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 29, 2024, 09:05:49 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Columbo

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

Previous topic - Next topic

biggytitbo

He's a bent cop but he gets results...apart from when it goes to court and his flimsy web of supposition and dubious policing methods are demolished by any half decent defence lawyer.


bgmnts

Quote from: monkfromhavana on July 15, 2019, 01:38:59 PM
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).

Yeah i'm going through them too and Murder Lends a Hand is also very dodgy.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: biggytitbo on July 15, 2019, 03:37:35 PM
He's a bent cop but he gets results...apart from when it goes to court and his flimsy web of supposition and dubious policing methods are demolished by any half decent defence lawyer.

Worth noting that whilst you see him "entrap" the suspects, and occasionally see them being hauled off by the 5-0, you never see them go to court or go to jail.  So just because you see him get his man or woman, it doesn't mean it leads to a successful conviction.

The show is all about the how, the why, and the mistake.  Everything else is peripheral.

pigamus

When he came back to do the new ones in the nineties it was like he'd forgotten how to play it. It's like Columbo's become a pissed uncle at a wedding or something.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: pigamus on July 15, 2019, 06:18:21 PM
When he came back to do the new ones in the nineties it was like he'd forgotten how to play it. It's like Columbo's become a pissed uncle at a wedding or something.

Yep - effectively a completely different show with a very different character.

Falk had more involvement behind the scenes with the rebooted series' than he did with the 70s ones, so it's likely he moulded the character to better suit what he wanted.  Either that or he just forgot how to play him.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: pigamus on July 15, 2019, 06:18:21 PM
When he came back to do the new ones in the nineties it was like he'd forgotten how to play it. It's like Columbo's become a pissed uncle at a wedding or something.

Yes, it's rather sad and embarrassing. His performance during the original run was immaculate, but he amplified those wonderful little quirks and subtle bits of business later on. Columbo was always funny, but he was never an outright clown in the classic '70s episodes. Silver-haired Columbo is basically a buffoon.

It had nothing to do with Falk's dementia, either, as he didn't become ill until after the series had ended. He just, as you say, forgot how to play the character properly.

Blumf

There was some dodgy opening title sequence with some of the later shows, like it was made for a general murder mystery segment. Can't find it on Youtube.

Rolf Lundgren

Columbo gets them to confess every time and that's all that matters to him. Even if they get off in court, he knows he got the right person.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on July 15, 2019, 08:13:01 PM
Columbo gets them to confess every time and that's all that matters to him. Even if they get off in court, he knows he got the right person.

But that suggests that he's a narcissist who doesn't really care about bringing these people to justice, he only cares about being right. Off he saunters at the end of every episode, secure in the knowledge that he's made a murderer squirm. Whether they get convicted or not is of no consequence to him.

chveik

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 15, 2019, 08:45:51 PM
But that suggests that he's a narcissist who doesn't really care about bringing these people to justice, he only cares about being right. Off he saunters at the end of every episode, secure in the knowledge that he's made a murderer squirm. Whether they get convicted or not is of no consequence to him.

I really like Columbo (the series) but I don't find him to be a very likeable character.

biggytitbo

I think the later Columbos are perfectly fine for the most part, not a patch on the originals but mostly fun and occasionally very good indeed. Falk plays him like David Jason does del boy in the later Only fools - same character but broader and more cartoonish.


The main misfires in the later episodes are when they try to shake up the formula and do something 'different' - don't, it's just Peter Falk pissing about because he's bored.

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: Blumf on July 15, 2019, 06:49:23 PM
There was some dodgy opening title sequence with some of the later shows, like it was made for a general murder mystery segment. Can't find it on Youtube.

So it's not this then? https://youtu.be/8VI9mUyG_f0

C_Larence

I've always said Boris Johnson is a Columbo villain who has tricked everyone into thinking he's Columbo.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: chveik on July 15, 2019, 08:54:07 PM
I really like Columbo (the series) but I don't find him to be a very likeable character.

Why don't you like him?

bgmnts

Columbo is surely about as likeable as a tv detective gets.

