We are now into the top thirty-five, of all the Columbo episodes. It may surprise some to realise that we have multiple episodes of the nineties era still to go. It's not that the new series era was terrible, it's just that the gems are sometimes disguised by the duds and the weaker stories around them. However, we've got rid of all of those now, so what's left must be great TV.
In the B class, we have the stories which come recommended as enjoyable slices of TV sleuthing, but which just miss the top for small reasons. Maybe there was one loophole too many in the plot, or something about the production didn't quite work. For many, it's just that simple case that there are better stories, but as the top fifteen are among the greatest exhibits of American TV yet made, being just below that is no crime.
Indeed, I think some of these are quite underrated by fans.
And so, while trying to avoid being the enemy of succinct for a moment, on we go:
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35. Etude in Black
"I am concerned with my orchestra. I have spend twenty-five years making it what it is today and gouging people for money to build the Symphony Association. Aside from my daughter, this is my baby - and if anybody tries to hurt either one of them, he's out! The ax! Anybody!"
Highlight of this story is John Cassavettes rushing from the Hollywood Bowl to murder his lover, and then back again. His relationship with his wife being key is an element they would use again later to better effect. The red herring musician, if we can even give him the dignity of that title, is a terrible character who seems to have wandered in from a low budget melodrama. Also, the Gotcha (the flower) seems to exist solely to catch the killer in the act.
34. A Case of Immunity
Kermit Morgan: It is in the best interest of our government if there are no further contacts between yourself and Secretary Salah.
Lt. Columbo: Well, that's all very well and good except for one thing.
Capt. August: What is that, Lieutenant?
Lt. Columbo: He's the murderer.
This one I rank lower because I can never take the New York born, Puerto Rican descended, Hector Elizondo seriously as a Middle Eastern diplomat. The “dodgy foreigners from some vaguely threatening place” storyline really takes me out of the drama, as does several gags which date badly. (LOL, the King supports torture, what a scamp!)
Hassan Salah’s alibi for the first murder relies solely on people not checking some basic facts, like what time his victim had their cup of coffee every single day, and who were the only people who had access to the guards guns. The list of suspects are very low. It all hinges on his diplomatic immunity, the case not being how will Columbo prove it but how will he take down the bad guy. We get a finish similar to that in Strange Bedfellows twenty years later, but here, Columbo looks ashen at the end, embarrassed as he returns the thumbs up from the young King. He knows it was a cheat.
That said, for an episode that riles me the wrong way, there are some incredible moments in this one.
The bit where Columbo explains his issue with Rachman Habib’s death, for example. Someone put Rachman's glasses on, not knowing he was wearing new contact lenses. This gives Elizondo (who can only use the material he is given) his best moment. Up to this point, Salah has been treating Columbo’s bumbling with little more than contempt. One concerned glance at this deduction work, and we see that Salah realises he has grossly underestimated his foe’s smarts.
There’s also the bit where the State Department tell Lt Columbo to stop looking into Salah and he replies that’s a problem as Salah is the killer, to the shock of the government guy and Columbo’s own superior. Columbo is ordered to send Salah an official letter of apology, which leads to the episodes greatest scene, where Columbo walks into a private party of the rich, riles Salah about his involvement in the double murder, and then, when getting thrown out, hands over his letter of apology!
Columbo is at his belligerent best, harassing Salah with the mounting evidence with his most passive aggressive politeness. Peter Falk is amazing in these scenes, it’s a shame the material elsewhere was so weak.
To be honest, coming into this, I had expected to put this story in the bottom five. The dated aspects of the story hung in the mind strongly. And while they do cause issue, the strength of the scenes between Columbo and Salah save the story. The two work so well together, that they didn't deserve to be in the same category as Murder in Malibu and that tosh about a commodore. So, if you do watch this one, there will be bits you enjoy, but consider this warning it has the largest number of stuck in its time moments to sigh at. (Why do we call it "stuck in its time"? That would imply we've defeated it, which modern life would sadly prove otherwise!)
A grim note, two of the actors in this story were to die young. The King was played by Barry Robins, who died in 1986 from AIDS. Rachman Habib, the accomplice, was played by Rebel Without a Cause star Sal Mineo. Within a year of first broadcast, Mineo had been murdered, stabbed to death in a random mugging. Utterly senseless.
33. The Conspirators
"You see, at a very early age I decided to be me own master and the servant of no one, and that left two promising possibilities: either to be a king or a poet. Now, as Ireland had her fill of kings, I clearly saw I had to educate meself to a way of words, so I took to drink immediately, fell in love at every opportunity, and avoided the schoolroom like the plague. I advise you to do the same."
