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.

Liquid FILTH!

i just got to S06E01, where William Shatner plays actor Ward Fowler. i kept thinking to myself, now where have i heard that name?? lol

That's right

I'm a highly skilled actor and the star of the TV series Detective Lucerne.

You also wear built-up shoes, I believe.

Shatner is excellent in that episode

Fantastic chemistry with Peter Falk.

That was the episode where Shatner's character uses a state-of-the-art videotape recorder to make an alibi. I learn from the internet it also has a tiny cameo from Walter Koenig. Given Shatner's reputation I have to assume it was coincidental and Koenig just needed the money. I imagine them bumping into each other on set and being very cordial.

Did I mention I saw Wings of Desire at the cinema a while back? The film came to life when Peter Falk appeared. He played "Peter Falk, Der Film Star". The film naturally ends with his final scene but unfortunately it keeps going for half an hour after that. Sadly none of the cast are with us any more. I left the cinema craving a hot dog.

the nick cave concert ending is pretty bad, yeah

I think if Wings of Desire ended 30 minutes sooner, it would be one of my favorite films. The last few scenes are execrable

Just got to Columbo Likes The Nightlife in my run-through of the whole series yesterday. What a journey that was.

Not sure I'm reading too much into the final scene but I felt there was definitely something meta intended there - Steve Schirripa, aka Bobby from the Sopranos, turns up in a cameo part earlier in the episode, and then he shows up again right at the end to shake Columbo's hand, and gives him a business card which Columbo immediately hands back. It almost kind-of feels like Falk giving his blessing to the new era of prestige tv drama (of which Columbo certainly didn't belong as it was definitely a series from another age) but also saying "Nah, not for me pal."

The thing is, I could've totally have seen Falk doing a Sopranos guest appearance, he would've fitted in perfectly.

Also spotted Jorge "Hurley from Lost" Garcia playing a doorman.

It's peculiar to think that Columbo coincided with The Sopranos. Doubly so to think that they coincided for four years. In fact it's odd to think that The Sopranos began in 1999, during the latter days of The X-Files and Star Trek: Voyager. They feel as if they all belong to different eras of television, although in the case of Columbo the producers did try, a little bit, to make the show "with-it". But what it was changed, etc.

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

Did The Sopranos coincide with Les Dennis and Dustin Gee's The Laughter Show? No. It did not.

Yeah that's quite something. Columbo ran during the original runs of both the Ed Sullivan Show and the Sopranos. Like the fact that Harriet Tubman's life overlapped both Thomas Jefferson's and Ronald Reagan's.

i’m watching "Murder Under Glass" and it really is a very ‘70s flavor of gourmandism that recurs throughout the series. sauce soubise, galantine with pistachios and truffle. even the presentation reminds me of the photographs from some old edition of Escoffier, with a little piece of parsley on the side of the plate for garnish.

thinking also of the Eastern European chess grandmaster eating escargot in "The Most Dangerous Match" and Donald Pleasence as a wine aficionado in "Any Old Port in a Storm.” i don’t think French cookery has nearly the salience that it once had in our culture, even if in these episodes it’s usually just a kind of shorthand for “likes to live the good life” or something

It's funny how normally Columbo is eating chili and not knowing what escargot is and then in "Murder Under Glass" suddenly he's deftly whipping up a fine meal for Louis Jourdan while maintaining a conversation with him.

He's always only playing dumb.

He's Italian, he knows about food.

yeah and also he's fluent in Italian suddenly

but he did grow up in Little Italy, right around the corner from Chinatown, so he knows his way around a dim sum menu

Recently I watched all the original Columbos in order and it seems to me that very little was made of Columbo's Italianness until several seasons into the run. But when it does start to come up, they really lean into it. Columbo the character becomes very Italian-conscious (Peter Falk of course had no Italian ancestry). This I credit to Telly Savalas's portrayal of "Kojak," in which that character is constantly expressing pride in his Greek heritage - and Kojak was a big hit out of the gate in the 1973-74 TV season.