Can we say Columbo > Bergerac?

Lordofthefiles

"I need everybody's cooperation right about now,
I'd like to find out whose favorite detective it is,
Is it Mannix? (No!),
Barnaby Jones? (No!),
Somebody say Columbo (Yeah!),
Micky Mahoney?,
Clancy Claranin?,
Barnaby Jones?,
I said that already".

kidsick5000

Quote from: bgmnts on July 15, 2019, 11:59:27 PM
Columbo is surely about as likeable as a tv detective gets.

Can we say Columbo > Bergerac?

There is no TV detective more pleasurable to watch.
Begerac suddenly turning up on TV is bnot enough to disrupt your plans for the day.
Columbo turns up and you're on the phone and it's "Yeah, sorry but I'm going to be late."

If Banacek had lasted longer, he'd be a contender

biggytitbo

In many episodes the murderer ends up growing very fond of Columbo, that's how likeable he is.


He does annoy the piss out of loads of others though, but even they end up with a begrudging respect for him.

Blumf

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on July 15, 2019, 10:36:03 PM
So it's not this then? https://youtu.be/8VI9mUyG_f0

No, much later than that, late-80s/90s period, and very cheap looking. Things like a doll's head dumped in a jar of liquid, and letters that make up the word 'murder' or something.

It's probably the same idea though, some general murder mystery segment for the TV station.

It's notable that no US network would touch that early 70s Murder Mystery format if it were made today, with no recaps or background music to spoonfeed the viewer.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on July 18, 2019, 03:25:40 PM
It's notable that no US network would touch that early 70s Murder Mystery format if it were made today, with no recaps or background music to spoonfeed the viewer.

Quite so, especially the episodes where there's no dialogue at all for the first 10-15 minutes and Columbo himself doesn't turn up until 20 minutes in.


This thread has made me start going through them all (70s ones) again.  Halfway through season one (including the two pilots).

Dex Sawash

Haven't watched any of them since new but I liked McCloud better. He was a cowboy, phwoarr.

bgmnts

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on July 18, 2019, 06:19:25 PM
Quite so, especially the episodes where there's no dialogue at all for the first 10-15 minutes and Columbo himself doesn't turn up until 20 minutes in.


This thread has made me start going through them all (70s ones) again.  Halfway through season one (including the two pilots).

I'm two episodes into season two and Dog has made his first appearance. John Casavettes and a Basset Hound, can't say fairer than that!

gilbertharding

I like the ones with Patrick McGoohan in them. It was always him who done it, wasn't it?

Jasha






Quote from: DrGreggles on July 14, 2019, 10:58:51 PM
Probably the right thread to post this:
https://youtu.be/3_UN2S8SasY?t=70

Great comic timing.

That is fantastic



Quote from: biggytitbo on July 15, 2019, 07:22:26 AM
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.

He's a detective not a prosecutor

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: gilbertharding on July 19, 2019, 09:13:53 AM
I like the ones with Patrick McGoohan in them. It was always him who done it, wasn't it?
Was there an episode with McGoohan where he got away with the murder? Sure he gave a sly "be seeing you" in one of his episodes too.

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on July 19, 2019, 10:27:20 AM
Sure he gave a sly "be seeing you" in one of his episodes too.

He did, I watched it the other day, Identity Crisis from series 5. Features McGoohan disguised as an old man at one point. Leslie Nielsen was the victim and I find it hard to watch him walk into a room without smiling so when he called someone 'amigo' I cracked up. As he is a double agent I presume McGoohan never gets to trial and is disappeared by the CIA.

Blumf

Assuming all the cases actually lead to a conviction (which is a stretch, as mentioned), how many got the chair?


Shaky

There was talk a few years ago of a reprisal starring Mark Ruffalo as Columbo, possibly because he has similar hair to Peter Falk.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Shaky on July 19, 2019, 11:57:17 AM
There was talk a few years ago of a reprisal starring Mark Ruffalo as Columbo, possibly because he has similar hair to Peter Falk.

Having seen Zodiac, I could sort of see that working.