Columbo - classic or dud?

Let's talk about loser mystery series. Like Murder She Wrote. That was some crap.

they wanted to get on telly.

That's even more genius: pretend phonecalls. She's a backstop; someone Columbo can use to help appease ("y'know, Mrs Columbo says...") his victims (is he the smuggest of the TV Detectives?). At least he doesn't shout all the time like Quincy.

(Note: I may only be making this up.)

Re: Kate's comment - I had a unplanned Peter Falkathon a couple of months back, watching 'Wings of Desire' on video and then a Columbo movie which happened to be on telly. Really bizarre.

It's a shame that they don't have crossovers between the different TV detectives, say Columbo vs. Quincy, a race to see who solves the mystery first. Diagnosis Murder vs. Homocide. Morse vs. Frost. Scooby Doo vs. Bergerac.

Yes, there was "Kate Loves a Mystery" (a.k.a. Mrs. Columbo), a TV series starring Kate Mulgrew, of future Star Trek Voyager fame.
I remember seeing one episode once; pretty bad. I don't think it lasted beyond a season...

Law & Order: Criminal Intent is very Columbo-ish...

Quincy, all the way. "Punk! Rock! Killed this girl!" Loved that episode, it made me want to be a punk.

lewis (over pounding 89-era house hooj choon)
'it's got a good beat hasn't it sir ?'

true.

I would say the Eagles glamourise cocaine abuse far more than the Ramones glamourised glue-sniffing...

It was a rub cameo but why was it a rub episode?! c'mon martin its COLUMBO! its all good.

yeah I thought that too at first but its not supposed to have any action sequences. besides he wouldn't have anywhere to go anyway really.

''Also, the show set up this guy as a lawyer who had never lost a case, and it seemed a shame then to simply climax the usual way, without a trial involved.''

no. there would have to be lawyers involved and columbo wouldn't be centre stage. and he has to be centre stage martin. a trial might take too long.

''The way he became a suspect and the way Columbo behaved towards him was very weak, and those two trends seemed poorly coupled.''

he had to behave differently towards because he was a big shot lawyer who breached regulations (he got hold of the case files when it wasn't allowed).

i love it

(actually isn't this the 2nd thread abt columbo becuz i think he said this before)

admittedly i wz more animated abt cannon, but then that is bettah

Columbo was actually based on Poirot originally.

L&O: CI is more Sherlock Holmes than Columbo, but there's a touch of it. V D'O is just way too bulky of a dude to ever come across as non-threatening as Falk did. He was just on Conan a week or two ago. Hilarious dude.

Still, Falk is great. It's a shame he never got any
good movie roles (though he was good in princess
bride).

Dick Van Dyke episode is rad

I wanna write an article about the evil food critic episode starring Louis Jourdain and directed by Jonathan Demme (!)

is it better than Ratatouille?

I kinda like how some of the episodes have padding scenes. Just Columbo interacting with some strange witness for 10 minutes. It's really enjoyable and to me adds the feeling that you're watching a movie and not a rote police drama.

There are a bunch of seasons on Netflix now and I just watched an ep from season 1, never having seen the show before. It's kind of fun. I had a hard time telling at first whether Columbo was onto the guy the whole time or figured it out later, but now I'm realizing that of course he was onto the guy the whole time and his schtick is to play dumb (I was confused because he made with the witness like he didn't believe her, but now I get that it was to make sure she was sure of what she had seen).

I liked that they gave the witness this very elaborate backstory that didn't have much to do with the murder -- she lived with her mother and was divorced because he was adulterous, but the mother was very controlling and blamed the daughter for the divorce, and the daughter had trouble trusting herself in general because her mom was so controlling and untrusting.

it's really annoying that there are missing episodes in all of the seasons on netflix.

The Leonard Nimoy episode really stands out to me. I believe it's one of only two seasons in the run of the show where we see Columbo get angry with the suspect.

*one of two episodes

^ I think the other one was "An Exercise in Fatality" with Robert Conrad playing a fitness guru.

Unfuckwithably classic.

The entire 70s run of the series was great, but highlights depended largely upon the guest stars. Donald Pleasance as the wine connoisseur who Columbo is able to trap through his wine snobbery ("This is...IODINE!"). Ruth Gordon as the murder mystery writer who kills her son-in-law, believing him responsible for her daughter's death (Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer actually rips off the ending of this episode). Janet Leigh as the Norma Desmond-esque has been who kills her husband. Patrick McGoohan, in what I honestly believe is one of the greatest performances of the 70s in either TV *or* film, as the (possibly homosexual) colonel who kills to save his military academy. Plus, episodes directed by Spielberg, Demme and Cassavetes!

Admittedly, the 90s revival of the series was rather profoundly hit and miss, particularly when they started to mess with the formula. An episode where Columbo's model niece is kidnapped at her wedding by an obsessive fan was an obvious attempt to catch some of the Silence of the Lambs fire of the time; the villain even puts on lipstick at one point cause, you know, that's what sickos do, right? The Dabney Coleman one mentioned upthread is indeed pretty weak, too. There's still some minor gems to be found here though--I quite liked the one with Faye Dunaway trying to seduce Columbo in order to throw him off the scent; the resolution actually forces him to compromise a bit in order to close the case.

yeah the donald pleasence winery one, cassavetes as celebrated conductor, and nimoy ones are all great. also jackie cooper as presidential candidate is v good

Also, did someone seriously say upthread that Falk never had great movies roles? Um...have you SEEN Wings of Desire or A Woman Under The Influence?! Two of my fave films!

man i need to watch some of those dean martin celebrity roasts...

challopsy

I'll bet you didn't know that Columbo investigated the JFK assassination

http://24.media.tumblr.com/6d6479a5cee860d45ef33ec2c77704ba/tumblr_myy2cwpjM21qbo6leo1_1280.jpg

or the Manson Family

http://24.media.tumblr.com/aa3dc891ff329e339c24388a442e2ff6/tumblr_myy2cwpjM21qbo6leo2_1280.png

hahaha our greatest detective, like he was honored at the kennedy center or something

Both books carry a quote from Nixon's #1 enemy--according to Nixon's Darkest Secrets, even discussed murdering him. (Columbo: The Plot to Kill Jack Anderson.)

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/bf/68/371e228348a05605221c0110.L.jpg

oh now you're just photoshopping

god imagining columbo on the manson crime scenes is just doing my head in

"Oh Mr Zapruder, just one more thing..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R05SArjtiU

Started season 1 on peacock, great stuff

the formula works beautifully and falk is endearing as hell, but it wasn't designed for bingeing. it partly works because viewers were forced to wait a week between fixes.

I watched the original run all the way through pretty recently. I couldn’t watch one right after the other, but I watched one every night for a while. It was excellent comfort viewing. I’d start to doze off to Columbo and it felt like such a righteous old man thing to do. I was sad when they were all ver but couldn’t be bothered to watch the later episodes.

In the old days you actually had to wait at least three weeks for the next Columbo because it was on a rotating with other sleuth shows like McMillan & Wife and McCloud. You could try to find those other shows somewhere and mix them into your viewing schedule to duplicate the 1970s experience.

*rotating schedule

I love the little fun facts you learn about the character in passing as he tries casually to ingratiate himself with the suspect

- he takes his coffee black
- his wife has a saying for every occasion
- he comes from a large family

One of my favorite bits is when he gets another cop to take his firearm test for him because he doesn’t like guns.

“What can I do for you lieutenant?”

“Now lieutenant … I know you didn’t come all the way over here just to ask me about my gardenia collection”