Leonard Nimoy is a right b@stard in his episode as the heart surgeon. That was always one of my favorites.

There was also Banacek at roughly the same time, in which George Peppard played a Polish-American detective, despite the fact that he wasn't at all Polish, the name wasn't Polish, and the proverbs he used were invented by the writers.

I like to think that there's a parallel world in which Banacek was a huge hit in Poland in the 1970s, and it has been endlessly repeated since then, to a point where modern Polish culture is built entirely on Banacek. Not our world obviously.

Recently I watched all the original Columbos in order and it seems to me that very little was made of Columbo's Italianness until several seasons into the run. But when it does start to come up, they really lean into it. Columbo the character becomes very Italian-conscious (Peter Falk of course had no Italian ancestry). This I credit to Telly Savalas's portrayal of "Kojak," in which that character is constantly expressing pride in his Greek heritage - and Kojak was a big hit out of the gate in the 1973-74 TV season.

Interesting observation. Maybe US TV was getting more comfortable with different ethnicities.

(xp) Kojak certainly isn't a Greek name!

Kojak, in the first film spelled Kojack, was supposed to be Polish originally! It is apparently a legitimate Polish name. Telly Savalas, an actual Greek American, must have convinced them to change it.

(btw I didn't know Banacek was a fake Polish name)

Ethnic pride was trendy in American TV in the early-to-mid '70s. The actors didn't always match their TV ethnicities though. In addition to Peter Falk and George Peppard, there were Valerie Harper (a Catholic of British-French heritage) playing Jewish on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Freddie Prinze (half German, half Puerto Rican) playing a Mexican-American on Chico and the Man.

we've been watching columbo gradually, mostly going down this list in order: https://columbophile.com/episode-rankings/

recently watched "make me a perfect murder," a great episode with trish van devere set in the world of tv production. the mystery is good but there's some amazing side stuff that's unrelated to the plot - columbo learning about switching film reels and playing with tv production equipment, van devere having to wrangle a liza minelli-esque actress through a live variety show. great supporting performance by walter mearhead as a very cool projectionist.

xp The invented proverbs included "Never play leapfrog with a unicorn" iirc.

Ethnic pride was trendy in American TV in the early-to-mid '70s. The actors didn't always match their TV ethnicities though. In addition to Peter Falk and George Peppard, there were Valerie Harper (a Catholic of British-French heritage) playing Jewish on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Freddie Prinze (half German, half Puerto Rican) playing a Mexican-American on Chico and the Man.

― Josefa

it's interesting because in some sense i see it as being related to the "rural purge". you have more urban shows with more diverse casts and suddenly other people's ethnic identities are part of the show. actors not matching their TV ethnicities was just kinda standard practice at the time - even when TV stopped doing blackface, there was still a lot of "yellowface", straight actors playing queer characters, etc.

one of the shows i love but which is really obscure is the mid '60s show "the trials of o'brien", starring peter falk as an irish defense attorney. it ran for one season, the season right before prime time in the US went all-color, so it's hardly ever been shown since. god, i'd love if more of these weird old TV shows were officially watchable.

has columbo's popularity in Japan been brought up? he's kind of the stock detective archetype there, as far as I can tell. earliest iteration i know of is in the weird mid '70s henshin show "Pro Wrestling Star Azteckaiser", which features a recurring character who's an investigative journalist with a very Columbo-style flair. said character is also flamingly queer, incidentally.

probably the best known Japanese Columbo-inspired show is the popular series Furahata Ninzaburo - the show is a lot more distinct from Columbo than it's often given credit for in the West, but yeah, Columbo is definitely an influence on the show, with for instance the audience being aware of the identity of the murderer from the beginning.

finally, here's one of the favorite clips i've seen recently, john cassavetes and peter falk playing softball terribly in this weird celebrity all-star game broadcast on tv in the late '60s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu09M1QysHk

xp The invented proverbs included "Never play leapfrog with a unicorn" iirc.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Wednesday, October 8, 2025 8:11 AM (forty-three minutes ago)

there's a saying in my community: "new bottom surgery just dropped"

has columbo's popularity in Japan been brought up?

