Columbo: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Just one more question, sir..."''|'''Columbo,''' seconds before [[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner|he closes a case]].}}

 

 

According to [[Word of God]] -- ''a.k.a.'' prolific TV production partnership [[Levinson and Link]] -- the film ''[[Les Diaboliques]]'' (1955) and its shabby inspector, Alfred Fichet, was the major initial inspiration for the character. Lieutenant Columbo first failed to appear in the short story "May I Come In": the story ends with the detective knocking at the door. "May I Come In" was adapted as an episode of the ''anthology'' series ''[[The Chevy Mystery Show]]'' and then into the stageplay "Prescription: Murder", which was then turned into the Columbo pilot-movie. Columbo went from being an off-screen character in "May I Come In" to a supporting character in the play, and finally to the lead of the TV movie.

Viewers who missed the first fifteen minutes could pick out the murderer pretty quickly anyway; it was usually either Robert Culp, Jack Cassidy or [[The Prisoner|Patrick McGoohan]] (a close friend of Falk's, who also directed an episode). Barring that, it was the wealthy and/or brilliant character being the most smug about it. Notable one-offs included Richard Kiley, Robert Conrad, Ruth Gordon, Janet Leigh and Leonard Nimoy... oh, and the first ''Mystery Movie'' episode ("Murder by the Book") was directed by some random ''wunderkind'' named [[Steven Spielberg|Spielberg]].

 

 

Columbo was the master of [[Perp Sweating]] (i.e. shredding the Constitution, albeit totally under the [[Rule of Cool]] at all times). Though he generally settles on his horse from the outset, he never lets on, instead worming his way into their confidence via fawning adulation, begging their assistance as he "solves" the case. Usually he forces them to weave a huge web of lies until he can finally [[Pull the Thread]] -- justified because he's always right. (Interestingly, while the Lieutenant is clearly over-the-top, he's arguably using a more true-to-life interview technique than the angry, confrontational interviews common in straight police dramas; flattery and interest in the other person's concerns are a more effective way of obtaining information.)

 

 

Columbo's other trademarks are his weatherbeaten raincoat, a cheap cigar, his broken-down car, his refusal to carry a gun (fortunately, perps always surrender gracefully when the jig is up), and constant references to [[The Ghost]], his never-seen wife, [[Mrs. Columbo]]. Later, in an interesting subversion of [[Executive Meddling]], the network tried to force a permanent sidekick on him. He got one: a shiftless, droopy Basset Hound he is most often seen instructing to stay in the car.

 

 

Given all this, ''Columbo'' can be easily read as an expression of class struggle within the justice system. The perps are almost always powerful, privileged, and well-educated, while Columbo is, to put it mildly, not. Then again, the series creators have said that they weren't trying to send any message, just felt that Columbo would be more interesting as a fish out of water.

 

 

 

 

''Columbo'' was also the primary inspiration for the British [[Locked Room Mystery]] series ''[[Jonathan Creek]]''.

 

* [[Absence of Evidence]]: The episode called "The Most Crucial Game" has the culprit caught when {{spoiler|Columbo found that the phone call the killer claimed to have made at 2:29 pm in his stadium box (and recorded by a bug on the line) '''lacked''' the sound of the half-hour chime of the anniversary clock in the box}}.

* {{spoiler|[[Acting for Two]]: Martin Landau as the twins Dexter and Norman Paris (the former is the murderer) in "Double Shock", one of the very few episodes where the real killer is unknown until the end.}}

* [[Actor Allusion]]: George Costanzo has a cameo in ''Columbo Goes To The Guillotine'', playing a bar owner who happens to be a retired police sergeant. Costanzo was a police officer before he became an actor.

* [[The Alleged Car]]: An ancient silver Peugeot, of all things. Asked about it, Columbo affects great pride in owning "a classic car. Yeah, my car's a French car."

** The suspect in "No Time To Die" wasn't technically caught either, as he was shot dead by police officers.

*** And in "A Deadly State Of Mind," Dr. Mark Collier actually gets away with Carl Donner's murder, then uses hypnosis to trick the late Donner's wife (Collier's lover) Nadia into diving off a balcony to her death, and in the denouement Columbo, ''for the only time'', admits defeat. Sort of...

