. TELEVISION REVIEW COLUMBO

TV REVIEW – COLUMBO

One of my favourite TV shows is the detective mystery series Columbo, starring the delightful Peter Falk.

While most mysteries are whodunits, where the audience are expected to work out the identity and motive of the killer(s), Columbo focussed on the mistakes made by killers identified from the beginning, with the audience expected to see what the policeman would use to finally get a secure arrest.

A typical episode of Columbo would not even show the detective for up to thirty minutes of an hour and half long crime story. The beginning would show the killer’s relationship with the victim, and how the murderer sets up a perfect foolproof crime. False alibis will be established, the victim will be made to look as if ‘she committed suicide, clocks will be reset to falsify the time at which the murders were committed, etc.

Only when the body is found would Colombo appear, amidst the LAPD forensic officers and uniformed policemen, who would be seeing the crime exactly as the killer hoped. Colombo wore a shabby raincoat, and looked as if he was a buffoon, as he focuses on seemingly irrelevant details, but the killer soon realizes that Columbo is onto something more significant and dangerous. Worse, Colombo stays focussed on the killer. While he breaks away to talk to witnesses, he repeatedly reappears in the killer’s life, arriving at their homes at all hours, and invading their offices, work places, etc. He often arrives talking of one minor detail, only to reveal a nearly forgotten more significant detail as he is leaving, often to the catch phrase, ‘Oh, there was just one more thing.”

Slowly, the perfect murder unravels around the killer. The evidence mostly remains circumstantial though, as Columbo is playing with the killer and often has identified them as responsible from the outset. The killer feels the gantlet of evidence tightening, and sometimes tries to change the evidence around or kill some vital witness. A few try to kill Columbo, who never carries a gun or uses violence, but often has half the LAPD just outside a door waiting for him to signal them.

Columbo was modelled on Porfiry, the detective who uses similar psychology to entrap Raskolnikov in his conscience in Dostoyevski’s Crime And Punishment. The show works well due to Falk’s terrific performance, though surprisingly, he was not the first actor to take on the role. Actors Bert Freed and Thomas Mitchell played him first, with Falk taking the role in a one off TV drama in 1968 a role that Bing Crosby had declined to take.

Falk brought his own raincoat to the first day of filming, and added the characteristic trait for fumbling round for a lost notebook or pencil to antagonise his opponents and throw them into a false state of security.

The show had many memorable actors in the role of guest villain of the week; Anthony Hopkins, Billy Connolly, Vincent Price, Richard Basehart, Honour Blackman, etc. Patrick McGoohan played the killer three times. Other famous faces appear in minor cameo roles, including Jamie Lee Curtis, who is a waitress in a diner in one episode. Directors included Falk, McGoohan, Ben Gazarra, and a young Stephen Spielberg. Some well-known actors played the victim too, including Wilfred Hyde-White, Dean Stockwell and Robert Vaughn (who also played a killer in another episode).

The killers were often portrayed as well known in their field, as actors, politicians, or musicians, and often used their influence or talents as a means to despatch their victims. The murdered people were usually blackmailers, or a family member out to cut the killer off without a penny. There was always a sense of class warfare about Columbo, with the working class policeman taking on powerful, influential people and bringing them to their heels.

A running motif was Colombo’s references to his unseen wife, Mrs. Columbo, The detective would ask for atographor a souvenir for his wife, who was always portrayed as a distant fan ofthework of the suspected killer. The items or signatures taken often proved to be hard evidence for their looming capture.

Though never seen in the show, Mrs. Columbo had a disastrous short-lived TV series of her own, in which she was also a detective, and a feminised version of her husband. Kate Mulligrew, later to be Captain Janeaway in Star Trek Voyager, played her. Mrs. Columbo perished half way through its first season.

Another unseen element was Colombo’s first name, though sharp-eyed fans saw it on his badge when he flashed his ID to witnesses and suspects. His name was frank.

Columbo was more successful and carried on until 2003.

Most episodes are set in LA, and around Hollywood. There were exceptions. Dagger of the Mind sees the detective on vacation in London, helping Scotland Yard solve a crime committed by an insane ham actor (Richard Basehart), and his Lady Macbeth co-star, Honour Blackman). Troubled waters take place on a cruise ship. A Matter Of Honour moves he action to Mexico, with the villain played by Ricardo Montalban. The most unusual episode, in completely breaking from the usual formula is No Time To Die, in which Columbo is drawn into a kidnap case, and for once trying to save a victim before she is killed, rather than solving her murder. The story was based on an Ed McBain novel. Undercover, withed Bagley, and also based on an Ed McBain story, is the only one in which the identity of the killer is not shown to the audience from the outset.

The series featured many in jokes and recurring themes. Colombo’s grubby raincoat is sent up in one scene where he questions witnesses in a pornographic materials shop, and half the male customers are dressed just as he is. The recurrent theme tune One-Man Went To Mow a meadow is often used to signal the coup de grass final piece of evidence Columbo uses to nail his suspect once and for all. The final freeze frame is often the victim’s expression as s/he accepts that there is nothing to do but confess and go away with the police.

Columbo was and remains a tour de force performance programme, depending as it does mainly on interaction between two leading performers, the detective and chief suspect, engaged in a cat and mouse. Many episodes are worth repeat viewings.

Arthur Chappell