Lee Grant kills her husband, dumps the body, and tells police he was kidnaped.* She and Columbo then match wits for the rest of the movie. It’s a real joy to watch Grant and Falk together; the pairing is truly of the greatest examples of mutual chemistry I’ve ever seen. The editing and score are also topnotch.
Between this and In the Heat of the Night, Lee Grant is one of the most underrated actors of all time.
*Not a spoiler: i just described the first scene of the movie.
This is in the running just because it had the awesome Theodore Bikel, but the murder itself, and his arrogance, are also great. And Samantha Eggar, and early Jamie Lee Curtis.
I will admit that “Columbo Goes to College” isn’t the best of the mysteries, but I do enjoy so much the sneering college students and their mockery of Columbo, and how it all ends for them. And Robert Culp, in one of his several hundred appearances on the show.
“A Friend in Deed”. A ruthless adversary who is also in a position to thwart Colombo’s investigation. Also features one of the best “gotcha” moments of the entire series. “Hey, I don’t even live here.”
In “Columbo Goes to College,” he uses the same trick to trap the murderers that he used in “A Friend in Need”: Feed them false information and then let them plant incriminating evidence. Instead of “I don’t even live here!” it’s “This isn’t his car.”
“Candidate for Crime” should also be added to the list, just because I like seeing US Senators get nailed. Joanne Linville as a hopeless alcoholic is great too.
I can’t watch this episode without thinking that Jackie Cooper’s receptionist is actually teenaged Peg Bundy.
I can’t watch that episode without thinking of what it must be like to strip a corpse that’s been lying in an overheated cellar for a week and then fit it into into a wet suit and flippers. Yeccch!
Are you kidding me? Columbo and Monk are both terrific at spotting little things that everyone else missed; isn’t the key difference that Columbo routinely puts on an act to make people slip up, and Monk is — more bothered than most people are by people who act the way Columbo does?
I actually recently watched Any Old Port in a Storm and I have to agree that it is one of the finest episodes. There are some others that I like but mostly because of the guest stars, like Swan Song because of Johnny Cash playing a bit of darker and creepier version of himself.
