that they are good at playing menacing but that you can imagine how the back and forth between them and Falk will likely play out. There is a second type of Columbo killer though that can be equally successful when pulled off – the actor who is cast against type. It is this second type of successful antagonist that we find in Negative Reaction.

As much as I enjoy Dick van Dyke as an entertainer, I didn’t have high expectations when I saw that he was the killer in this episode. I think of van Dyke as a charming, urbane and playful performer and so it was hard to imagine him as ruthless or cruel. My expectation was that the production would use his affability as a way to obscure his character’s nature – leaning into his likeability – but the episode actually goes the other way, emphasizing the character’s cruelty in one of the most brutal and calculating murders seen on the show to date (minus the actual killing of course).

There is a certain shock value to seeing loveable family entertainer Dick van Dyke behaving that way which does help make that opening feel all the more arresting but the performance and the setup doesn’t rely on that. Galesko’s plan itself is interesting, seeing the killer recruit an unwitting accomplice to help him pull off his crime. It’s a fascinating structure that helps to stress just how carefully this character has planned his murder, and it does create one of the more intriguing alibi problems that Columbo has encountered to date.

While the sequence in which Galesko sets up a photograph to suggest a false time of death is presented as a centerpiece, the cleverest aspect of the crime to me was the way he plays the kidnapping angle. This is partly because it does help sell the broader story but it’s also because of the way the scene plays out with the character appearing to try to avoid talking about it. So often in these sorts of stories the killer will draw attention to themselves by trying to force a memory onto someone, perhaps by asking them to look at the time, so it feels quite novel to see it play out the other way here. What’s more, I feel that this scene is built upon some pretty accurate psychology – we do tend to pay more attention to those things we are supposed not to notice.

Galesko’s choice of associate is similarly very clever (and also quite cruel). While I think many would question what they were being asked to do, that character’s situation is such that you can understand why they wouldn’t think too much about it and instead just accept it on face value. Here once again I feel Galesko’s cunning and brutality as a killer is really sold and I felt that this part of the plot is paid off well, even if a key moment of violence doesn’t entirely convince in the portrayal of its consequences (though here, again, I love the way it drives home Galesko’s ruthlessness and dedication to his aims).

So that’s close to full marks to this episode and to van Dyke for its portrayal of the murder scheme. This gets things off to a fine start and sets up an intriguing problem for Columbo to try to work through. Firstly, can he see through Galesko and what he has been willing to do in order to appear to be an innocent victim? Second, how can he break his seemingly tight alibi? Then lastly, how will he prove the photographer masterminded the whole thing?

What intrigues me here is that Galesko once again underplays his hand, avoiding excessive displays of grief and not even doing much to cover up his interest in Lorna. This is perhaps a reflection of the character’s arrogance – he believes his alibi is so strong that he believes he cannot be caught. In any case, it is another instance of how van Dyke plays against expectations to create a character who must rank among the least likeable of the villains the show had created up until this point.

Falk has a very solid episode, getting quite a lot of comical material to work with. Much of this is in the familiar but fertile ground of Columbo being judged by his disheveled appearance – in this case there is a misunderstanding with his vehicle and, later in the episode, confusion at a soup kitchen. None of this is unexpected but Falk’s delivery and reactions are good and while I suspect there is some padding there, both scenes are important enough in other regards to keep that from being too evident and they don’t slow the episode down too much either.

On more original ground, there is an amusing sequence in which Columbo tries to question a witness while driving which works very nicely. It is nice to see the show giving Falk something fresh to play with and the scene is pitched at just about the right length, getting a few goes at the gag before moving on.

Columbo’s investigation is similarly well-pitched, delivering several interesting lines of inquiry and interactions with some colorful characters. What really impresses though is that this is one of the strongest cases that our hero has built up against a suspect up to this point in the series. Over the course of the episode we see him pick up on small tells, none of them significant enough in their own right to prove anything but which taken together put him on the right track.

Some of those tells are based on observing Galesko’s behavior which, as I noted earlier, is hardly that of the grieving husband but Columbo is also responsible for generating some of those moments. One of the more memorable examples of this comes with his behavior at the funeral but there are plenty of other examples as well.

All of this builds to a very clever example of a gotcha moment – perhaps the show’s best one since Suitable for Framing. It involves a piece of trickery which I usually don’t love but here the trick is a great one, made better by it operating to incriminate his adversary on several levels. After watching van Dyke’s Galesko comfortably wriggle free of each of Columbo’s attempts to snare him throughout the episode, seeing him trapped so conclusively feels devastating and unlikely some other examples, I don’t see how he can ever talk his way out of it in any kind of a convincing way at trial. It’s a very satisfying way to conclude this case.

I may have been a little apprehensive about what I would get when I started this episode but I am happy to say that I felt all of my expectations were exceeded. This is a very solid case with one of the most detestable killers the show had created, brilliantly realized with an unexpected piece of casting. While it is still a little early for me to be thinking about ranking Columbo episodes, I will be surprised if it isn’t at the upper end of my list whenever I make it.

The Verdict: Far better than I had expected. The investigation is interesting and though it is one of the longer episodes, I was surprised when I realized it was one of the longer ones – the time seemed to fly by!

Columbo: An Exercise in Fatality (TV)

August 27, 2022

Season Four, Episode One
Preceded by A Friend in Deed
Followed by Negative Reaction

Originally broadcast September 15, 1974

Teleplay by Peter S. Fischer from a story by Larry Cohen
Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski

Plot Summary

Health club owner Milo Janus has been ripping off his franchisees while bumping up fees and embezzling money with the intention to cut and run. He didn’t anticipate that one of them would catch on and closely scrutinize the books, hoping to report him to the authorities for fraud. Milo decides to murder him before he can prove anything, staging an accident while giving himself a seemingly unbreakable alibi. Unfortunately for Milo, he didn’t anticipate Lt. Columbo being assigned the case…

My Thoughts

An Exercise in Fatality kicks off Columbo‘s shortened fourth season with an engaging case set around a gym franchise. Like many of the more memorable episodes we have seen so far, the idea here is one of contrasts, placing the detective into an environment that he seems ill-suited to. With his fondness for chili, coffee, and smoking cigars, Columbo is anything but a health fanatic which the episode plays with in several comedic scenes. The previous season had briefly played with a similar concept in its season opener, Lovely but Lethal, but the treatment here feels sharper and while there are some weaknesses to address, this is a more successful effort across the board.

