Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:57:14 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Columbo

Started by bgmnts, July 08, 2019, 04:49:22 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

ajsmith2

#30
I'm always impressed by the sheer amount of time Columbo was on air, with no reboots or anything, just Peter Falk playing the same guy doing his job across 35 years, 1968 to 2003. Psychedelia to Garage Rock revival. Ok, it pales next to William Roache I guess, but it's the fact he sustained all that time as the lead, same image throughout. Most Bonds and Dr Whos were lucky to last 5 years.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I may have dreamt this, but isn't there an episode, presumably one of the later ones, in which someone asks Columbo what we'd always wondered about him? "Seeing as you're clearly the greatest detective who's ever lived, why have you never been promoted past the rank of lieutenant?" And our man, in typically self-effacing style, politely bats the question away and says something to the effect of not being top brass material?

Did that actually happen?

MiddleRabbit

I like Columbo when he's caught the baddie and they're being restrained by a couple of burly looking cops and Columbo has that look on his face like he's about to get his willy out and take a piss on them.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 10, 2019, 01:41:06 PM
I may have dreamt this, but isn't there an episode, presumably one of the later ones, in which someone asks Columbo what we'd always wondered about him? "Seeing as you're clearly the greatest detective who's ever lived, why have you never been promoted past the rank of lieutenant?" And our man, in typically self-effacing style, politely bats the question away and says something to the effect of not being top brass material?

Did that actually happen?

Not sure about the second run (I've only seen most of them just the once, years ago), but in the 70s series it was brought up a few times, and there were various reasons - not being top brass material was one, Mrs Columbo didn't want him to do the extra hours or face any riskier situations, his continuing refusal to carry a gun and evading the shooting range tests, etc etc.

I think there's also a mention in one episode where he alludes to a problem with one of his eyes which precluded him from promotion on medical grounds.

There's a late episode where he gets the murderer to go back to the scene of the crime by suggesting "You know, three eyes are better than one."

DrGreggles

Quote from: monkfromhavana on July 10, 2019, 01:18:56 PM
If any of the murderer's didn't decide to confess (which they all seem to do), how many would get off on technicalities due to Columbo's detecting techniques?

There used to be a Columbo website that tried to predict the outcome of the trial of each episode's killer.
Buggered if I can find it now, but the general theme seemed to be that a lot of cases would collapse due to the amount of circumstantial evidence.

Sebastian Cobb

On the cringeworthy one where he takes a trip to England he basically admits he planted evidence (threw it in an upside down umbrella).

Cuellar

That one has really aged badly too. The way he keeps ending every conversation he has with suspects by saying "Now you know the funny thing? The age of consent here...is 16. Now in the States, you'd go to prison for that! But HERE, that's allowed. You explain that to me how a 16 year old girl on one side of the ocean isn't capable of making that decision, but on the other, she is. You can't explain that, it's just curious, that's all. Thanks for your time"

Jasha

For all the big guest names (Shat van Dyke MacGoohan Hamilton) you can't beat a Robert Culp murderer.

The Culture Bunker

I remember enjoying a Viz bit that had "Top TV Detective's Try to Solve Dando's Murder", featuring the Scooby Gang, Spender and yer man Colombo.

For the shambling Californian, it went something like "I would turn up at the home of a well known celebrity - for example, Cliff Richard - and ask some seemingly harmless questions. I would appear harmless, avuncular even and Cliff would be friendly and helpful.  However, on leaving, I would ask 'one more thing' and reveal a piercing question. After I left, Cliff's eyes would narrow as suspenseful music played..."

It ended with him putting together some flimsy circumstantial evidence and Cliff confessing when confronted with it. Perhaps not as effective as Spender's approach of "waiting up in a tree for the murderer to pass, then jumping out shouting 'bastaaaaard!'...."

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Cuellar on July 10, 2019, 05:21:32 PM
That one has really aged badly too. The way he keeps ending every conversation he has with suspects by saying "Now you know the funny thing? The age of consent here...is 16. Now in the States, you'd go to prison for that! But HERE, that's allowed. You explain that to me how a 16 year old girl on one side of the ocean isn't capable of making that decision, but on the other, she is. You can't explain that, it's just curious, that's all. Thanks for your time"

And the bit when he stops that bobby and asks how one would find out more about cottaging in a public lav "cos it's not something that happens back home in LA".

Natnar

My favourite Columbo is the one with Ruth Gordon playing a writer who ends up locking up her Nephew in her safe.

Keebleman

The episode with Trish Van Devere as the killer has an absolutely magnificent string score accompanying a tense scene where she is trying to retrieve her gun from the roof of a lift.  It also has a nicely played moment when she is finally caught: "They always say you feel an immense amount of relief when this happens," she muses calmly. "I don't feel that at all.  Quite the opposite."