No, seriously...
The main issue with The Conspirators is that the case Columbo has to crack is relatively weak.
Our peace loving poet (read: gun smuggler for the IRA) Devlin has left a bottle of his favourite whisky, with his own fingerprints and trademark diamond ring slash down the side. (This remind our drunk smuggler to drink to this level, and no further.)
When Devlin first meets Columbo, its at his own home, because Columbo has done all the police work off screen and knows his man.
Then Columbo gets distracted by pinball, Irish limericks and some whisky for two hours.
This is a shame as, if you can ignore his terrible Irish accent, Clive Revill is a joy as a man with two sides to his manner, jovial bon viveur and donations rabble rouser, and cold hearted terrorist.
Peter Falk certainly enjoys his scenes with Revill, perhaps too much at times, and if the killer’s alibi is non-existent, the scope of the crime Columbo defeats is one of his largest. International gun running.
In between all of this, LQ Jones shows up and steals the show as an gun smuggler moonlighting as an RV salesman. He gets five minutes of this story, and you will be hard pressed to forget him.
Part of the plot depending on what the phrase Sinn Fein means is somewhat dated with the party being much well known (in the US) nowadays. I do like how it tries to point out the hypocritical nature of these upper class American IRA sympathisers, with their picturesque patronising vision of little Ireland. There's blood on their hands but they get away with it, through connections. Basically, the murder plot is fine on the ground, but the satire about 70s politics is stronger than it looks.
Columbo’s attitude on Devlin's activities (he sympathises with freedom, but considers murder to be murder) was controversial for its time, but has dated considerably better than other portrayals of the Troubles on American TV.
The Conspirators is a Columbo story I appreciate more with repeated viewings, but it is a flawed beast.
32. Columbo Likes the Nightlife
The last Columbo episode, in 2003.
It's about youth culture in the 21st Century too. How much is that not going to work?
To be honest, its quite
decent. Especially after the Murder With Too Many Notes debacle.
We have a
sympathetic killer, Vanessa Farrow, who doesn't even intend to be a Columbo
killer. She instinctively defends herself against her abusive ex husband (who was trying to kill HER) and when she pushes him off her, he hits his head
and dies. She then spends the entire episode in various degrees of PTSD,
threatened by all manners of dodgy men, while her current boyfriend turns out to be
as much a git as the previous one.
Even Columbo is just another threatening man
from her perspective of events.
A combination of the most sympathetic parts of Nelson
Brinner and Hugh Caldwell, Farrow is a sad character who you feel for,
especially with her entire lack of agency in the storyline. (This is also a
weakness too, but it would help if Columbo would show her even a hint of
sympathy which the script and performance demands.)
The big problem with Nightlife is Peter Falk himself.
Not in
the sense that he mugs up the role as he was prone to doing in the nineties.
Not at all.
The problem is that by the time Columbo Likes the Nightlife was
filmed, Peter Falk was seventy-five and he looks all of it on the screen. A
tired, weary Columbo seems devoid of life for most of the story. Falk was
hopeful they could do one last Columbo episode to see the character off, all
the way till 2008 when his dementia became an issue. But even by this point,
the episode proved too much for him, which makes the Peter Falk parts of this
episode among the weakest parts. Which is a tragic end for the great actor.
But never mind that melancholy.
In the final scene, Falk
comes alive, as if aware of the quality of material on display. So many times in the comeback the era, the Gotcha, where Columbo claims checkmate on the villain, was weak stuff.
For the Gotcha
scene here, Columbo uncovers the crime, and who did it, with expert police work and
damning evidence which seals the case against the duo. In front of witnesses.
After so many flippant
reveals in the 90s episodes, and too many where the Gotcha isn’t actually
evidence, its nice to see, in this final moment, Columbo goes full circle and
produces irrefutable proof to nab his suspects.
It’s just a shame he couldn’t
have had sympathy for Farrow, but then, the fact no one does probably makes
this one sadly realistic.
A flawed gem, Nightlife actually holds up quite well, and
does at least give our hero a good last scene to walk out on.
Oh yes, and unlike Strange Bedfellows, he turns down mob help.
And then he walks off camera, incorruptible, Nemesis.
Peter Falk didn't need one last episode to go out on. Despite everything, he managed to do it in style here.
31. Lady in Waiting
" I think that, in a way, her brother's death is the best thing that ever happened to her."
Controversially low? Only because I find myself drawn to other stories more.