One reason that this story works a little better than that previous one is that the killer, Milo Janus, has actually planned their crime rather than acting on the spur on the moment. What we have then isn’t just a cover-up but a clearly premeditated crime with a seemingly unbreakable alibi for Columbo to bust. I’ll address in a moment why that doesn’t work perfectly but it does at least mean that there is more here for our sleuth to piece together, making the detective’s job considerably harder.

Robert Conrad (Wild Wild West) is well cast as that killer who ticks many of the Columbo villain boxes. Instead of class or wealth being the dividing line, Janus’ snobbery is most clearly observed when discussing Columbo’s poor health habits and general appearance. Janus, we are told, is older than Columbo yet looks years younger. His outfits are generally sharp and extremely well-fitted, and the episode delights in pointing out the contrast between the two men – most memorably in a sequence where Columbo tries to keep up with him to ask questions while running on a beach.

Unlike some of the other killers, Janus never really seems to regard Columbo as a threat. He is irritated by his presence, trying to stonewall or exclude him from the business rather than indulging him or trying to lead the investigation. It’s clearly never going to work yet it feels a bit different from the attitudes we’ve seen in cases from the previous season, making this approach feel fresher and distinctive as Columbo is forced to work some slightly different angles to get the information he needs.

What feels particularly new here though is that this is one of the very few cases where we see Columbo voice an anger about the case, bringing it into one of Columbo’s key exchanges with Janus. It feels powerful because it is so unexpected for the character, showing a slightly new side to him while also creating a slightly different dynamic than we have seen before. Typically Columbo gains more and more control over the case as the story goes on – here his outburst threatens to destroy everything he has carefully built up.

Let’s talk unbreakable alibis because I think that this is really the episode’s weakest element. Janus’ plan for the murder requires him to be present so he will not be able to have an alibi for the real time of the murder – instead he has to lead the detectives to think that the crime happened later than it did. The moment we see a certain piece of technology the viewer will guess where things are headed, though the story is somewhat predicated on Janus having a completely unnecessary system in place that he can subsequently exploit. It’s a little contrived but the problem isn’t so much in the concept but that when Columbo finds it there is little excitement or cleverness in how it has been used or how he will prove it. Instead it takes the focus off the slightly more clever observations about some of the other steps in the deception.

The other problem I have with the unbreakable alibi is that the idea Janus has constructed feels so implausible to begin with. One of the key components is that there is some time that has to be accounted for so he makes up a story that is far from convincing and that can be easily checked. While that may not be the point that the episode hinges on, it does make Janus’ plan seem quite sloppy and it keeps this from feeling like a truly ingeniously worked scheme and thus Columbo’s efforts feel a little less impressive as a consequence.

The other problem I have with this episode is that the padding here feels very visible. Some of it, such as the beach run, is amusing enough that it didn’t bother me but there is one lengthy sequence where Columbo goes to get some information from an HR department to help him track down a lead that is dragged out far too long with little comedic payoff. That sequence which comes near the midpoint of the episode just slows everything down, destroying the episode’s momentum which to that point had been quite brisk.

On a more positive note though, while I may not have loved some of the technical elements of the episode, I think the conclusion is powerful and contains a great example of Columbo using his deductive skills to catch Janus in an inconsistency he just cannot explain. It’s not a showy example of the gotcha moment but it feels all the more satisfying for it being one created through the application of logic to the facts of the case, creating a wonderful sense that the killer has unnecessarily trapped themselves with their own cleverness.

It’s a really satisfying moment, in part because I think it is so easy to find ourselves detesting Janus and all he stands for. There is no sense that he is unfortunate or that anything about his situation is unfair and so it is easy to take pleasure in seeing him taken down, particularly given his earlier angry exchange with Columbo.

The Verdict: Some sloppiness with the unbreakable alibi and issues with some very visible padding are a shame because Conrad makes for an excellent Columbo villain.

Columbo: A Friend in Deed (TV)

July 2, 2022

Season Three, Episode Eight
Preceded by Swan Song
Followed by An Exercise in Fatality (Season Four)

Originally broadcast May 5, 1974

Teleplay by Peter S. Fischer
Directed by Ben Gazzara

Plot Summary

When Hugh Caldwell kills his wife in the middle of a fight he turns to his friend Mark for help. That assistance takes the form of giving him an alibi while staging the crime scene to tell a different story – that of a murder by an unknown intruder. What Hugh does not realize however is that Mark’s help will come at a price…

My Thoughts

Columbo‘s third season is, in the opinion of this viewer, a bit of a mixed bag. There were some real highs such as Any Old Port in a Storm or Publish or Perish but it also gave us an episode in Mind over Mayhem which is the story I have enjoyed least so far in the series by quite some way. Perhaps it is fitting then that I found the season finale, A Friend in Deed, to be a similarly inconsistent effort with some moments of pure inspiration but a couple of elements that just didn’t work for me.

The best place to begin with this story is its central concept: the cover-up of a murder by a friend of the killer. When this idea is initially introduced I will admit to thinking it was a bit weak and I struggled to accept that Mark would willingly put their freedom in jeopardy by getting involved in a murder cover-up that didn’t benefit him at all. That is partly explained by the idea referenced by several characters that the victim had tormented Hugh which makes his sympathy understandable but had his actions hinged solely on that empathy I think the episode would have been in a lot of trouble. Fortunately Peter S. Fischer has a much cleverer concept in mind that he presents part way into the episode.

That idea is not wholly original but it works nicely because of a structural choice he makes earlier in the episode. The initial setup is so ordinary and simple that it seems inconceivable that the situation as first presented could sustain a whole ninety-five minutes of drama. In what amounts to a nice piece of misdirection, Fischer knows we will be looking for that extra something and gives it to us before then providing an additional reveal that takes the story in an entirely different direction. What’s more it’s at this point that the relationship between Columbo and our criminal mastermind really comes into focus and the games that are being played become more interesting.

The early reveal relates to an aspect of Mark’s background that will not only drive his conflict with Columbo but also give it a rather unique character. I’ll be discussing that further in my spoiler section below but the short version is that I appreciate the intention and while I have some questions about the consequences of that reveal, I do like that it does make this episode and its villain feel a bit different.