* [[And Another Thing]]: The entire show lives off this trope; it's Columbo's speciality, but many other characters end up doing it once or twice in their episode as well.

* [[Animated Adaptation]]: He's a police Lieutenant who wears a raincoat, drives a car that [[The Alleged Car|literally falls apart when he parks it]], and keeps popping up when the villians least expect it. Oh, just one more thing... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcYILNS6Ds&NR=1 he's played by the dog from "Wacky Races"].

* [[Artistic License Medicine]]: ''Murder Under Glass'' features blowfish poison used as the murder weapon, which kills the victim in about a minute. In reality, it'd have taken the man hours, possibly even a full day to die, and that's IF he died considering that proper medical treatment would probably have saved his life. He wouldn't have collapsed and died that fast.

** Subverted in ''Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health''. The fatal dose of nicotine sulfate that Wade Anders administers to Budd Clarke by inserting a few drops into one of Budd's cigarettes, probably would kill a man as fast as was shown in the episode.

* [[Asshole Victim]]: A trademark. Subverted with a notable few, though.

** The biggest example was ''Columbo Cries Wolf''- the case had already drawn massive media attention, and Columbo wanted to dig up a significant portion of a large estate to look for a body that may or may not have been buried there, and likely was not as the suspect had dared him to dig up the land. Columbo's reasonings for this were also rather thin(sound, maybe, but thin). Not to mention the massive expense of digging up that much land(which he apparently forgot about from such an endeavor in the first season's ''Blueprint for Murder''). The mayor of Los Angeles decides to approve of this anyway, even based on thin evidence, just because it's Columbo who wants it done.

* [[Busman's Holiday]]: In common with many detective series of the period once their creators got bored with the standard milieu. Wherever Columbo goes to relax, somebody else will die.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: "Just one more thing..." before he asks the question that gives the offender away.

* [[Conviction by Contradiction]]

* [[Cool Uncle]]: Columbo is this to Andy, his nephew from "No Time to Die".

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Columbo could be one from time to time. For example, in "The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case," when asking witnesses about the perpetrator's build, one said he was heavy, another claimed he seemed average, and a third claimed he was light and possibly even a woman. Columbo's reaction to this was a deadpan, "Well that clears that up."

* [[Detective Drama]]: Although typically the drama is on the ''perp's'' side.

* [[Defeating the Undefeatable]]: Luis Montoya from ''A Matter Of Honor'' most certainly counts. He was one of the top celebrities and most influential people in Mexico, so the local police were practically afraid to investigate the crime once it became suspected, and Columbo was in a foreign country. While Columbo had challenged a few big time people over his career, his job could have ended and he'd have been in severe trouble if not for {{spoiler|showing everyone that Montoya was not a great man, was in fact a coward and had killed his friend to try and hide that fact, causing Montoya to surrender.}}

* [[A Dog Named "Dog"]]: Quite literally here

* [[Doesn't Like Guns]]: And is a notoriously bad shot. He appears to get other cops to take his shooting qualifications ("Forgotten Lady"). He'll carry a gun when the situation absolutely calls for it, but even then...

* [[Dolled-Up Installment]]: ''No Time to Die'' is an adaptation on the [[87th Precinct]] novel ''So Long As You Both Shall Live'', with Columbo taking the place of multiple 87th Precinct cops (in the novel Bert Kling's new wife Augusta is kidnapped on the day they're married, in this adaptation it's Columbo's nephew's wife who's taken).

** ''Undercover'' is also an [[87th Precinct]] adaptation, of the novel ''Jigsaw''. Unlike the above, this version includes one of the characters from the 87th (Arthur Brown, who's also one of the cops investigating in the book).

* [[Idiot Ball]]: The opening sequence of ''Make Me A Perfect Murder'' has Columbo driving while singing, totally ignoring his police radio, and remaining completely oblivious to the police sirens around him while he fiddles with his rear view mirror. {{spoiler|The mirror piece comes off, and he attempts to reattach it while driving, without once pulling over and swerving all over the road. This entire time, his police radio is reporting the chatter of the car following him}}. This ends with him slamming on his brakes to avoid hitting one police car, while the one behind his car hits HIM, giving Columbo whiplash. Even for a character known for [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] the scene plays out to the point of making the character look incompetent.