The best moment of this one is the daydream Beth has of the murder, which is then juxtaposed with the reality. Which is somewhat messier!
Beth Chadwick almost gets away with it though, but the whole reason for her plan is her downfall. She murders her domineering brother (truly an unsympathetic character) so she can marry the noble Peter Hamilton, played by Leslie Nielsen.
Unbeknownst to her, his reception of a threatening letter from her brother meant he was en route to her house, and so he heard everything.
The gun shot and then the alarm.
And Columbo is able to work on him, because Columbo knows the man is too honourable not to admit that, when he realises it.
That’s the tragedy of Beth. When we are introduced to her, we feel great sympathy. And yet, after the murder, which she originally gets away with, she becomes so consumed that she is no longer the person we fell for. Like Peter Hamilton, who finds the woman he loved undergone a ruthless transformation.
30. Agenda for Murder
Patrick McGoohan returns as a permanently eating lawyer. (That exists solely as a character flaw, so he can be caught, I think.)
He’s the fixer for a young Senator with high ambitions.
He murders a loan shark he once did a deal with.
It’s Columbo by Numbers lifted by the love McGoohan and Falk have for collaborating with each other. This includes a scene where Patrick McGooahn laughs for about 40 seconds straight.
29. Butterfly in Shades of Grey
"Yes, Lieutenant, there's always one more thing. Do you have a problem with short term memory? Perhaps you should consult a physician."
Call me crazy.
I think this episode is better than William Shatners other role in the show.
In the 1970s, he had
too much of the William Shatner in his performance. It takes you out of the
story, especially when he switches performances midway through the episode. He wants to be loved. He can't give into the role too much, because he still wants the audience to love William Shatner the actor.
Here, twenty years later, Shatner is locked in to his portrayal of Not Rush Limbaugh. If he
changed the accent, to avoid being sued by the late talk radio garbage-mouth, William Shatner gives a steely, cold performance as a horrible piece of work. It could easily be some of Shatner's finest actual acting work, as he removes all the amiable Shaternisms that invade his work, and we're left with this monster who looks a bit like that guy we all love from the TV.
And yes, he has a
fake moustache on his face.
This somehow does not detract from his performance.
His alibi is easily proven in a fun but silly
Gotcha, but then, his response to this is to nearly murder our heroic
Lieutenant in cold blood!
And his downfall comes not from the Gotcha but from
his own actions beforehand. His entire plan comes about because he can’t
stomach his foster daughter being a successful writer and living away from his
control.
In the end, he drives her away himself, as his mask slips in his
interview with the Senator, and she sees him for what he is, and his manipulation of people and the truth.
In the 1970s, William Shatner still wanted to be William
Shatner.
In the 1990s, he gives his all to playing a slime-ball, secure in the
knowledge he’s not going to lose any fans, and as a result, he gives a far
better, more restrained performance.
Also, Fielding Chase tries to use gay panic to disguise
his own murder.
Fuck that guy.
And fuck the guy he’s based on.
(Incidentally, Butterfly in Shades of Grey? That's a wonderful title. It's the daughter, you know, and how Fielding's control of her life has dented her talents and ambition.)
28. Old Fashioned Murder
Mrs. Brandt: There is a man's arm to support any woman who wants one.
Ruth Lytton: No, not any woman.
At first I could never take to this slow moving story of family tragedy. However, on my most recent watch, I found myself appreciating the story more than before. As with By Dawn’s Early Night, it’s a smartly plotted whodunnit, if not the most engaging of thrillers.
It features another in a long line of gullible accomplices, this one Milton Schaeffer, who willingly breaks into the Lytton family museum first and doesn’t get a chance to ask questions later.
There is no standout Gotcha, it’s all subtle character work, as we find out one of the famous families in LA are all incredibly damaged people. Janie has never recovered from the mysterious death of her father, her mother (Celeste Holm!) faints at the hint of a stressful decision, and brother Edward doesn’t get on with anyone that isn’t his accountant.
In the middle of all of this is Joyce Van Patten’s Ruth Lytton, an amiable but driven middle aged woman who the script slowly peels layer by layer from her character and we discover how much she detests her entire family for holding her back.
All the while they celebrate the lifestyles she was never allowed to have.
This seems to be focused entirely on her brother, who she disposes of, until the reveal that Celeste Holm nabbed her sister’s fiancée off her.
And that the death of that man, many years before, may not have been a tragic heart attack after all.
The only family member she seems to care for at all is her niece, Janie, who had no fault in any of the above and yet, when Columbo decides that Milton was framed, Ruth tries to frame her own niece.