Mark is played by Richard Kiley whose portrayal emphasizes the character’s seedy, entitled side. When we are first introduced to him for instance we see him in a gambling establishment enjoying the company of some women who are not his wife and he gives off a rather nonchalant air. The character’s scheme for orchestrating the cover-up is not particularly complex, nor is it all that audacious. That partly reflects that further reveals are to come at that point in the story but also the character’s supreme confidence in himself. It’s a simple and familiar trick but the execution is solid enough.

There are parts of Kiley’s performance I quite enjoy but I do think one of the weaknesses of the script is how ridiculously over-the-top and villainous he can appear. Moments like his snarling down the phone to Hugh to get him to say a particular phrase necessary for their plan or his introduction in that gambling den seem rather silly and cartoonish. On the other hand, there are some wonderful moments, particularly when he is playing off Columbo, and his performance in the crucial gotchya scene is one of the best so far.

Opposite him, Michael McGuire’s Hugh is understandably a bag of nerves. It is his view we initially get of the crime and we follow him as he approaches Mark for help. Given how tightly wound this character becomes as a consquence of what happens, I was sure that we would witness him disintegrate further under pressure as the story goes on but instead I was surprised at how quickly he drops from the story and how our focus falls almost entirely on Mark.

So, what is Mark’s plan? He plans to suggest that the murder happened as a result of a break-in at Hugh’s home by the Bel-Air Burglar – a character all over the news. Once again, a simple enough idea but it’s a solid enough premise for a cover-up. Unfortunately though this takes us to a dive bar setting that I think misses the mark.

Those scenes are clearly intended to be gritty and realistic from the way they are scripted but I think they are let down by some costuming and tonal choices. One of the most striking things about this episode is that while there are some lines of dialogue that I think feel a little silly and playful, there is less of a focus on the comedy content than in many of the episodes in this season with Columbo himself seeming more restrained.

The exception is the business with Artie and Thelma. These scenes in which the two bicker feel like they are intended to be comical yet I felt they came off as silly, perhaps in part because Thelma’s costume seems ridiculous. This in turn makes it harder to take the pair seriously. Matters are not helped by their dialogue which just didn’t ring true to me. Fortunately while I think the manner of Artie’s introduction is poor, I did like the way he is utilized in some of the later scenes in the episode.

Which brings me to that gotchya moment I referenced before. The goal here is that I like to be surprised and, ideally, when that happens to end up frustrated with myself that I overlooked something obvious. The manner of the conclusion here certainly accomplishes that, giving us one of the show’s best gotchya moments since Suitable for Framing. I enjoyed the brazeness of Columbo’s plan, I appreciate the psychology behind that moment and, most importantly, I think those last few minutes of the episode made for some really gripping TV.

The episode does end on a high then but I am left uncertain as to how I feel about this one overall. On a conceptual level I think this is a very clever story and I think it lands its ending but I don’t think it has a consistent tone with some moments coming off as silly rather than amusing.

The Verdict: I feel that a very clever concept is marred a little by some inconsistency of tone. Throw in an uneven performance from the actor playing the episode’s antagonist and you have a recipe for an episode that, while good, doesn’t entirely deliver on its promise.

Aidan Spoils Everything

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Columbo: Swan Song (TV)

June 18, 2022

Season Three, Episode Seven
Preceded by Mind Over Mayhem
Followed by A Friend in Deed

Originally broadcast March 3, 1974

Teleplay by David Rayfiel from a story by Stanley Ralph Ross
Directed by Nicholas Colasanto

Plot Summary

Gospel singer Tommy Brown is one of the most popular musical artists in America but he is frustrated that he cannot enjoy the benefits of his fame. His wife, Edna, has a hold over him and is keeping him performing for a pittance with a threat of blackmail. Tommy decides to dispose of his wife by staging an elaborate accident but unfortunately for him Lieutenant Columbo is assigned to the case.

Famous Faces

The part of Tommy Brown was written for country music star Johnny Cash (left) who had already been active as a recording artist for close to two decades when this was filmed.

Ida Lupino plays Tommy’s wife, Edna. She had previously appeared in an earlier episode, Short Fuse, and she had starred in the 1939 Basil Rathbone movie The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

My Thoughts

The plot is one of the simpler ones from this season of Columbo. As is often the case with the show, we spend quite a bit of time following the killer as he plans and executes his murder. In this case we watch Johnny Cash’s Tommy as he finishes up a concert and prepares to travel to LA. I think his target will be pretty evident to viewers along with his motive but the question in those early scenes is just how does he plan of disposing of them.

It quickly becomes clear that Tommy is not one of the world’s great thinkers and his plan is somewhat reflective of that. Compared to the other plots from this season, the crime is messy. Most Columbo criminals try to assemble an undetectable crime or an unbreakable alibi – Tommy opts instead to try to mask his crime with its sheer audacity. It makes no sense that anyone would choose the method he uses, therefore the explanation for what happened must surely be something more logical.

Tommy’s plan does rather strain the resources of a network television show in this period – I think particularly of a sequence in which there is an attempt to suggest some movement with camera shaking and lighting that looks a little clumsy and unconvincing. In spite of those faults however I really appreciate how different it feels and I like some of the messiness of the crime.

More than anything though I just like how Tommy feels so different from the blend of technocrats and sneering business types who are the show’s usual picks to be murderers. His artistic temperament and folksiness mean that many of the typical episode beats – the confrontations and the deflections – play a little differently. Tommy is annoyed by the detective’s repeated questions, sure, but he doesn’t think himself above him. Once again it makes for a nice contrast with the more typical villain.

Johnny Cash is interesting casting in this part. We quickly learn that Tommy is a pretty bad guy all round and the part plays so much off aspects of Cash’s own persona that I was a little surprised he was willing to take on the role. Still, there is something authentic and well-observed in the way the character is created and the episode takes full advantage of his musical talents, having him perform at several points.

Falk plays off Cash superbly and I was interested to see the character takes a slightly different, less adversarial take in his line of questioning. The badgering is there, sure, but it gets blamed on the suits not signing off on things until he answers every little point and I like that both characters mirror each other, each putting on a false show of warmth. It’s a nice touch and, once again, feels a bit different.

