Columbo - S/D

Killing someone halfway between him faxing a bunch of jokes to his wife and then claiming it was suicide = dud.

HOOORAH FOR BERGERAC!

Or even, Diagnosis Moider starring Dick van Dyke!

I'd love to see a Columbo / Law & Order crossover when the DA in the second half sits there going "You call this evidence? This fine upstanding proffessional member of the community confessed, to you, when you were on your own in his office after persistent badgering him with just one question? Get out of here. And brush your hair."

but what stories really stand out?
I especially like the one where Donald Pleasance plays a vintner. But they're all good.

And is this the best detective telly ever or what?
Yes. It is.

(This is cruel to IB whom I don't hate at all, but still - what a put-down.)

Sarah - What are yr feelings abt Shoestring?

Best Columbo - the one w/ William Shatner, wherein Shatner has the world's first and biggest video recorder (the whole episode revolves around it)!

CAGNEY AND LACEY!

Bloody hell yeah! There is a bloke from Cagney and Lacey lined up for the husband list (if only I cd remember his name, perhaps I need another day off work to watch it so I can remember).

Cannon! Wasn't that the show w/William Conrad?

I loved Shoestring. 1979-80, BBC1 - dishy Trevor Eve is a mentally unstable computer op who gets fired after smashing up a hooj mainframe-type thing, and *somehow* ends up as Radio Bristol's 'Private Ear', solving foax call-in probs (this is years before Midnight Caller or whatever it was) in a quirky lovable aw-shucks-down-on-his-luck kinda way. It effectively spawned Bergerac, as the show's creator, Robert Banks Stewart, was allowed to do whatever he bloody liked once Eve quit after two series - so he came up with a neato reason to spend a financially advantageous chunk of each subsequent year in Jersey (NB to googling screenwriter: I am joshing; I'm sure you weren't hanging out with Jim and Liza anyhow).

Shoestring did have a daytime run on the Beeb last year.

Now hooked by (slightly rubbish) Waking The Dead because of looming Eve presence. No shots yet of yer man eating chips in a Cortina though. Shame.

Anyway, I remember one nicely written episode by Stephen "The A-Team" J. Cannell, starring (yep)...Robert Culp as the murderer. Culp was a scientist who murders a guy by inserting a thirst-inducing subliminal message into a film, getting the guy into the lobby where he shoots him (while the other people are inside watching the film).

Has anybody caught Law & Order: Criminal Intent? Vincent D'Onofrio is totally classic in that...very Columbo-ish.

The Shat as Ward Fowler as Detective Lucerne!

'Let. Us. Assoooomm, Looootenant - and I'mspeakingasDetectiveLucerneherenotasWardFowler' etc.

The one with Roddy McDowell as Galen as the murderer with the exploding cigars is also tops, as is the abovementioned Faster, Fido, Kill, Kill!

And wasn't one written by Mickey Spillane?

Man so enjoying the Johnny Cash EP right now. Love that he never gets angry w/him (probably playing off against a perception of Cash as a 'hellraiser' is my guess).

Netflix finally has the full lineup of series episodes up.

columbo = they are ALL THE SAME STORY!! (= "i wd rather confess than put up with this absurd little fellow for the rest of my life")

― mark s (mark s), Monday, September 9, 2002 11:32 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

truthbomb!

That one story rules though

The salient thing about Columbo is that the basic premises entertained. It may have been the same story each time, but that's like going into a few dozen houses at Christmas and exclaiming, they are ALL THE SAME TREE!!

Girlfriend and I were watching these on Netflix a lot, loved season 1, kinda burned out though (or maybe just got our rhythm thrown by the extra-long season 2 opener, with John Cassavetes as the orchestra conductor). Should pick it back up though, Falk is just great. Love the vision of class here: the murderers lose to Columbo not because his method is so foolproof but because they're rich and underestimate this working-class schmoe who knows how to play up his schmoe signifiers. Also interesting how so many of the millionaire killers are old-school scions of wealthy families - dissipated dilettantes and socialites, or people after the inheritance of same. Nobody's ever a stockholder or arbitrageur. Columbo's effective because he's able to get access to these people (hard to really picture now) and everything about his mannerisms short-circuits their codes of conduct, leaves them struggling for the correct way to brush him off, which only tips their hands more thoroughly. Feel like that world has kind of disappeared... the singular personifications of wealth vs. the corporate system as a whole.