Has she gone so far off the deep end, the chip on the shoulder advanced so much, that she blames all of her family, even the blameless?
We’ve never told, and so this development feels rather half-baked.
How Columbo proves Janie’s innocence is quite cleverly done, however. And Joyce van Patten taking one for the team, unable to add more grief to the niece she has wronged, is the end of Mind over Mayhem done properly.
It's a shame that, with a few edits, we could have had a much greater story, as the crucial aunt/niece relationship is muddled with what we’ve got. But what we do have is a slow burner which deserves a reappraisal, a diamond in the rough.
The sort of episode which you could find in an old antiques museum.
27. Troubled Waters
"It's the timing of the murder, sir. Whoever killed Miss Wells must've known that she would go to her cabin during the break. You see, that would suggest a member of the crew or a member of the band. A passenger wouldn't know that - not on the FIRST night of the cruise - but a previous passenger WOULD."
Is this the greatest cast assembled in TV history?
Robert Vaughn is the killer.
The fall guy is an excellent Dean Stockwell as a drunk musician.
The purser of the ship is Bernard Fox.
The captain of the cruise ship? It’s only Patrick bloody Macnee.
Columbo has taken his wife on a cruise ship for the holidays. A running joke is they keep just missing each other, so we never do get to meet Mrs Columbo. That would ruin the series best hidden character after all.
While on holiday, a cabaret singer is shot dead, and her ex seems to be the most likely suspect. Everyone from his friends to the captain of the ship believe he must have done it. Everyone except the holidaying Lt Columbo, for whom the little things just don’t add up.
It’s Columbo filmed on an actual cruise liner.
You don’t need me to tell you the cast is excellent but I will.
Robert Vaughn oozes suave nastiness. His plan is to bump off a personal problem (a woman he had an affair with) and he nearly gets away with it. His alibi is Now You See Me in reverse, with the time limit, so adds a nice degree of tension.
Patrick Macnee goes from scepticism to trust in the Lt with his usual panache. Peter Falk is on his best form.
And all of them are blown away by Dean Stockwell, giving a slightly manic performance as a drunk having a nervous breakdown. He is sensational in the role, managing to give a tragic dignity to the character even as he is revealed to be innocent of this crime, but flawed in nature. He's also really lucky that Columbo was on this cruise for a holiday and not any other one, because that one twist of fate is the only thing that saves him from a murder conviction. Ditto Peter Vaughn would have gotten away with it all, if not for Nemesis on board.
The build to the Gotcha is a bit weak which lets the side down but this is an enjoyable cruise to be on. If you can get the three minute encore of Volare out of your head.
26. It's All in the Game
Your enjoyment of this story is dependant on how you take the central relationship between Columbo and Faye Dunaway.
Is he putting on an act of being smitten so as to catch his prey? Or is he really taken by her?
My faith in the Columbo and Mrs Columbo relationship is unshakeable, so I've always taken it as part of the Columbo act, best chosen for the specific case.
That said, this script was written by Peter Falk, and he was over the moon when Dunaway agreed to take part. So whilst Columbo himself is always in character, there are scenes where you can see the real life Peter Falk is absolutely smitten with working with Faye Dunaway! Which muddles things, somewhat!
She shines as Lauren Staton, however, this woman scorned who will do anything to protect her own.
As a seducer of vulnerable women and an abuser of young women, our murder victim in this one is one of the least mourned in the shows history.
The reveal of the relationship between the two conspirators is one of the better reveals in the latter show. You understand immediately why Dunaway would act the way she has, and more importantly, why Columbo reacts in the way he does. (This is one of a few stories with a conclusion close to Forgotten Lady, though it lacks that gut punch. Which isn’t a criticism, few can!)
Unfortunately when you do things out of love, you leave all kinds of clues, and the other lady’s involvement wasn’t hidden at all. It’s rare that a story about a premeditated murder can make the culprits feel so sympathetic. That Peter Falk really understood the show…
25. Swan Song
"Hello, I'm not Johnny Cash, but you might get confused by the difference..."
You can tell it was a coup to get Johnny Cash to play a
villain in Columbo.
We get extended coverage of Cash singing, taken from actual
gigs.
Peter Falk can hardly contain his grin at points.
Cash plays the role
with conviction.
The problem is, that the story and the script and even the
actors seem to keep mixing up Johnny Cash and his character, Tommy Brown.
Johnny Cash seems like he was a decent guy. All his contemporaries loved him.