I noted earlier that the plot is one of the simplest ones the show attempted in this season which is mirrored in the investigation. As is often the case in these stories, Columbo arrives a little late to the crime scene after much of the preliminary investigation is done and a theory as to what happened has already been reached. A huge part of the fun of Columbo is anticipating which small details at the scene he will point to as not quite making sense. The problem here though is that the mistakes feel too glaring and so he is unlikely to surprise the viewer with his deductions. It feels just a little underwhelming.

What the episode misses is that second act twist that complicates a case, taking it in a different direction. Instead we get unnecessary plodding detail, following Columbo into meetings with Tommy’s former commanding officer and a very talkative worker. The scenes themselves are fine and each have some entertaining moments but they don’t really move anything forward or contribute enough to our understanding of the crime or Tommy’s character.

Though the midsection of the episode is a little disappointing in terms of the plotting, I was far more pleased with the way it is resolved. This is one of those stories where we can tell Columbo is certain of the killer’s identity and yet it seems unclear how he will finally catch him. There is an aspect of trap-setting in that resolution to this story which usually frustrates me and yet I absolutely love the clue that finally convinces Columbo he was on the right track after all, enabling him to move in for the capture. Kudos to the episode for delivering an absolutely fair play clue, setting it up both in dialog and visually – I recall noticing it, musing on it and still not recognizing its significance even once the episode more directly draws our attention to it. I love to be fooled and this one did it brilliantly.

My only issue with the ending is that there is what I might describe as a Carsini moment where there is a sympathetic exchange between Columbo and Tommy that doesn’t feel earned or to reflect what has been shown of Tommy’s character throughout the episode. What makes it play even worse, at least for this viewer, is that we know the reasons Tommy had been blackmailed and we have seen evidence that he hasn’t changed much over the years. It may seem a small gripe, particularly given both actors play the scene quite nicely, but it felt a little forced and out of place in an otherwise very tidy conclusion.

Yet in spite of those complaints, I should stress that I think the episode works quite well overall. Part of that is the highly unusual murder means but it mostly reflects that this features a great piece of guest casting with Cash’s portrayal of Tommy being one of the more effective guest turns from the show’s third season.

The Verdict: This solid, if simple, story is enhanced enormously by a great piece of guest casting.

Columbo: Mind Over Mayhem (TV)

June 4, 2022

Season Three, Episode Six
Preceded by Publish or Perish
Followed by Swan Song

Originally broadcast Febuary 18, 1974

Written by Steven Bochco, Dean Hargrove and Roland Kibbee
Directed by Alf Kjellin

Plot Summary

When Dr. Cahill, the head of a scientific think tank, learns that a rival intends to expose his son as a plagiarist on the eve of his receiving a major award, he decides that the solution is to murder him before he can blow the whistle…

Movie poster for the film Forbidden Planet which featured Robby the Robot

Familiar Faces

Robby the Robot was a character created for the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. His highly iconic appearance and surprising amount of personality gave the character enormous appeal and the costume was reused in other MGM pictures and TV shows. One of the earliest was an episode of The Thin Man named Robot Client.

José Ferrer had won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac. He didn’t have a lot of mystery credits but he did make an appearance of an episode of Murder, She Wrote.

Jessica Walter made a number of appearances in mystery TV shows in the seventies and eighties including Ironside, Magnum P. I. and yes, Murder, She Wrote. I was most familiar with her though for her role as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development and as Mallory Archer in the animated spy comedy show Archer.

My Thoughts

It has been a number of months since I last wrote about Columbo which was quite unplanned. As I seem to be continually noting, there has been a lot going on these past few months and I fell behind in writing up my thoughts about things. This was particularly tragic in the case of this show as it meant that I had to rewatch Mind Over Mayhem to refresh my memory of it – which I think gives a suggestion that you’re not looking at a rave review…

The premise of the episode is fine enough. Dr. Cahill’s motivation to murder, to protect the reputation of his son (and, in the process, his own), is convincing enough and the circumstances meant that a little untidiness in the planning would be understandable given it is set up as a pretty spur-of-the-moment decision.

The writers even build in some interesting conflict with the victim’s wife, a psychiatrist treating Dr. Cahill’s son, being aware of his plagiarism and some other information that will pertain to this story yet being unable to reveal it because it was shared in a therapy session. This makes for an interesting element of the story, even if it feels a little wasted because it never really impacts Columbo’s investigation – only the actions of the other characters involved in the story.

Ferrer is interesting casting as Cahill and he does a pretty good job of showing both the intelligence and also the egotistical and domineering parts of his character’s personality. He is by no means one of the more colorful Columbo murderers and I would not call him a particularly memorable villain but he performs the character as written pretty well.

Unfortunately any subtly he was reaching for with his performance is quickly forgotten the moment Robby the Robot wheels forward to present himself. This is one of those cases in which a piece of stunt casting goes wildly awry. It is simply impossible to look at Robby and take him seriously in the role he has been given. This is not helped by pairing him with a boy genius-character who supposedly invented him, nor by the inconsistent manner in which he receives his ‘programming’. When he appears I found it utterly impossible to take him seriously and, what’s worse, I felt that Cahill and Columbo look really silly whenever they are called on to interact with him.

Robby turns out to have a really critical role in the murder sequence which, once again, may seem rather unconvincing. Certainly I think it confuses things as to what degree this crime is supposed to be commited on the spur of the moment as Robby should require considerably more programming than Cahill could surely give him before taking action. This might have been forgiven though had the murder method been more interesting – instead this episode delivers what may be the most underwhelming example of such a sequence since the start of the show.

The best Columbo murders are clever. As a viewer I want to believe that the case is uncrackable. That the killer would get away with it if it wasn’t for our hero’s strange mix of gut instinct and dogged determination. That is clearly not the case here though as the problems with the story Cahill is trying to tell are apparent from the start. What’s more, the plan hinges on an idea that we had seen just a few episodes earlier done far, far better – an unfortunate comparison.

Accordingly there is no wonderfully clever piece of deduction or observation needed to set him on the right track. There’s not even anything approaching a good gotchya moment. It is all rather depressing given how good some of the previous episodes had been and certainly far from the show’s best.