But it also has what must be the most excruciating scene of exposition in history.  Columbo eventually solves the murder in some manner connected to reel changes during the screening of a film, so earlier on there is a scene where Van Devere, who is playing a producer or some such, goes into a projection booth and the projectionist runs into a long spiel explaining how the reels are changed.  The scene is incredibly clunky as the two characters are merely telling each other what they already know, but what makes it virtually unwatchable is that the projectionist, who is black, delivers his lines in the manner of Stepin Fetchit, "Yas ma'am"-ing it all over the place, while Van Devere (pre-murder at this point) smiles fondly.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Jasha on July 10, 2019, 05:43:25 PM
For all the big guest names (Shat van Dyke MacGoohan Hamilton) you can't beat a Robert Culp murderer.

Leonard Nimoy when I'm 'ere.

As wank as Diagnosis Murder was, it did have a good couple of guest ones, the one with Quincy and the one where Dick Van Dyke is the murderer as well as the brains behind his fuckwit son.

St_Eddie

The episode with Billy Connolly as a film composer is one of my favourites.

Quote from: Natnar on July 10, 2019, 09:55:01 PM
My favourite Columbo is the one with Ruth Gordon playing a writer who ends up locking up her Nephew in her safe.

Yep, that's a good 'un.

Jasha

Quote from: Keebleman on July 10, 2019, 10:24:33 PM
The episode with Trish Van Devere as the killer has an absolutely magnificent string score accompanying a tense scene where she is trying to retrieve her gun from the roof of a lift.

1 minute 30 seconds

Beyond the phone tape shenanigans the simple thing of tying a shoelace in An exercise in Fatality seemed genius

One of the best things about Columbo, which you don't always spot on first viewing, is when he twigs the person he is speaking to is the killer and they have no idea they are doomed.

Or when Columbo is talking to a common criminal and suddenly goes all beat cop.

Sebastian Cobb

I think Columbo taught me to never let people know when you're giving something your hundred percent; cruise at 50,guve people 70 occasionally when they ask for it, keep that 100 for the time you need to knock it out the park.

Cold Meat Platter

Just in case nobody's heard this Columbo-based song from Looper.

bgmnts

That's brilliant.

There are so many full episodes available on Youtube its great.

D'ya reckon he'd be fun to go out for a pint with? Or would he be all weird and grumpy on the booze?

He had a great old time with Donald Pleasance on the pop.

DrGreggles

Probably the right thread to post this:
https://youtu.be/3_UN2S8SasY?t=70

Great comic timing.

pigamus

The one with the German bloke whose wife is in a wheelchair. Clapping his hands to open doors and that. Love that one.

biggytitbo

Quote from: bgmnts on July 08, 2019, 04:49:22 PM
It's absolutely fucking ace isn't it? I can't imagine life without Columbo.

Is Peter Faulk one of the best actors of all time?


Yes and yes. It is the best tv show ever made.

biggytitbo

My favourite thing about Columbo is whilst he is a genius he is actually the worst detective of all time, with a zero conviction rate. All his cases rely on off the record confessions, elaborate entrapment operations and planted evidence. Not only would all his evidence be ruled inadmissible in court, he'd probably be struck off for misconduct.

bgmnts

Nah he does alright. Its a faded meory but I feel like he mentions that he gets about half of his guilty suspects convicted. It would explain why he's never promoted though.

Someone has knocked this up or what its worth.

http://www.columbo-site.freeuk.com/court.htm

biggytitbo

That seems a bit optimistic. He's basically a bent cop isn't he?

monkfromhavana

Quote from: bgmnts on July 15, 2019, 07:30:14 AM
Nah he does alright. Its a faded meory but I feel like he mentions that he gets about half of his guilty suspects convicted. It would explain why he's never promoted though.

Someone has knocked this up or what its worth.

http://www.columbo-site.freeuk.com/court.htm

That's great. However, I re-watched Murder by the Book last night and can Franklin really be convicted because of the similarity to a plot he wrote a decade or so previously? If he can be, I guess Colin Dexter is probably the Zodiac killer.

A good episode though. Jack Cassidy makes a good bad guy (although IIRC his other appearances are let down by some of the weaker plots).

a duncandisorderly

they're all leonard neeeemoy by the time I've shatnered with them.

Blumf

Quote from: biggytitbo on July 15, 2019, 08:17:40 AM
That seems a bit optimistic. He's basically a bent cop isn't he?

In his early years as a CHiPs cycle cop, he always carried a bag of weed to plant on anybody he pulled over. "Just one more thing sir, can you open your trunk?"