The stories of him being lovely to fans are endless. His anti-establishment
moments, like speaking out on live TV against the Vietnam War, or playing left
wing rebel songs at the White House in front of Richard Nixon, are legendary.
He was also one hell of a singer, one of the few to transcend country music to
become an international star.
It’s easy to like Johnny Cash.
Johnny Cash is not
Tommy Brown, the character.
Tommy Brown, the groomer of young female singers.
Tommy Brown, the statutory rapist. Tommy Brown, the double murderer. When
Columbo admits to liking the guy at the end, it’s him liking Johnny Cash. But
he’s not playing himself. He's playing a scumbag, and the script has a habit of
forgetting this point, which muddles things.
Which is a shame, as this story is excellent. The murder is
one of the best in the entire series. Brown rigs up his light airplane to
crash, with his wife and teenage rape victim trapped inside. It's shot eerily,
with the storm backdrop. Browns nastiness is shown clearest in scenes like
that. Columbo also completely traps his victim but with fair play – it’s a
better example of the same Gotcha from Blueprint for Murder, with Brown
literally caught in the act.
Johnny Cash’s cover of I Saw The Light by Hank Williams
is also an instant earworm.
I like how Columbo slowly plants the seeds of doubt in Tommy
Browns head, leading him to convict himself.
I also like the scenes where Columbo interrupts the local news report on the crash to find clues which suggest to
him something is wrong.
It’s a good one.
Just remember, Tommy Brown is not Johnny
Cash.
Johnny Cash justifiably has a reputation as one of the music greats.
Tommy Brown is an unmitigated arsehole.
24. Playback
It’s the house of the future, seventies style, with CCTV and a disability lift. The CCTV provides our villain with his attempt to create an alibi with the newest technology. The latter exists for his wife, who produces the best moments of this episode.
As you listen to his mother in law berating him for coming up with world changing inventions which haven’t yet made an instant profit, you can almost feel sorry for Harold, up to the moment that he shoots his mother in law down. He then loops the CCTV so that this will appear as current ten minutes later when he’s safely in the presence of a dozen witnesses.
See his shiny new digital watch!
See the late Trisha Noble turning heads as Marcy, a young assistant at the art gallery.
See Columbo instantly suspicious of any alibi which requires exact timing.
He’s read Evil Under The Sun too many times, the moment anyone close to the murder victim couldn’t have been there at the exact time the murder is assumed to have happened, he’s like a bloodhound on the trail of evidence.
Oskar Werner’s Harold is a bit of a cold detached character, emotions only showing when under the spotlight near the end, and it is difficult to get to grips with what type of man he is. The dead mother in law had alleged proof he had many affairs, but the most we see of this is his pleasure to see Marcy at the art gallery.
And, despite this, he does seem to care about his wife, Elizabeth. He has built access routes so she can get around their mansion, despite being wheelchair bound, and yet, he can easily use her love for him to his advantage. She is easily put down, as when he doesn’t allow her to go to the art gallery (which was his alibi, but she would see the murder scene to get there) by saying she is too unwell to go, and then later he easily gaslights her concerns about his running of the company away.
Also note, only one of them says I love you. I’m left with the impression that the love in the relationship runs one way, and that Harold is there for what he can get for himself out of it. (And if this is not meant to be the case, then the character isn’t defined enough.)
What saves this however is Gena Rowlands, who is sensational as the fierce, loyal, Elizabeth. You are left with no doubts that she could run rings around all the other characters, and that her main downfall isn’t her disability but her 100% faithful loyalty to Harold.
She finds it incomprehensible that he could have killed her mother, and the ending is one of the biggest gut punches in the shows history. When the truth is laid bare to her, Columbo tried to sugar coat it, but he is still left to deal with a heartbroken woman. We fade out on her tears. Rowlands is the person I remember from this story, and her care not to make Elizabeth one note, as others might have done.
23. Murder Under Glass
Paul Gerard: You're a very able man, Lieutenant. I respect that, but I really don't care for you very much.
Lt. Columbo: You know, sir, I was thinking the same thing about you. I respect your talent, but I don't like anything else about you.
They've cast another of my mum's favourite actors as a Columbo villain!
This is another in a long line of creative murders that, once the method of murder is discovered by the police, the list of suspects is binary! Single figures!
Fugu poison was such an inventive murder weapon that The Simpsons used it for one of their early classic episodes. It doesn’t work as an instant death machine as seen in this Columbo, being a paralysing agent, which asphyxiates the victim. And while there was no antidote in the 1970s, or in 2023 for that matter, the fatality rate for fugu poisoning is around 6.8%, based around medical treatment and the fact most fatalities come from fishermen improperly cooking their catches!