This is a shame because the episode does offer a few entertaining moments, even if they are a bit peripheral to the plot. Falk, for example, is in fine form and has some great bits of business with Dog as well as the recurring gag of his attempting to use a voice recorder to make notes on the case. It’s disappointing he doesn’t have more detection material to work with though as this story hinges on just one or two small observations…

I also quite enjoyed the performance by Jessica Walter as the victim’s wife and thought she was an interesting character but felt that she was ultimately rather wasted in what amounted to a bit role.

Sadly these few bright spots ultimately feel rather inconsequential because the murder plot feels so underwhelming. There is little imaginative or compelling here beyond its ill-advised and ill-fitting guest star turn. The result is an unbalanced, simplistic mess that has little to commend it. It is, in short, by far the worst episode of the show I have seen up to this point which given I have seen Short Fuse is really saying something!

Columbo: Publish or Perish (TV)

March 12, 2022

Season Three, Episode Five
Preceded by Double Exposure
Followed by Mind Over Mayhem

Originally broadcast January 18, 1974

Written by Peter S. Fischer
Directed by Robert Butler

Plot Summary

When his bestselling author makes a deal to switch to a new publisher, Riley Greenleaf decides to hire a hitman to kill him. Knowing that he will be a prime suspect, Riley decides to lean into that fact while also establishing what seems to be a cast iron alibi. Unfortunately for the punitive publisher, Lt. Columbo is assigned to the case…

Image Source: NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Familiar Faces

There are lots of familiar faces on Columbo with genre credits but this episode stands out for casting a crime writer. Mickey Spillane (shown to the left) was one of the giants of hard-boiled crime fiction in the mid-to-late twentieth century. While the author may not have found success with the critics, he certainly built a huge audience. His Mike Hammer series, which started with I, the Jury, would sell hundreds of millions of copies.

Jack Cassidy makes the second of his three appearances in the series, this time playing publisher Riley Greenleaf. The actor and singer had achieved broadway success, winning a Tony award, before appearing in a string of guest appearances on the small screen in a variety of shows including Cannon, Barnaby Jones and Banyon.

My Thoughts

There is lots that interested and amused me about this episode but top of the list is the decision to cast Mickey Spillane as the victim. It’s not simply a matter of the novelty of putting a mystery writer on screen but I love the way that his character plays off the author’s own personality and image. Allen Mallory, like Spillane, writes supposedly low-brow potboilers that are leaving him creatively unfulfilled. It’s playful and it serves as a sort of shorthand, helping us get to grips with his character in just a handful of scenes.

The episode itself follows a pretty typical Columbo structure of following the killer as they set up the elements of their plan. Often we are left completely in the dark about what will happen, the episode teasing us with those details of the crime to come as we wonder how the elements will fit together. This episode approaches things a little differently.

Right from the start it is clear who the target is and the reason for their murder. We also know the means the killer intends to use and while we may wonder about the involvement of a third party, viewers will quickly realize that the killer intends to establish an alibi for themselves. The exact nature of that alibi will be a secret but rest assured it’s pretty amusing and I do consider it to be a pretty good one.

The sequence in which the murder is carried out is one of the more engaging ones I have encountered up to this point, enhanced by a little creative editing, a highly entertaining rampage from Riley and a rather striking death moment from the victim. At the point at which Columbo enters the story it does seem that Greenleaf has set things up rather nicely and you can imagine he would feel quite safe.

So, let’s talk Riley Greenleaf as I think the success of this episode really hinges on this character and the performance from Jack Cassidy. Rather unusually for a Columbo killer, it seems to me that Greenleaf is not so much acting from a rational motive but rather out of pure vindictiveness. Sure, there’s a mention of a million dollar life insurance policy at one point but as there’s never any discussion of that motive again it feels like it’s just mentioned to give a better excuse than “I can’t have him so you can’t either”.

Cassidy’s performance feels larger than life, veering wildly from moments of suave, seemingly sincere calm to sharp expressions of antagonism. That could so easily feel cartoonish and inconsistent but here I think it fits in well with some other aspects of a character who often seems incredibly unstable, at times treating Columbo’s investigation quite flippantly. It feels different from the vast majority of Columbo killers we have seen up to this point and much more satisfying than the nearest performance I can think of, Roddy McDowall’s in the first season’s Short Fuse.

Given that Riley is not one of the more ingenious killers, it is perhaps not surprising that the structure of this story is not overly complicated. After carefully setting up the details and tidying up a loose end after the murder, there are no major twists or surprises to change our perception of those details. Nor does it feel like Columbo has to work particularly hard to extract the information needed to bust this case open. In fact, it ‘s honestly quite surprising that Greenleaf sustains his act as long as he does given some of the risks he takes both in the planning and execution of his scheme.

One of the most intriguing risks is John Chandler’s turn as an explosives-obsessed Vietnam veteran who dreams of publishing his own book. The performance is certainly colorful and his introduction is a memorable one, lobbing home-crafted explosives into a testing zone. While the performance is a broad one at times, I think it does help to convince that he might really put his trust in someone like Greenleaf. I will say though that I found it much harder to believe that the publisher would be willing to trust that he would be able to pull the action off in the first place.

As for Falk’s Columbo, it’s a solid enough outing though while I enjoyed the performance, little of it is particularly memorable. One bit that is however and which lands really well is a bit of business in a restaurant. While I anticipated the sort of punchline that scene would have, I think it is delivered beautifully.

The gotcha moment is fine enough. I certainly buy the logic of it but felt that given the episode seemed to be quite short, I was a little bit underwhelmed. Still, I am happy to say that I had a pretty good time with this one overall and while I much prefer the similarly-themed Murder by the Book, there’s little denying that he fit the part nicely.

The Verdict: An entertaining episode that seemed to move rather quickly but which delivered a fun performance as the villain from Jack Cassidy and one of the most memorable corpses in the show’s history!

