Columbo Detective film TV Series
Columbo
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Columbo (/kəˈlʌmboʊ/) is an American television series starring Peter Falk as Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.[2][3] The character and show, created by Richard Levinson and William Link, popularized the inverted detective story format, which begins by showing the commission of the crime and its perpetrator; the plot therefore usually has no "whodunit"
element, and instead revolves around how a perpetrator known to the
audience will finally be caught and exposed (sometimes referred to as a
"howcatchem").
Columbo is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks include his rumpled beige raincoat, unassuming demeanor, and frequent cigar smoking. His suspects are often affluent members of high society who try to carefully cover their tracks. Initially dismissive of Columbo's circumstantial speech and apparent ineptitude, they become increasingly unsettled as his pestering behavior leads him to tease out incriminating evidence. His relentless approach often leads to self-incrimination or an outright confession by the suspect.
Episodes of Columbo are between 70 and 98 minutes long, and have been broadcast in 44 countries. The 1971 episode "Murder by the Book", directed by Steven Spielberg, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time[4] and in 1999, the magazine ranked Lt. Columbo No. 7 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.[5][6] In 2012, the program was chosen as the third-best cop or legal show on Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time.[7] In 2013, TV Guide included it in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time[8] and ranked it at #33 on its list of the 60 Best Series.[9] Also in 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it No. 57 in the list of 101 Best Written TV Series.[10]
| Columbo | |
|---|---|
Title card from the first episode of Season 1
| |
| Genre | Crime drama Detective fiction Neo-noir |
| Created by | Richard Levinson William Link |
| Starring | Peter Falk |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 10 |
| No. of episodes | 69 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Philip Saltzman[1] |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 73–98 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Universal Television (1971–78, 1989–98, 2002–03) Studios USA (1998–2002) |
| Distributor | MCA TV |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC (1968–1978) ABC (1989–2003) |
| Picture format | Film |
| Audio format | Mono (1968-1978) Stereo (1989-2003) |
| Original release | February 20, 1968 – January 30, 2003 |
Columbo is a shrewd but inelegant blue-collar homicide detective whose trademarks include his rumpled beige raincoat, unassuming demeanor, and frequent cigar smoking. His suspects are often affluent members of high society who try to carefully cover their tracks. Initially dismissive of Columbo's circumstantial speech and apparent ineptitude, they become increasingly unsettled as his pestering behavior leads him to tease out incriminating evidence. His relentless approach often leads to self-incrimination or an outright confession by the suspect.
Episodes of Columbo are between 70 and 98 minutes long, and have been broadcast in 44 countries. The 1971 episode "Murder by the Book", directed by Steven Spielberg, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time[4] and in 1999, the magazine ranked Lt. Columbo No. 7 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.[5][6] In 2012, the program was chosen as the third-best cop or legal show on Best in TV: The Greatest TV Shows of Our Time.[7] In 2013, TV Guide included it in its list of The 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time[8] and ranked it at #33 on its list of the 60 Best Series.[9] Also in 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it No. 57 in the list of 101 Best Written TV Series.[10]
Episodes
Richard Kiley and Peter Falk in Season 3 Episode 8 titled "A Friend in Deed" that aired on May 5, 1974
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | Network | ||||
| Pilots | 2 | February 20, 1968 | March 1, 1971 | NBC | ||
| 1 | 7 | September 15, 1971 | February 9, 1972 | |||
| 2 | 8 | September 17, 1972 | March 25, 1973 | |||
| 3 | 8 | September 23, 1973 | May 5, 1974 | |||
| 4 | 6 | September 15, 1974 | April 27, 1975 | |||
| 5 | 6 | September 14, 1975 | May 2, 1976 | |||
| 6 | 3 | October 10, 1976 | May 22, 1977 | |||
| 7 | 5 | November 21, 1977 | May 13, 1978 | |||
| 8 | 4 | February 6, 1989 | May 1, 1989 | ABC | ||
| 9 | 6 | November 25, 1989 | May 14, 1990 | |||
| 10 + specials | 14 | December 9, 1990 | January 30, 2003 | |||
In almost every episode the audience sees the crime unfold at the beginning and knows the identity of the culprit, typically an affluent member of society. Once Columbo enters the story (he rarely appears in the first act), viewers watch him solve the case by sifting through the contradictions between the truth and the version presented to him by the killer(s). This style of mystery is sometimes referred to as a "howcatchem", in contrast to the traditional whodunit. In structural analysis terms, the majority of the narrative is therefore dénouement, a feature normally reserved for the very end of a story. Episodes tend to be driven by their characters, the audience observing the criminal's reactions to Columbo's increasingly intrusive presence. The explanation for the crime and its method having played out as part of the narrative, most of the stories simply end with the criminal's reaction at being found out.