The fact that Columbo is investigating the murder of a restaurateur allows for several amusing scenes where Columbo is fed extravagantly by the other restaurant owners in the vicinity! (Although one scene does have far too much of This Old Man playing in the background.)
What makes Murder under Glass is the decision to cast the always suave Louis Jourdan as the murderous food critic. The future Bond villain (and former Dracula) purrs with every line reading, inflicting disdain, contempt and forced politeness into all of his dialogue. The passive aggressive relationship between Columbo and Paul Gerrard produces some wonderful moments, such as the moment his secretary/lover pauses at the door of his house when asked by Columbo if Gerrard is in. “Is he out, or is that out to the police?” quips Columbo, before gate crashing Gerrard’s private dinner!
The Gotcha scene, where both men admit they admire the talents of the other, but do not like them as people, is wonderful, also.
22. Columbo Cries Wolf
It’s been said far too often that Sean Brantley has one of the most punchable faces of all Columbo villains, so I’ll just add that with his entitlement, arrogance and attitude to women, he’s among the least sympathetic of all Columbo killers for me.
This one contains one of the great plot twists in Columbo, one which actually made my jaw drop when I first saw it, so I will keep my ramblings to a minimum here.
Peter Falk plays its well, Ian Buchanan effortlessly drips disdain, and there are some nice moments among the guests.
One thing I will note, I love how Columbo’s superiors automatically believe his hunches. He’s the star of the precinct now, as he ought to be after bringing down rock stars, TV celebrities and Presidential hopefuls!
21. Rest in Peace, Mrs Columbo
I like the set up of this one, where we begin at the “funeral” of Mrs Columbo and experience the plot up to that point in flashbacks from the various antagonists. Ian McShane, in particular, gives more credibility to the accidental alibi/lover than the script gives him.
The trouble with this story is that there is a lot of back story to get to the good stuff, and a lot of it is very dull indeed.
You could cut 20 minutes of the first hour and lose nothing vital.
Where it excels, however, is in Helen Shaver’s sizzling performance as Vivian Demetri. She’s calculating, she’s emotional, she plots and schemes and barely contains that fury. She dances sadly in front of a picture of her dead husband, she’s not exactly all there to begin with. Her husband was a murderer caught by Columbo, who, despite a reduced sentence, had died in jail. (There are some close references to Oliver Brandt in The Bye Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case but it's not the same people.)
Vivian is so engrossed in her trap for Columbo she fails to see his own trap for her.
“You tried to kill me and my wife, I take that personally.”
The scene where Columbo appears to have fallen into her trap, with the poisoned marmalade, allows Peter Falk some of his best acting since the comeback, and his quick snap from dying to Gotcha is iconic.
Plus, listen to the love that man has for Mrs Columbo. Some shows can’t get main characters over with the public, this one makes us feel the lead’s genuine love for someone we never met, but who is so blatantly real within the narrative.
Also, that scene between Columbo and the psychiatrist (played by Roscoe Lee Browne) in the posh restaurant, as they discuss criminal psychology while being interrupted by snooty waiters gobsmacked by Columbo’s appearance, is wonderful. And crucial in warning Columbo what lies ahead, though it clearly just backs up what he’d already suspected.
The in media res structure (starts after the event, told in flashbacks) gives a novelty to this episode, and, if you get past the interminable build up in the first 40 minutes, there are a number of great scenes to enjoy, and several strong performances. An underrated, very good, story which falls just short of greatness.
20. Double Shock
It’s a rare Columbo where the main character and killer are overshadowed, but the indomitable Mrs Peck, played by veteran actress Jeanette Nolan, is one such case. Mrs Peck’s anger towards Columbo’s shambling untidiness provides the counter point to this story, as not only is Columbo trying to uncover which of two identical twins is a multiple murderer, but he’s also trying to appease their irate housekeeper!
Double Shock works on many levels.
Martin Landau performs well in his dual role as both Norman and Dexter Paris, the feuding brothers. He manages to make both notably different to the other, so that you are never unsure which is onscreen. (He is so good at this, that it gives away the reveal!)
Peter Falk sells Columbo’s confusion well, in a plot which is one of those most inspired by Christie. Tim O’Connor’s corrupt lawyer and Julie Newmar’s doomed love interest bring a lot to the plate also.