Columbo: Double Exposure (TV)

February 26, 2022

Season Three, Episode Four
Preceded by Candidate for Crime
Followed by Publish or Perish

Originally broadcast December 16, 1973

Written by Stephen J. Cannell
Directed by Richard Quine

Plot Summary

Dr. Bart Kepple has been on the cutting edge of advertising research for years after publishing several highly regarded books about techniques. Among the secrets to his success is a lucrative blackmail business. When one of his subjects threatens to stand up to him rather than pay, Kepple decides he must act to eliminate them. He has what seems to be an unbreakable alibi for the time of the murder – a room full of people can say he was on stage narrating a film at the time. Unfortunately for the advertising guru, Lt. Columbo just isn’t buying it…

Robert Culp NBC publicity photo
Image credit: NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Familiar Faces

Robert Culp (left) had already featured as a killer twice before in Columbo, once in each of the first two seasons. This would be his final appearance in the show’s initial run though he would return for one last outing as Columbo Goes to College in 1990. He did however also make an appearance in the pilot for Mrs. Columbo in the meantime.

Louise Latham is perhaps most widely remembered for a role in the 1964 Hitchcock movie Marnie but she also has a number of other genre credits to her name on television. These include appearances in Perry Mason, Ironside, Kojak and Murder, She Wrote.

One familiar face making an early television appearance is George Wyner as the film editor consulted later in the episode. Wyner is still active in Hollywood today appearing in shows like The Umbrella Academy and Grace and Frankie. Genre credits include Boston Legal, Bones and several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Quincy.

My Thoughts

There is a line in this episode where Lt. Columbo says that one of the reasons he loves his job is that he gets to come into contact with interesting people. On a related note, I think that this episode really drove home to me the idea that we love Columbo the show for similar reasons – part of the thrill, at least for this viewer, lies in discovering what background or career path the next antagonist will come from. In the case of Double Exposure we get our first encounter with the world of marketing as Dr. Kepple specializes in the field of ‘motivation research’.

In a recent post I referenced the idea that most of Columbo‘s antagonists share some common characteristics. They are often quite elitist, looking down on the scruffy police lieutenant because of his slovenly dress, clumsy manners and personal habits. Many equate those qualities with a lack of intelligence and so underestimate him, not putting up their guard soon enough.

Dr. Kepple certainly possesses those qualities as well but what strikes me as interesting about this character is that he seems far less wary than most. He is a man who believes his own hype – that his ability to read a consumer and predict their behavior will also lead to him having the upper hand when dealing with the police.

For the role of Dr. Kepple we get the third and final appearance of Robert Culp as a Columbo killer, though he would appear in another part when the show came back in the nineties. He proves an excellent fit for the part, seeming comfortable with the technical requirements of the part (cutting film, repositioning cameras, working the technology, etc) and the dialogue about his character’s profession while also driving home the man’s arrogance and sense of complacency in all of his dealings with Columbo. It is, in my opinion, the best of Culp’s three turns as the killer.

Part of what I appreciate is that Kepple is a distinctly different creation from the previous two killers Culp portrayed. This man is a planner who treats his murder like he is writing the script for one of his promotional films. He intends to create an evidence trail that will tell a story and encourage the police to interpret the crime scene in a particular way. It’s a pretty brazen plan and certainly unusual among the Columbo killers up until this point, marking the character out as a little different. Equally interesting to me though is that I think this is the reason Columbo comes to suspect him in the first place. The story he attempts to present to Columbo is simply too neat and tidy.

Some parts of Kepple’s plan are admittedly very clever and I love that while the episode shows us all of his preparations and actions, the meaning of some of his actions are not instantly apparent. To give one of the strongest examples of this, the means by which the murder weapon is made to appear not to have been used is shown to the viewer yet some (such as myself) may not initially grasp the significance of what we have seen or what it means.

Kepple’s plan here is to construct a seeming unbreakable alibi by creating a situation in which a group of people will all appear to witness him standing behind a curtain on the stage narrating in perfect time to a film reel. This boils down to a variation on an old trick and I think that there are some issues with the plan that would make it impractical in reality (ROT-13: Gurer jvyy or n irel abgvprnoyr fuvsg va fbhaq dhnyvgl orgjrra n crefba fcrnxvat yvir naq n erpbeqvat cynlvat bire n fcrnxre, abg gb zragvba gur zvpebcubar pbhyq jryy cvpx hc ba gur juveyvat bs gur gncr jvguva gur znpuvar). In spite of that however, I appreciated the basic idea and enjoyed how smoothly the character pulls off his murder before returning to the stage without breaking a sweat.

The most interesting aspect of the case however relates quite specifically to the skills and background of the killer and it struck me as quite a novel way of pulling off his plan. It’s one of those situations where I wondered if a viewer in 1973 might have had a different experience from a viewer today as I wonder how well known the technique shown was at the time while the meaning of what Kepple seemed quite obvious to me from the start. Still, I appreciated the originality of that as a method and I appreciated that the script and filmmakers do not try to oversell the idea of how effective that could be. Instead they go for something that feels much more limited in scope but still clearly of enormous importance to his plan.

There are a number of excellent hints dropped about how Columbo will end up putting this case together, helped with some strong foreshadowing. The episode did a good job of drawing attention to each of these clues while keeping the relevance of them hidden until late in the episode, giving the sense of a sudden rush of discovery as we near the point where Columbo can prove his case.

My favorite of these hints relates to an object that Columbo finds as Kepple expected. What struck me as really clever is that while Kepple reads many aspects of the crime scene effectively, doing a fine job of steering Columbo away from the truth with his storytelling, he overlooks something very simple and logical. Watching Falk as he slowly comes back to the significance of that clue and tries to work through every possible explanation is both agonizing and compelling – a little like seeing a bar of soap slip repeatedly from hand to hand. Kepple keeps thinking he’s finally convinced Columbo that he’s on the wrong track only to be told that there is another practical reason why his explanation for the inconsistency simply doesn’t work. It’s great television that shows off how well these two actors could play off one another.

There are other things I love such as the wonderfully seventies banana yellow jacket Culp wears which you can marvel at yourself in the screenshot above or the descriptions of what Kepple’s work actually entails. It is the interplay between Falk and Culp though that I think is the core reason this episode works so well. Each actor anticipates and plays off the other brilliantly, creating a wonderfully antagonistic relationship between them.

While I still feel a little underwhelmed by the idea of an actor returning to play other killers, I do understand why the filmmakers brought Culp back. He got better with each appearance and my only regret is that we won’t see him again in that role. Of course, he wouldn’t be the last Columbo killer to make repeat appearances as we will see next time…

The Verdict: A fun story which pulls a few interesting tricks, not least with regard the murder weapon. Featuring some entertaining antagonistic banter and wonderful performances from the leads, I consider this the best of the Culp as murderer episodes.