Gee, I dunno. It's just this theory I had - but you've had a very long day, it can wait. I'm sorry.

Often they don't confess though, they are often found out in the most ludcrous manner, or sometimes its downright nasty. The EP where he frames the murderer's son (he confesses because he is "a strange little fellow" who is unpredictable), for example.

Sat afternoons watching these, having a 20 min nap and still knowing you haven't missed much (you know who did it) as oposed to some other crime show where you'd miss a plot point that might be key in working it out is a pleasure for me. But I also like bcz it is such an anti-crime show. Morse, or Holmes, you get bored by it.

re: class. yeah its an excellent point. He also works much harder than other police officers. A few times where he orders chilli and doesn't eat it => sign of a lower middle class thing "well if I work harder than poeple who are supposedly smarter than me" type guff.

Also note his interactions with culture. One murderer he gets on a "he must be the one - there is no way anyone could like both country and classical music" tip, then where he visits the art gallery to ask questions and mistakes a radiator I think for an art object. He talks about his wife doing watercolours. Art -- one could say -- promotes attentiveness and a heightened awareness. But that isn't on Colombo's radar (unlike Morse where it is part of his make-up), its noise and a sideshow. He gets his killer by working hard. Somtimes he'll pick their version of culture or pretentiousness (learning about wine to trap Donald Pleasance), he shows he is thinking, or he'll pick up an enthusiasm, but with the end goal in mind. You never feel he has interests.

Above all Falk is just great to watch. Feel that a bit more after he passed away.

On the other hand, Columbo's inner life is basically kept a mystery by Columbo himself - the vague references to family and friends which he just made up on the spot. Sometimes he seems to know enough about the murderer's culture stuff to know what would annoy the shit out of them - like playing "Chopsticks" on the concert piano for Cassavetes, or bringing half-dead hardware store plants in to the orchid guy.

And yeah, they're not all confessions - actually I like it best when he really does lay out the case at the end and explain what tipped him off, how he got the guy, etc. The nasty ones are cool too. I love the one where he makes Roddy McDowell think they're trapped in a ski lift with a bomb that's about to go off.

Recently watched The Great Race, which stars Falk alongside Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, though unfortunately he's relegated to being Lemmon's "duh, okay boss" sidekick. But he wasn't famous yet, and actually Lemmon's talents aren't really exploited either. Always a pleasure to see him doing anything though, really. Growing up on The Princess Bride, I figured he was just some one-off guy that played the grandfather in that, and nothing else!

Falk was pretty much the only good thing in Wings of Desire.

He's allowed to be funny in the Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin vehicle Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)

http://thecitydesk.net/justonemorething/

Well that's my life down the bin ;-)

http://thecitydesk.net/justonemorething/2014/10/thats-a-lot-of-fruit-salad/

Agreeing with Carolita on the way the divorcee is written up although I think Columbo is really nicer in the final dialogue than what this panel is given credit for - its more like a "shutting yourself off is what you don't do! you're gonna be ok" even if the niece was probably made up.

Any updates on that Ultimate Columbo book?

So the Kino box of the later movies presents them all in 16:9 widescreen, even though only the final one originally aired that way. It does look like the earlier ones were shot protected for the possibility of widescreen.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray_review_145/columbo_the_return_blu-ray.htm

Columbo is so big in Japan that there’s a series of books and TV movies titled "Columbo of Shinano," featuring a detective who dresses and behaves like him. I've no idea what he's saying in this clip, but I can guess. pic.twitter.com/W2L4LgPpBX

— Stephen Gibbons (@Gibboanxious) September 25, 2024

Somehow I can imagine him being even more annoying to Japanese murderers.

furuhata is the true japanese columbo and is totally worth seeking out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furuhata_Ninzabur%C5%8D

https://columboxd.com/

V good

S01E05

https://i.imgur.com/bJvC4L3.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/DduEelY.jpeg

not the strongest episode admittedly, but timothy carey's character's confidence in his chili was a bright spot

i should've posted this here, i've been getting a kick out of this channel's "deep dive reviews" of every columbo episode. they are very, very detailed, and serve a dual purpose if you need to put something on to help you get to sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q62QOW_LF5g

not the strongest episode admittedly, but timothy carey's character's confidence in his chili was a bright spot

― budo jeru, Friday, 6 June 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Never enough scenes at the chilli bar.