The twist is one that fans of crime dramas may see coming, but the detection route by which Columbo proves it is inspired, and should be obvious from the opening but manages to elude the first time viewer. It’s also interesting that Columbo’s more sympathetic side tends to be with TV celeb downbeat Dexter instead of “professional” Norman, though this does lead to the hilarious bit where Columbo is flown to Las Vegas to see an alibi broken!
In the end, our hero leads Mrs Peck away by the hand, his need to reassure the vulnerable going full circle. We also see Columbo doing some cooking for a live TV recording.
19. Publish or Perish
The joy of Publish or Perish comes from the performance of Jack Cassidy.
Watch him as he expertly creates an abili for the time his former author is murdered, harassing everyone in a state of faux drunkenness until finally arrested for being a public nuisance.
To keep the pace going, for this is one of the shorter Columbo stories, split screen is used to show where Cassidy’s Riley Greenleaf is, in comparison to his paid hitman and victim.
Riley is too clever by half though, and Columbo uses that to his advantage in one of the better Gotchas in the series, though its delivery is muddled. (The Gotcha itself is the key, Rock Hudson more the coup de grace.) It is the trickster Columbo catching his prey, but in a fairer way when in Negative Reaction, in my opinion. He relies on the fatal flaw in Greenleaf’s character to doom himself.
A bigger issue for Riley was his choice of explosives fan Eddie Kane as his hitman, a man who will surely be needed to be quietened later, and who doesn’t exactly blend into the background. Of course, Greenleaf was obsessed on having an alibi for Allen Mallory’s death, he forgot to have one ready for Kane’s. Mallory is amusingly played by Mickey Spillane. There is a lot to enjoy in this story, and it improves with repeat viewings. If it is in the shadow of the two other Jack Cassidy Columbos, that makes it by no means the weaker copy.
18. How to Dial a Murder
"You pass yourself off as a puppy in a raincoat, happily running around the yard, digging holes all over the garden, Only, you're digging a minefield and wagging your tail."
Nicol Williamson was surely a man born to play a Columbo villain. His every real life eccentricity just bleeds onto the screen. Watch that fist pump as his plan to kill his best friend works, he is Eric Mason in the way many others never successfully own their role.
And what a nasty piece of work he is.
Not content to bump off his wife off screen (this is hinted at rather than stated), he uses his own dogs to murder his friend (and wife’s lover) through conditioning them to attack at the use of the word “Rosebud”.
Not only that but he could easily have killed his lodger had Columbo not intervened.
He even tried to murder the good Lieutenant himself!
All the aspects of amiability he presents are clearly a front for this most dangerous and dark character.
He is willing for his beloved dogs to die for his plan, and even tries to slip them poison himself. No wonder an out and out dog lover like Columbo is obsessed with breaking down the case, and even clearing the name of the dogs involved. (Although, this bit is sadly unrealistic. Abused or not, in real life, those dogs would have been put to sleep immediately. This is what Mason was expecting, and Columbo is able to pull some considerable strings to avoid it, but so many as to breach realism.)
The Gotcha moment is great, from Columbo’s playing pool, to Nicol Williamsons increased panic and ruthlessness. A twist hitherto unrevealed to the first time viewer up till this point adds to the tension.
This is battle between yin and yang. And it is Columbo’s inner humanism, and his love of all creatures, which allows him to save the day.
NB: While re-watching the series and writing these up as I watch each story, I have refrained from double checking what the esteemed Columbophile wrote on each episode until I’ve written my thoughts, so as to not just repeat what he’s said. That said, How to Dial a Murder is one of those stories which has a grand disconnect between his views and mine.
So let me quantify Eric Mason here.
He presents as a cold, detached chap. He is quite popular with friends, staff and students alike, despite this, and seems to revel in his teaching career.
We reveal his true self, layer by layer.
First, he abuses his dogs for months on end to train them as killers.
Second, we see him use this to kill his best friend.
Third, we are given hints the car crash that killed his wife was not accidental.
Fourth, he tries to murder his own lodger, a young woman with unrequited feelings for him – not because she knows about his crimes, but because she knew about the affair which started all of this.
He is slapdash in covering his tracks, as his entire case relies on the dogs being put to sleep ASAP, but he is so consumed in the thirst for revenge that he takes his well earning, well respected, comfortable life and tears it to shreds in the search for a vindication that mattered to no one, least of all himself.
In that final showdown between cop and killer, with Columbo explaining his check mate situation while potting the pool balls, the tension is palpable, and that’s where Mason kills his final victim.
Not Columbo, but himself.