** He seems to be holding the idiot ball in both ''Try And Catch Me'' and ''Undercover''- in both cases he reaches his finger into a light bulb socket to remove a piece of evidence. This might be fine if he'd either unplugged the lamp (in the latter case) or had the circuit breaker shut off (in the former- it was a ceiling fixture). Instead, he simply reaches in with his finger without so much as making sure their power sources were off.

* [[Inspector Lestrade]]: Subverted; Columbo is very much a competent officer, but plays up this trope ''masterfully'' for all it's worth.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: the unnamed weapons dealer (played by L.Q. Jones) from ''The Conspirators''. He seems like a normal man who runs an RV dealership but runs guns. He sells the guns to Joe Devlin, takes the cash... and while Joe and his IRA cell are caught, the gun dealer is never busted.

** Columbo's cruise from ''Troubled Water'' is referenced again in ''Try And Catch Me''

** In "Columbo Goes to College", he discusses an event that happened in "Agenda for Murder".

* [[No Name Given]]: Not strictly true -- as per above, when asked directly, he jokingly claims his first name is Lieutenant. Then there's the badge shot mentioned in the intro, but again, [[Word of God]] claims it's not canon.

* [[Not a Morning Person]]: Columbo becomes, ah, even more so before he's had his coffee.

* [[Real Life Relative]]: Bruce Kirby Jr. and Sr. in "By the Dawn's Early Light".

** Peter Falk and Shera Danese. They were married shortly after her first appearance in the series and remained so until Falk's death.

* [[Retcon]]: In "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star", Columbo takes down the top of his Peugot convertible and says it's the first time he's had the top down since buying the car. Except it WAS down in "Last Salute to the Commodore", and possibly other episodes.

** Yes, he was definitely driving around with the top down in ''The Most Dangerous Match''.

** In "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health," the inconsistency Columbo points out is the hedges behind the door in the tape Anders set up for his alibi.

* [[Series Continuity Error]]: A rather bad one happens in the episode "Forgotten Lady". It's mentioned several times that Dr. Willis' bedroom is at the other end of the house from the film projection room, which explains why no one heard the gunshot. Until later on in the episode where Columbo is trying to climb down the tree outside the bedroom... Grace looks out the window of the projection room to see Columbo, hanging from a tree that's supposed to be at the other end of the house!

* [[Shout-Out]]

** This is actually pretty common. A lot of these killers would have gotten away free if they'd just kept things simple, but many had to take it an extra step further by trying to set up a scene or frame someone, which caused them to make mistakes. ''A Stitch In Crime'' is a perfect example- if the killer had simply killed the nurse in the parking lot no doubt he'd have been free, but the plot to make it look like a killing over drugs complicated the situation, caused far too many problems and led to his capture.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Whenever the victim isn't an [[Asshole Victim]], they're usually this. Though occasionally the two are combined.

** ''[[Jonathan Creek]]'' was originally pitched as "A British Columbo", although it gradually evolved away from this.

** Furuhata Ninzaburo is often called a "Japanese Columbo".

* [[Wheel Program]]

* [[The Wonka]]: Columbo applies his quirkiness, politeness, absentmindedness, humility and curiosity to off balance the suspect. This seems at first glance to be [[Obfuscating Stupidity|an act]] but if you observe how he interacts with people he knows well, it turns out he's actually like that all the time.

* [[You Look Familiar]]: In addition to the stars mentioned above who appeared as killers more than once, Character Actor Vitto Scotti appeared in a number of supporting roles, Bruce Kirby appeared nine times (usually as Sergeant Kramer), William Shatner and George Hamilton appeared as murderers on both NBC and ABC episodes, and Leslie Neilsen appeared twice -- once as a murder victim and once as the boyfriend of the episode's murderess.

** This is also especially true of Shera Danese, Falk's real-life wife, who was in several of the films and even had major roles in some of them.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:David Cowgill]]

[[Category:TV Series]]