"Last Salute To The Commodore" (directed by Patrick McGoohan) is kind of like this, if I recall - the audience doesn't see the murder, Columbo is certain whoddunit and then that guy suddenly turns up dead himself!

Apparently this was meant to be the last ever episode of Columbo - there was some contract dispute going on between Falk and NBC - and, just as he had with The Prisoner's last episode, McGoohan seems to have gone out his way to annoy and infuriate as many people as possible with it.

While it's by no means top tier Columbo, I have always found this episode underrated. Then again, I could watch John Dehner and Robert Vaughn in anything.

People seem to hate this episode, and I can think of at least three og Columbo episodes that are far more of a slog to sit through

I'm afraid I'm one of the ones who hates it, it's absolutely dire! Robert Vaughn is always good but he looks really uncomfortable in this, possibly because the rest of cast seem to be drunk.

Yes, they do! I definitely get why people dislike it, even beyond the fact that it breaks with the formula and Falk is more of a caricature than ever before (or since?), but for passive watching, I'll take it over, say, A Case For Immunity or Dagger of the Mind.

Is A Case For Immunity the Hector Elizondo one?

Yes, that's the one

Thought so. A unusually sour entry, with Columbo effectively threatening the villains life (in a roundabout way, but still).

Yeah, that one has definitely aged poorly. It's also not a particularly compelling episode imo. I think Elizonda does a fine job, though.

Oh yeah, Elizondos' always great--I'd say he's one of those actors who is incapable of delivering a bad performance, though I'm certainly not going to watch every Garry Marshall movie in order to verify. Just not a good episode, though.

oh this is so cool! thanks for pointing me to this channel. i watch pushinguproses' channel, she tends to do Murder She Wrote reviews but her latest is a review of a late-period Columbo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QH8I6mNKTE

i'd love to see a really thorough video essay deep dive on _last salute for the commodore_, why people hate it, why people like it. maybe Watch It For Days will do that!

I bet Watch it For Days gets to it eventually. That series is pretty addictive! I hope she keeps it up.

i've been subscribed to pushinguproses for years. she covers some sierra adventure games too.

Don't think I ever saw the episode discussed in that video, but I did see the other Ed McBain one, which is dreadful.

I rewatched the series a while back cause of this thread and yeah there’s a lot of dreck to sit through to get to the scenes and lines that really work. Had a similar experience with Miami vice

https://i.imgur.com/JAQdf6b.jpeg

gah forgot to crop

Is that when he's watching Cassavetes play piano at the Hollywood Bowl? Or watching Robert Culp warm up his football team?

watching Cassavetes play piano at the Hollywood Bowl?

classic!

xp it's from the Culp football episode. agree that the Cassavetes episode is classic, although i'm unsure if he ever plays piano. Columbo does, though!

I think he does play, very briefly, during the opening credits sequence iirc

Recently watched an astonishingly weird late Columbo episode where the killer is a sex therapist; the episode is almost all filler nonsense, very little storyline, but very surreal filler. At one point Columbo plays a lengthy tuba solo.

Oh yes, that tuba scene is legendary (not in a good way).

We just watched the ridiculous episode Columbo solves a murder on a cruise ship in which Robert Vaughn establishes his alibi by faking a heart attack by sniffing an amyl nitrate capsule. Columbo breaks the case by spotting a stray pillow feather when his sea sickness sends him to the infirmary. Columbo's wife is on board--she won the cruise in a raffle--but the episode initially goes to great lengths to keep Columbo and the Mrs. apart on the ship before forgetting about her entirely. Directed by Ben Gazzara!