In the beginning of every episode, Columbo's genius was hidden by his frumpy, friendly and disarming demeanor, luring the killer into a false sense of security. In some cases, the killer's arrogance and dismissive attitude allow Columbo to manipulate his suspects into self-incrimination. While the details, and eventually the motivation(s), of the murderers' actions are shown to the viewer, Columbo's true thoughts and intentions are almost never revealed until close to the end of the episode. (Often he begins to whistle the tune "This Old Man" as the pieces begin to fall into place.) Columbo generally maintains a friendly relationship with the murderer until the end. The point at which the detective first begins to suspect the murderer is generally not revealed, although it is often fairly early on. Columbo had a duality of character; the disarming and unkempt detective and the hidden genius sleuth. The genius would sometimes starkly manifest itself through his eyes as it did when Jack Cassidy’s killer escaped from the hand-cuffs in his magic show. Such moments always bode bad tidings for the killer. In some instances, such as Ruth Gordon's avenging elderly mystery writer in "Try and Catch Me", Janet Leigh's terminally ill and deluded actress in "Forgotten Lady", Donald Pleasence's elegant vintner in "Any Old Port in a Storm", and Johnny Cash's enserfed singer in "Swan Song", the killer is more sympathetic than the victim.[13]
Each case is generally concluded in a similar style, with Columbo dropping any pretense of uncertainty and sharing details of his conclusion of the killer's guilt. Following the killer's reaction, the episode generally ends with the killer confessing or quietly submitting to arrest. There are few attempts to deceive the viewer or provide a twist in the tale. One convoluted exception is "Last Salute to the Commodore", where Robert Vaughn is seen elaborately disposing of a body, but is proved later to have been covering for his alcoholic wife, whom he mistakenly thought to be the murderer.[14]
Development and character profile
The Stahl House served as the filming location of the first Columbo pilot "Prescription: Murder" with guest stars Gene Barry, Nina Foch and William Windom.
The character first appeared in a 1960 episode of the television-anthology series The Chevy Mystery Show, titled "Enough Rope". This was adapted by Levinson and Link from their short story "May I Come In", which had been published as "Dear Corpus Delicti" in an issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The short story did not include Columbo as a character.[17] The first actor to portray Columbo, character actor Bert Freed, was a stocky character actor with a thatch of grey hair.[18]
Freed's Columbo wore a rumpled suit and smoked a cigar, but he otherwise had few of the other now-familiar Columbo mannerisms. However, the character is still recognizably Columbo, and uses some of the same methods of misdirecting and distracting his suspects. During the course of the show, the increasingly frightened murderer brings pressure from the district attorney's office to have Columbo taken off the case, but the detective fights back with his own contacts.
Although Freed received third billing, he wound up with almost as much screen time as the killer and appeared immediately after the first commercial. This delayed entry of the character into the narrative of the screen play became a defining characteristic of the structure of the Columbo series. This teleplay is available for viewing in the archives of the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
Levinson and Link then adapted the TV drama into the stage play Prescription: Murder. This was first performed at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on January 2, 1962, with Oscar-winning character actor Thomas Mitchell in the role of Columbo. Mitchell was 70 years old at the time. The stage production starred Joseph Cotten as the murderer and Agnes Moorehead as the victim. Mitchell died of cancer while the play was touring in out-of-town tryouts; Columbo was his last role.
The NBC Mystery Movie program worked on a rotating basis – one per month from each of its shows. Top left: Dennis Weaver in McCloud. Top right: Richard Boone in Hec Ramsey. Bottom left: Peter Falk in Columbo. Bottom right: Rock Hudson in McMillan & Wife
Originally a one-off TV-Movie-of-the-Week, Prescription: Murder has Falk's Columbo pitted against a psychiatrist (Gene Barry). In this movie, the psychiatrist gives the new audience a perfect description of Columbo's character. Due to the success of this film, NBC requested that a pilot for a potential series be made to see if the character could be sustained on a regular basis, leading to the 1971 hour and a half film, Ransom for a Dead Man, with Lee Grant playing the killer. The popularity of the second film prompted the creation of a regular series on NBC, that premiered in the fall of 1971 as part of The NBC Mystery Movie wheel series rotation: McCloud, McMillan & Wife, and other whodunits. In the episode Murder by the Book, hardcore Columbo fans may notice the killer signing a paperback book titled, Prescription: Murder.
According to TV Guide, the original plan was that a new Columbo episode would air every week, but as a motion picture star, Peter Falk refused to commit to such an arduous schedule, which would have meant shooting an episode every five days. The network arranged for the Columbo segments to air once a month on Wednesday nights. The high quality of Columbo, McMillan & Wife, and McCloud was due in large part to the extra time spent on each episode. The term wheel show was coined to describe this format, and additional such series were attempted by NBC, but the astounding success of The NBC Mystery Movie series was not repeated.
Columbo was an immediate hit in the Nielsen ratings and Falk won an Emmy Award for his role in the show's first season. In its second year the Mystery Movie series was moved to Sunday nights, where it then remained during its seven-season run. The show became the anchor of NBC's Sunday night line up. Columbo aired regularly from 1971–78 on NBC. After its cancellation by NBC in 1978, Columbo was revived on ABC between 1989 and 2003 in several new seasons and a few made-for-TV movie "specials".[20]
Columbo's wardrobe was personally provided by Peter Falk; they were his own clothes, including the high-topped shoes and the shabby raincoat, which made its first appearance in Prescription: Murder. Falk would often ad lib his character's idiosyncrasies (fumbling through his pockets for a piece of evidence and discovering a grocery list, asking to borrow a pencil, becoming distracted by something irrelevant in the room at a dramatic point in a conversation with a suspect, etc.), inserting these into his performance as a way to keep his fellow actors off-balance. He felt it helped to make their confused and impatient reactions to Columbo's antics more genuine.[21]
A few years prior to his death, Falk had expressed interest in returning to the role. In 2007, he claimed he had chosen a script for one last Columbo episode, "Columbo: Hear No Evil". The script was renamed "Columbo's Last Case". ABC declined the project. In response, producers for the series announced that they were attempting to shop the project to foreign production companies.[22][23] However, Falk was diagnosed with dementia in late 2007.[24] During a 2009 court trial over Falk's care, Dr Stephen Read stated that the actor's condition had deteriorated so badly that Falk could no longer remember playing a character named Columbo, nor could he identify who Columbo was.[24] Falk died on June 23, 2011, aged 83.[25][26][27]
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