What a Great Show Columbo Was!
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Atypical ‘how catch ’em’ detective serial. Decades later, you can still remember discrete episodes. Here’s one with Louis Jourdan
Ruth Gordon:
Celeste Holm is a side character in this one.
I cant decide whether Columbo is better than Monk.
Some people question how Columbo episodes can work, since there’s no mystery involved. But they work by making the viewer identify with the killer, rather than the detective. We know exactly what the murderer knows, which at the beginning is a lot more than Columbo knows. The tension builds as the detective comes closer and closer to finding discovering “our” secret. WE know the significance of every clue even before he does, which makes us experience the anxiety of the pursuit.
Quite right, it was a clever premise. We know that Colombo is a brilliant detective in a stumble bum wrapper and we know the villains do not. The oncoming unseen train effect.
“My name is Lieutenant Columbo”. Now we know his first name. Lou (or Lieu) for short 😄.
What episode is this clip from?
Negative Reaction, first broadcast on October 15, 1974.