Naturally, Columbo foils the plot in his inimitable manner. Hector Elizondo plays the secretary of the "Suarian" legation, who conspires with an aide (Sal Mineo of Rebel Without a Cause) to murder the chief of security and rob the legation of a large sum. "A Case of Immunity" broached a novel situation: murder in a foreign legation. Without giving away the ending, I'll just say that the story's resolution is unique in the Columbo canon. Leigh's 1953 musical Walking My Baby Back Home stands in for Willis' favorite film it's also a clue for Columbo, who delivers the priceless line-while tapping his forehead-"A light goes on up here, and sometimes I can't turn it off." Maurice Evans ( Planet of the Apes), Army Archerd, and, in his final role, John Payne ( Miracle on 34th Street) fill out the remainder of the guest cast. The fifth season kicked off with "Forgotten Lady," starring Janet Leigh as Grace Wheeler Willis, a deluded faded star (à la Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.) who knocks off her husband (Sam Jaffee) to pave the way for a comeback. The capper were Columbo's false exits, paired with his catch phrase, some variant of "Oh, sir, just one more thing. From Falk's glass eye to Columbo's jalopy (a 1959 Peugeot convertible) to his sometime companion, a basset hound named only "Dog," every detail contributed delicious eccentricity to a character as unpredictable to criminals as the proverbial curious cat. Self-deprecating ("I know I'm a pest.") and seemingly scatterbrained, the gumshoe with the rumpled raincoat and shambling manner would cultivate false confidence in the murderers he quickly pegged. Columbo's key character trait was his craftiness, hidden under deceptive simplicity.īy Columbo's fifth season, the character was firmly established. Though Columbo's alluded to his personal life-specifically, his never-seen wife-as a matter of course, one could never be sure a word of it was true. On the other hand, the show's success owed its biggest debt to the synthesis of its idiosyncratic star and central character. As such, Columbo was, in a way, the ultimate "procedural" show.
The audience's interest, then, would lie in watching Columbo put the pieces together and devise a way to trap the killer.
COLUMBO CAVORITE SAYING MOVIE
Falk would return to his signature role in 1989 (in 18 more installments as a part of the ABC Mystery Movie series), and for six more sporadic installments in the mid-nineties and early aughts, the last airing in 2003.Ĭolumbo's appeal partly rests in the ingenious design of Levinson and Link, who established the formula of revealing the killer and his or her modus operandi at the outset. Easily overshadowing McMillan and Wife and McCloud, Columbo hit big, with Falk playing the role on a regular basis into the late '70s.
COLUMBO CAVORITE SAYING SERIES
Lieutenant Columbo, a detective for the LAPD, returned in 1971, as a part of the NBC Mystery Movie series of rotating telefilms. Two of TV's best writers, Richard Levinson and William Link, introduced one of the medium's best-known characters in the 1968 telefilm Prescription: Murder.
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