Columbo: Candidate for Crime (TV)

February 12, 2022

Season Three, Episode Three
Preceded by Any Old Port in a Storm
Followed by Double Exposure

Originally broadcast November 4, 1973

Teleplay by Irv Pearlberg, Alvin R. Friedman and Ronald Kibbee
Directed by Boris Sagal

Plot Summary

Nelson Hayward is running for US senator in a special election and appears to be well-positioned to win when he starts to receive threats against his life from the mob, prompting him to receive police protection. His campaign manager is determined to protect his candidate’s chances so when he becomes aware that Nelson is having an affair with a campaign staffer, he steps in to pressure her to quit.

Nelson however plans to have it all and has a plan to rid himself of his meddling manager using the police protection to give himself a seemingly unbreakable alibi. Unfortunately for him, Lieutenant Columbo is on the case…

Photo: Jackie Cooper, United States Steel Company publicity photograph

Familiar Faces

Jackie Cooper (shown to the left) had been a Hollywood child star, becoming the youngest performer to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the movie Skippy. Unlike many child stars, Cooper successfully transitioned to adult roles and had a career as an actor and director that continued until the mid-80s.

Cooper is perhaps best known to audiences today for his recurring role as Perry White in the Superman movies. His other genre credits include episodes of Kojak and Murder, She Wrote while he also directed an episode of Magnum, P. I.

Joanne Linville was instantly recognizable to me for her role as a Romulan Commander in an early episode of Star Trek but she has other mystery genre credits to her name. These include episodes of The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen, Kojak, Barnaby Jones and, yes, Mrs. Columbo.

Tisha Sterling was less recognizable to me but also has plenty of mystery credits. These include episodes of Ironside, The New Perry Mason and she appeared opposite Stacy Keach in the 1976 film adaptation of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me.

One other familiar face in a minor part is Katey Sagal (shown above), daughter of the episode’s director, who would later star in the hit sitcom Married with Children.

My Thoughts

The third season of Columbo had got off to a rather unremarkable start with its first two episodes. Both featured elements I enjoyed quite a lot but each also had flaws. One was that both episodes’ crimes were unplanned, spur of the moment affairs that saw businesspeople on the verge of losing their empires lash out and then engage in a hasty, contrived cover up. Thankfully Candidate for Crime offers a change of pace and style, giving Columbo a carefully planned, premeditated murder to investigate.

My appreciation for this episode begins with its initial setup with the politician Nelson Hayward receiving police protection because death threats have been made against his life. There is a lot to love about this as a setup, not least that it means that Columbo is already involved in the case before the murder even takes place streamlining that awkward part of the episode where he gets to know characters we already met.

What I like most about it is that it sets up expectations for the viewer and for the other characters. While longtime Columbo viewers may expect Hayward to be the killer, the suggestion that he might be the victim could give pause for thought. Is this going to be a story about how a killer gets past security? That thought would be partly correct, though Hayward will be the one to give them the slip in order to carry out the murder.

The episode has some fun with these expectations, having Columbo turn up at the crime scene convinced that Hayward himself must be dead. So often when we see him looking frazzled in episodes, I feel Falk is playing it as though Columbo is putting on an act so it’s interesting to see him genuinely lost and confused. If anything it makes the contrast with those other moments more pronounced, inviting the viewer to compare them and see the careful thought the character is putting into his attempts to seem careless.

Jackie Cooper plays Hayward and is very credible in the part. He is slick and confident and though I did not find the character particularly likable, I could see him charming and convincing the people around him. There is no attempt made though to have the audience sympathize with him – Nelson Hayward is as cold and ruthless a killer as we have come across so far in the show.

I also appreciate that Nelson’s plan is a pretty neat one. He has planned ahead and done a pretty good job of it, carrying out a murder pretty close to flawlessly and setting himself up with what appears to be an unbreakable alibi. The means by which he sets up the murder is quite cunning and I love that he takes what might be the biggest barrier to his achieving his goal, the police protection, and ends up using it to his advantage. It’s a ballsy sort of killing given how things might have gone wrong but the type I could absolutely believe that a man of his type could commit.

If there is an issue with the setup, it is that I think the motivation to kill is not spelled out quite as clearly as in some other stories. Given how much the man has to lose, it seems crazy to think that Nelson would risk it all, no matter how much he loves the young woman he is having an affair with. I think though this is a case where the real reason may not be directly expressed but can be inferred – this is as much about maintaining his independence and control politically as it is maintaining that affair.

I enjoy the interactions between Cooper and Falk and appreciate that the dynamic here feels a little different than the stories that came immediately before it. Cooper is not as colorful a figure as Pleasance’s Carsini and unlike other killers who aim to befriend the detective, he is rather prickly and aloof from the start. It seems he is confident he has thought everything through and it is only when Columbo starts to ask some difficult questions that he begins to pay much attention to him.

One game I always enjoy playing while watching these episodes is trying to figure out the moment at which Columbo decides that he knows who the killer is. Often it is close to instant with the detective appearing to notice some immediate tell that prompts his interest. In this case however the background to the situation complicates things and there is a sense, at least in his first couple of interactions with Nelson, that he is not yet thinking of him as an adversary. I think it is only when he starts to think through the physical evidence of the crime scene and talking over it with Haywood that he begins to find himself looking at him more closely.

Rather than hinging on just one detail, Columbo’s cat and mouse game with Nelson has a number of steps. My favorite is also the most comedic in which the detective finds himself trying to get some information out of a tailor at a very high-end establishment, in large part because of the very entertaining performance from Vito Scotti. I love too that this isn’t just an exercise in comedy (like an earlier bit with Columbo’s car getting inspected) but that it has a serious implication for the case.

Beyond the two leads, I also ought to draw attention to the performances of the two actresses who play the women in Nelson’s life. Joanne Linville’s portrait of a wife who has long suspected her husband of infidelity and has perhaps taken to drink is compelling and surprisingly subtle. She is always interesting to watch, particularly in those little moments in her performance where she reacts to Nelson, appearing to wonder if she has misjudged him as well as those others where she notices oddities in his behavior.

Tisha Sterling’s Linda gets a little less screen time and is a more credulous figure. Nonetheless, I liked the earnest sincerity she brings to the part and found the few moments where the two women interact to be interesting to watch.