Yes, there's a bit of discussion about it upthread.

wasn't aware of the overall structure of the show, so was surprised when starting season 8 to realize i'd already been through all of the '70s episodes. seems sad in a way, but i suppose i can go back to those. first episode of the '80s -- Columbo Goes to the Guillotine -- feels notably darker and more gruesome than the '70s episodes. something about how the blood is seen slowly dripping down through the floor into the business underneath? also it has a very '80s kind of Cold War existential threat undercurrent that you don't get in the '70s episodes, and then there's the backstory about being tortured in a Ugandan prison which is rather grim. not sure if this trend will continue, or if others have picked up on it. to me what i like about the show so far is how quaint everything feels. the campiness is part of the charm. jack cassidy and robert culp hamming it up. took the edge of what would otherwise be kind of a dark subject matter. of course, the '70s interiors and stylings add to the warmth of those episodes. was the vibe of the '80s just colder in general, or is this personal baggage? lol. i guess what i'm wanting to say is i hope the '80s episodes won't be a dark gritty reboot

also, i understand the desire for the murderers to come off as smug cunts, but this boy genius director is just a step too far

Do not feel compelled to watch all of the 80s/90s/00s episodes. If you can avoid the compulsion, select recommendations are available.

yeah the '89-'03 revival eps are just not the same. some of the scripts are obviously not even columbo scripts, like ed mcbain's stuff

i've been soldiering on, for lack of anything better to rot my brain with. i found "Columbo Cries Wolf," with Ian Buchanan as the killer (and Mark Margolis from Breaking Bad as the chauffeur), to be something of a return to form. although when Buchanan's character started to get agitated and scream, i had to hit pause because i was so flummoxed why he was suddenly doing a bad Scottish accent. but of course it's the other way around: he's a Scottish actor (i'd forgotten this) and his real accent starts to peek through when he raises his voice in this scene. Buchanan was so damn good in Twin Peaks and it feels like he's playing a version of Dick Tremayne here, although Dick Tremayne is a million times more interesting as a character since his self-regard is so out of proportion with his position at a men's clothing dept in some podunk town rather than being a rich successful playboy as he is here. still, his oiliness is compellingly off-putting

oh and David Huddleston, aka the Big Lebowski, as the mayor!

ok, i spoke too soon. do not like this twist/deviation from form very much

the piece of paper they use as a pager screen is funny

just watched the one where businessman robert culp kills degenerate playboy dean stockwell in the pool and of all the murderers who get angry/irritated at columbo, culp might get the most furious (at least that i've seen so far). he's at 110% irritation from the very beginning.

loved that episode. and another David Lynch connection

Culp is such a classic Columbo murderer.

I think of Culp, Jack Cassidy, and Patrick McGoohan as the Big Three

The Culp one where he's wearing the telltale ring is one of the most intense and vicious Columbo murders. He sells the hell out of it.

The first Culp one that always comes to mind for me is the one that Columbo solves via subliminal advertising.

Yes, beautiful if extremely farfetched!

this 1990 Patrick McGoohan episode, "Agenda for Murder," features a plot point that involves a fax machine (which needs to be explained to Columbo) and one that involves call waiting. how on earth do they expect us to keep track of all this infernal, newfangled technology?

other than that i will say it surprised me, because i've previously seen clips of this one and hadn't realized it wasn't from the original series

might be the most laugh-out-loud episode in the entire season? just a hilarious and immensely entertaining performance from McGoohan. but i have a habit of posting mid-episode so

entire series i meant. in terms of the post-'70s stuff that i've seen so far, this is a highlight for sure