Robert Vaughn was in more than one ridiculous episode directed by one of Falk's acting cronies then.

ha that cruise ship ep is my wife's favorite.

she watches a lot of columbo and i'll dip in and out with her, i'm often astonished at how slow the pacing is, it almost feels avant garde at times... there was one i saw recently where the scene was Columbo stopping into a bar to make a phone call, and it was all done in one locked-down wide shot: opening on the bar interior, then Columbo enters, asks the barman for the phone, the barman brings it to Columbo, he dials, asks for whoever he's calling, gets put on hold, and we stay with him in real time as he waits on hold for a minit, until he eventually has a brief phone convo, hangs up, thanks the barman, and ambles out...! maybe a four-minute scene that probably had 6 lines of dialogue total. it felt like it went beyond "filler" to almost being like Bresson or something, it was incredible. i didn't catch the director but man, they sure don't make em like that anymore.

I’ve tried with the newer Columbo episodes and I don’t think I made it through a single one. Rough going.

I like all of the initial run. The only episode I remember disliking was one where Columbo traveled somewhere (England?) and it didn’t flow well. Even Farewell To The Commodore was pretty good in its wack way. I hadn’t heard about that episode before and it sorta blew my kind. It felt like Columbo crossed with Lynch in the pacing and goofiness.

I just watched the other one Ben Gazzara directed, "A Friend in Deed," which is the one with a Strangers on a Train-type double murder plot. It has an uncharacteristic (for Columbo) grittiness to it, with much of the story taking place in grimy bars in LA's Skid Row area. Those scenes resemble films like Fat City from that era.

they sure don't make em like that anymore

I always feel like old whodunnits (on US and UK television) are weirdly full of scenes of cars arriving and parking. These are multiple minutes of dead, narrative-free time that go well beyond the bounds of scenesetting. In some Morse episodes, you hear the sounds of tires on a gravelly path more often than dialogue.

I like these shots - and I miss them! - and they can allow for a useful moment of quiet dissociation during a plot-packed story - time to fetch the biscuits. But we don't get those establishing shots at all, anymore -- or instead they're excuse for something arty, like the sunsets and sunrises in Breaking Bad.

Watching cars park is one of the fundamental forms of filler in TV and low-budget movies.

The Joseph Cotton episodes of Rockford Files were originally one TV movie-length episode. To pad it out for reruns, the second one begins with the insanely long credits sequence played over B-roll/stock footage of a battalion of emergency vehicles approaching a hotel--way more aid than necessary for the one guy who just got offed.

There's an episode where Columbo follows a clue to a soup kitchen, leading to a gag (later lifted by The Simpsons) where the nun mistakes him for homeless and offers to replace his trademark raincoat. There's an exterior shot where Columbo first approaches the kitchen, and the five or so seconds we get of Falk wandering through downtown L.A. have such a wonderfully grimy texture to them that I don't think ever really existed outside of 70s film and television.

First season of the revived Columbo is curiously terrible... Falk was clearly phoning it in. I worried it was a Matlock situation where the crew was struggling to get their main actor to even say the lines. Luckily Falk improved in later episodes. "Goes to College" is fine. The last one, "Likes the Nightlife", has an interesting twist.

I think the producers of Columbo and contemporaneous cop shows put in all those shots of cars parking so that viewers in 2025 would drool over vintage car models in perfect condition.

Part of the joy of Columbo is marveling at the background stuff and the time warp pleasures. The episode in which a chef dies and Columbo goes to a lot of fancy restaurants is pretty good. Lots of aspic!

There's an episode where Columbo follows a clue to a soup kitchen, leading to a gag (later lifted by The Simpsons) where the nun mistakes him for homeless and offers to replace his trademark raincoat.

The nun is played by none other than Joyce Van Patten, who also played the (double!) murderer in another episode, Old Fashioned Murder. The scene with the nun is brief but it's my favorite scene in an otherwise meh episode

the blu-ray set of the 1970s run has every episode with a music+effects track option so you can just have them play as 35mm LA wallpaper

my wife and i have been slowly watching columbo in between other things. we're using this list as a guide, starting at the top, so we haven't hit any dud episodes yet. i really love the donald pleasance episode (any old port in a storm) but mostly because donald pleasance is so much fun to watch hamming it up.

Liquid FILTH!