He has destroyed everything. The wife he clearly loved. The best friend. The young admirer his wife knows about (but seemed tacitly fine about, she might be dead before the episode begins but she’s no hypocrite). The well paid job. The mass respect for his knowledge and intellect.
His life.
All gone.
Irreversibly dynamited, because he couldn’t get over one slight.
And so this cold, detatched Nicol Williamson performance is, by degrees, revealed to be the most Shakespearean and yet most despicable of Columbo villains.
He can only see the worst in everyone around him.
Columbo, no matter the crimes he faces, always looks for the best in every individual.
Even if he covered his tracks up far better, Eric Mason never stood a chance…
17. Columbo Goes to College
"Not one more word! The two of you are an absolute disgrace. All the privilege, all the potential, all the smarts, and what do you do with it? You waste it, squander it, drag it under your feet. You know, you guys don't deserve what you have. You probably never did. And you don't have any respect for anyone! Let me tell you something else. I don't trust myself to make a proper decision right now as to what action I'm going to take, but I'll tell you this much. When I'm ready to make a decision, it'll either be to flunk the two of you, or go to the dean and ask him to throw you out of this university! You got it?"
Voted in 2020 the fans favourite episode of the comeback era, this is a glorious episode where Columbo completely stitches up a pair of smug murderers with his Columbo act.
Both Justin and Cooper, and the great Robert Culp in his role as Justin’s lawyer father, are completely taken in by Columbo’s bumbling façade. None of them realise he has twigged whodunnit nearly straight away, but is trying to work out the how.
The how is quite ingenious but when Columbo begins to figure it out, there’s no leeway for any patsy, no matter how many murders they’ve been in jail for, to look credible. All the time Justin and Cooper thinking they are spinning Columbo into their web, he’s trapping them with each statement.
This allows Peter Falk to put on his best performance since the show returned in 1989. He’s a calculating, trickster of a sleuth here, carefully putting together all of the evidence until his hand is unbeatable. He has some luck (which given we are shown in advance some of it, I feel the recording isn’t a cheat) but, yes, Falk shines in this great return to form for our hero.
16. The Most Dangerous Match
The unsettling imagery as we see inside Emmett Clayton’s nightmares and crumbling sanity is what lifts this one for me.
It’s a peak into pandemonium, a clue from the off that Clayton is not in the right frame of mind. Aesthetically and cinematically it differs from the norm.
Jack Kruschen, better known for The Apartment, is wonderfully sympathetic as doomed Russian chess genius Dudek. Dudek is amiable, engaging and genuinely cares about his opponent, three things which set up his own murder. No good deed, eh?
Laurence Harvey’s performance is mixed. When he’s doing the deranged Clayton trying to hold on to his own reality, he’s quite good. When he’s trying to do the “me, a murderer” stock Columbo stuff, he is more stilted. That said, given that, as he filmed this Columbo, the poor man was dying from cancer, I am more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
Best known for The Manchurian Candidate, Harvey was a fine actor undone by personal demons and addictions, but he played several great roles before his premature death. In particular, I like The Running Man (not the Arnie flick), where Harvey fakes his own death so he and his wife, Lee Remick, can pocket the insurance and start a new life abroad. Unfortunately, a persistent insurance investigator, played by the always mesmeric Alan Bates, is on their trail. The Bates character is quite similar to Columbo in how he pieces things together and casually hounds his chief suspects.
Another moment of glory in this story incidentally. Dentures. The Russian delegation think Columbo a fool, and wonder why a homicide detective has been sent to deal with a suicide attempt. Columbo struggles to get his words across, but in the space of a minute, is able to convince everyone in the room that this was attempted murder. The about turn in Berozski’s manner, as he twigs what Columbo is telling him, is wonderful.
The Gotcha also stands out as memorable even if I’m not sure it works. I am slightly deaf in one ear, and can’t hear people, but I can sense movement and motion on that side, even if I can’t hear it properly. Surely Emmett Clayton would have been able to hear the machines were on, or at the least, be able to tell from the motions.
That said, interesting cinematography, an engaging victim, and some lovely Columbo moments. I like this one a lot more than many others appear to.
And so ends the B-class of Columbo. Some of which I know I rate higher than most, but if there's some surprisingly high ranking stories here, hopefully I've given you some reasons why they should be given another chance.
Just the top fifteen left now, all of which are A class.
Astute readers may not we've not seen two thirds of Jack Cassidy yet. Or half of Patrick McGoohan. Spock, that Gotcha with the gloves or that ending. And where is Murder by the bloody Book? All will be revealed in the final part!
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