The episode’s conclusion is really entertaining and does a great job of making sure that the viewer is aware of the movements of both men. We know what Nelson is planning and we can see what Columbo is doing, even if we are not entirely sure what he has in mind. It then plays out and resolves quite quickly, delivering a very satisfying moment of deflation as the killer, certain that they have won, suddenly sees that he has been outsmarted.

I should also note that while I sometimes query whether Columbo could make an accusation stick, in this story the evidence that is assembled by the end seems conclusive. This is a story that really demonstrates Columbo’s ability to construct a really tight case and reminds us that he can think through a case too.

That satisfying conclusion brings to an end an episode that I regard as the first classic of the show’s third season. While Cooper is not the one of the flashiest or most colorful villains, I think he fits his part well and, as a cat and mouse detective game, I think this has to rank among the very best I have seen up to this point. It leaves me excited to see what else this season has in store…

The Verdict: An excellent case from setup to conclusion offering a clever scenario and showcasing Columbo’s brilliance at piecing the truth together.

Columbo: Any Old Port in a Storm (TV)

February 5, 2022
Any Old Port in a Storm title card

Any Old Port in a Storm

Season Three, Episode Two
Preceded by Lovely but Lethal
Followed by Candidate for Crime

Originally broadcast October 7, 1973

Teleplay by Stanley Ralph Ross
Story by Larry Cohen
Directed by Leo Penn

Plot Summary

Adrian Carsini is a wine connoisseur who enjoys impressing other enthusiasts from the Wine Society both with bottles from the vineyard he runs on behalf of his brother and those he collects. He is horrified when his brother tells him that he intends to sell the property to a mass-market winery and instinctively strikes out at his brother. He quickly devises a plan to stage an accident while giving himself a seemingly unbreakable alibi. Unfortunately he didn’t count on Lt. Columbo being assigned the case…

Photo: Allan Warren – Allan warren’s archive, CC BY-SA 3.0

Familiar Faces

Donald Pleasance (shown to the left) had a lengthy and varied career on stage and screen, both big and small. His quiet, offbeat and sometimes understated performing style helped made him a memorable villain. He is perhaps best known for his performance as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice and as Loomis in the earliest Halloween movies. Though prolific, he is not an actor I particularly associate with the mystery genre but he did apparently appear in an episode of Mrs. Columbo which I will, no doubt, get to in time…

Julie Harris was a five-time Tony Award-winner and also won an Emmy, a Grammy and was nominated for an Oscar. She was best known for her stage work but she had starred opposite James Dean in East of Eden and had starred in the horror film, The Haunting, which adapted Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Peter Falk and Donald Pleasance

My Thoughts

Every episode of Columbo ultimately lives and dies based on the quality of its killer. Good plots have been derailed by a performance that misses the mark while sometimes a poorer story can get a lift by strong casting.

Adrian Carsini is not a particularly extraordinary character as written. He is a snob but then most Columbo killers (at least in the episodes I’ve seen) would seem to fit that label. His backstory of resenting his brother who is going to take his pride and joy to pay for yet another marriage is certainly understandable but it’s also pretty rushed, being covered in just a couple of scenes early in the episode. Yet in spite of being a pretty run-of-the-mill villain on the page, Carsini as realized on screen is anything but. The reason is Donald Pleasance.

Pleasance is a perfect fit for many aspects of Carsini’s personality. His performance suggests he is frequently forcing himself to restrain his temper and sense of control. Clearly there are points in this story where he fails to do that and, when he does, the shift of temper feels as credible as it is sudden. Composure is quickly reasserted and he once again exudes an easy sort of charm.

It is an unpredictable performance, sometimes playing slightly off the material and taking it in unexpected directions. This makes him the perfect foil for Peter Falk’s Columbo whose own approach can be similarly playful and when the two share the screen they spark wonderfully off one another. Their relationship isn’t as directly antagonistic as some others but rather focuses on how Columbo has unsettled his quarry – most memorably in the episode’s excellent dinner sequence.

The murder sequence itself offers little visual or even dramatic interest as it seems to happen so quickly and, as with the previous episode, boils down to a sudden bludgeoning. What interests me, though it is underplayed, is that while Carsini injures his brother badly he is not instantly dead. He chooses instead to set his brother up to not be found for several days and die. What added interest for me was that Carsini, being in the middle of entertaining several guests, immediately resumes his activities and goes back to the gathering. That coldness and quick-thinking sets him a little apart from some of the other killers that Columbo has matched his wits with.

Carsini’s plan is to create confusion by giving himself what seems to be an unbreakable alibi both by his behavior with his wine society friends and later by taking a trip out of state to attend an auction. The challenge for the viewer is to figure out exactly what Carsini has done to disguise the time of death and spot how Columbo might be able to break it.

The best Columbo resolutions work as a moment of sudden deflation as a killer, full of confidence, suddenly realizes that they have given the whole game away. This episode contains a superb example of that as it is perfectly constructed to feed into and play off the background and personality of the killer. It makes for a splendid moment as Carsini seems to not be taking in the significance of what had just happened, his reaction being slightly delayed. As gotcha moments go, this is one of the most entertaining.

Were I quibbling, I might suggest that making Carsini’s confession stand up later in court could be tricky – it would certainly have bothered me in other stories. Here though I think it makes sense given what we know of Carsini’s character and it does lead to one of the most enjoyable scenes in the whole episode.

Looking beyond Pleasance and Falk, the rest of the episode is quite competently realized. Julie Harris is very good as Carsini’s secretary but the other cast members struck me as fairly unmemorable. There are no bad performances but nor are there any that really stood out to me.

Thankfully though that doesn’t matter as the central game of wits is so entertaining that it drew and held my attention throughout. Whenever I come to do my ranking of Columbo killers (which will either be when I reach the end of the original run or the series overall including the later specials), I feel pretty confident that Pleasance’s Carsini will be somewhere near the top. This will not reflect so much on the character as written but rather the quality of the performance which really serves to elevate the material taking this from a pretty standard premise to being one of the more memorable episodes of the series.

My Thoughts

A triumph of good casting, this episode works as well as it does thanks to the wonderful performance from Donald Pleasance and a very clever resolution that perfectly plays into that character’s personality.