Oh, yeah. He was trying to push the guy’s buttons. But you don’t often see Columbo use that tactic.
One other episode I want to mention: “How to Dial a Murder”, in which Kim Cattrall has a small role as a shy teenage houseguest. Very different from the kind of roles she gets nowadays.
I’ve been watching them on Netflix lately as well. I just caught the Johnny Cash one, which wasn’t bad, but something had me confused:
[spoiler]Okay, Johnny, who was flying a small plane, drugged his passengers (his wife and her lackey), then jumped out of the plane (with parachute, of course), letting the plane crash, killing the others. He hid the parachute, then crawled to the plane, making it look like he survived the accident.
Columbo figures this out, but needs the parachute as proof. He lets Johnny overhear him say they’re going to use police and boyscouts to scour the area, supposedly looking for something else from the crash (a thermos). But the idea is to spook Johnny into going to get the parachute, revealing where it is.
It doesn’t seem like Johnny is going for it, though. He says he’s flying to San Francisco that night to start a new tour. Columbo is surprised, and follows him to the airport. He watches him go through security. Seems convinced that he really is going.
But in the next scene, Johnny is back in L.A., retrieving the parachute out of its hiding space near the plane crash site. And there’s Columbo, who was waiting for him. Columbo reveals he knew Johnny was going to fly to San Francisco and then drive back right away to get the parachute, because, unless I misunderstood something, he took his keys with him on the plane. Columbo watched him go through the metal detector and put his keys in the little bucket, and this is what convinced him. Something about how, ‘why would a man bring his car keys with him on a plane’.
Huh? Did I misunderstand something? If not… did people really never bring keys with them on planes in the 70s, to the point it would be a clue? I always have my keys with me. What else are you going to do with them, leave them home? Then how would you drive back from the airport, or get into your house?
Or did I just misunderstand something?[/spoiler]
Anyway, I’m loving watching these old episodes!
The car was a rental car – Columbo could tell from the tag on the keys. Why would somebody take rental car keys with him (and not just drop the rental off) unless he was planning to come back soon?
Ah-HA! That makes sense. Clearly, I missed a critical line. Thank you!
One thing I notice as I go on, is that Columbo is privy to stuff the audience isn’t, and often delivers the final blow with evidence we have not seen. Can anyone say reset button?
I’ve been watching these on Netflix, too, and they’re great fun. There’s one episode, revolving around an art theft, where Columbo had earlier encountered the murderer carrying a portfolio with the stolen art in it - he tries to look in the portfolio, sticking a hand in to take one of the paintings out, but the murderer manages to come up with an excuse to get rid of him before he can withdraw it and look at it. He later uses the paintings to frame someone else for the murder, but Columbo insists on checking them for prints.
“You idiot,” sputters the murderer, “I was the curator for these paintings before they were stolen! Of course my prints are on them.”
“Oh, I’m not looking for your prints, sir. I’m looking for my prints.”
Genius.
There’s also a good one where the suspect is a retired army general. Early in the episode, he gives Columbo a condescending lecture about the value of misdirection and guile in a military campaign. “Oh, that’s very good, sir,” says Columbo, “I could use some of that in my police work.” Of course, what he means is, “I am currently using some of that in my police work right now, you fucking putz.”
Yeah, but Nimoy was so great as that smarmy bastard. And when he started laughing, that’s when Columbo lost his cool. Columbo, as humble as he is, wants respect. Respect him, his car, his dog. In any of the episodes, Columbo is probably the most interesting guy in the room. The Guy I Would Want To Have A Beer With. But nobody ever asks him about his cool french car, nobody wants to know if he is restoring it. They are always above his social class, and at best humor him and always being so egotistical they think they can outfox him.
He always is cool with the help. He knows they didn’t do it. The butler never does. He isn’t in the will, like Jr. over there.
In fact, I think the guy is psychic. He ALWAYS seems to know who it is from the get go. It’s almost like he saw the first act! 
Or read in TV Guide that Leslie Nielson was going to be the guest star that week!
I don’t much recall that. Can you give me a few examples of “often”?
Huge HUGE fan of the series.
There was an early episode where Columbo figures out from a snowy TV that an office must be bugged. Late that night the PI who planted the bug breaks into the office to retrieve the bug, and Columbo is there, sitting in a chair, waiting for him. I loved that scene more than any other, as to me he really came across as a cop who was very good at what he does, and is not to be trifled with.
Suitable For Framing, with the great Ross Martin.
Thanks for this thread and the comments, we’ll start watching them. It’s interesting how some of the older shows hold up so well (technology aside) and others just don’t, so glad to know COLUMBO does.
With the last 10 years or so there has been a political hulaballo here in the Cleveland area about the “new” technology involving using cameras to catch traffic offenders. What struck me was how this “new” technology had been the key plot point of a Columbo mystery that had aired 20 years beforehand!
Sometimes I get that impression, and sometimes I don’t. I often played the game, when watching an episode, of trying to guess at exactly what point Columbo started to suspect Guest Star of The Week of being the murderer. Peter Falk had such a poker face, it was really difficult.
there was one where the sister of the murderee was able to point to the killer because her sister’s underpants were on inside out.
i remember looking over at my mum and saying “that is a clue” “that is the smoking gun for the murderer”??!
my mum looked back at me and asked “who would put on underwear inside out?”
i said “i do… some of the time.”
she just stared at me.
i told her if i was murdered and my undies were inside out, don’t consider it a clue. consider that i get up really early in the morning and am lucky if i’m somewhat coherent. i won’t put them on backwards, but inside out happens every now and again.
i always think of that columbo when i do.
Thought this episode was great at showing Columbo not reasonably sure who the killer was. He has grounds to suspect the sister and the guy, and was going back a forth between the two of them fairly equally from what I remember.
The panties were a great twist. Not that a person herself might put them on inside out, but that the killer (as a women, the sister), trying to cover up a murder, would be unlikely to miss the tag on the wrong side.
i had forgotten he was going back and forth on that case. i just remember the sister seeing the tag and going for the guy’s throat, and wondering why.
Well, that was because after the murder, the guy started seducing the sister in order to get at his original goal (the victim’s money), and that plus the realization that he was the killer enraged her sufficiently.
Didn’t it bother anyone that this guy never got promoted?
I read somewhere that the coat he used in the series was his own (I think the car was, too, but won’t swear to it). The coat was ratty from day one, and Falk molded himself in that coat for years.
I too enjoyed the show for the most part. The one thing that I became tired of, though was the predictable ending of the show.
Murder occurs - murderer ALWAYS helps Columbo to solve the crime. Crime solved at end of show right after one of his “Oh yeah, another thing” comments. Kind of drove me crazy after a while. Still, you can watch Columbo and enjoy Falk’s portrayal of him.
One observation - If I remember correctly, D Van Dyke had a mustache in his role. Was it just me, or did Van Dyke look like a porn star or child predator? I can see Chris Hanson coming out from behind a curtain now!
He busted the police commissioner for murder in A FRIEND IN DEED, which may not have been a smart career move.