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\u00a9 Universal Television<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I was a kid during the 1970s, British television was awash with imported American detective and police series.\u00a0 My schoolmates and I agreed that the genre had a \u2018big five\u2019 \u2013 maybe because the title characters of these five shows had gimmicks that impressed them deeply on our young consciousnesses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was Kojak<\/em> (1973-78), whose detective hero was unashamedly bald, which meant anyone coming to school with a new haircut would be nicknamed \u2018Kojak\u2019 for days afterwards; Ironside<\/em> (1967-75), whose hero was confined to a wheelchair; Cannon<\/em> (1971-76), whose hero was fat \u2013 cue more cruel nicknames at school for kids slightly on the stout side; McCloud<\/em> (1970-77), whose hero was a cowboy; and Columbo<\/em> (1971-78), whose hero, essayed by Peter Falk, sported a grubby raincoat, unkempt head of hair and smelly-looking cigar and generally looked a bit manky.\u00a0 Such was Columbo\u2019s level of scruffiness that, whilst carrying out investigations in a soup kitchen in the 1974 episode Negative<\/em> Reaction<\/em>, a nun working there (Joyce Van Patten) mistook him for one of its homeless patrons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the half-century since, I\u2019ve seen episodes of those shows repeated on TV, often on obscure satellite channels, and I have to say most of them have fallen victim to what is known in contemporary slang as the \u2018suck fairy\u2019.\u00a0 This is neatly defined on fanlore.org<\/a> as a \u201cmythical creature who comes to old favourite books, art, TV shows or other media that one has not revisited in years, takes away everything in them that one loved, and refills them instead with suck.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The shows seem formulaic, unmemorable, even dreary now, indistinguishable from a million other pieces of conveyor-belt-produced 1970s American TV.\u00a0 Was this really the stuff that inspired us as ten-year-old kids to strut around the playground speaking in wavery drawls, like Dennis Weaver\u2019s Deputy Marshall Sam McCloud, applying his cowboy law-enforcement techniques to the bad guys of New York (where he was on seemingly never-ending loan to the NYPD from the police department of Taos, New Mexico)?\u00a0 Or inspired us to puff out our bellies and lurch \/ amble across the playground in imitation of William Conrad\u2019s Private Detective Frank Cannon chasing the villains?\u00a0 (Cannon, despite his obvious lack of athleticism, was able to not only run after those villains but also, somehow, catch<\/em> them.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, there are two exceptions to the suck fairy rule.\u00a0 One is the earlier episodes of Kojak<\/em>, which capture something of 1970s New York\u2019s sleazier side.\u00a0 The other is Columbo<\/em>, which although the episodes vary in quality, is frequently brilliant.\u00a0 Today is September 15th<\/sup>, 2021, exactly 50 years to the day since Columbo<\/em> debuted on American TV \u2013 not as a show with a weekly slot, but as \u2018rotating episodes\u2019 in the NDB Mystery Movie<\/em> series, where it alternated with McCloud<\/em> and McMillan & Wife<\/em> (1971-77).\u00a0 Incidentally, surely even Quentin Tarantino has difficulty remembering McMillan & Wife<\/em> these days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To mark the occasion, and because I\u2019m currently living in the capital city of Sri Lanka, here are some thoughts on Columbo<\/em> \u2013 from Colombo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Universal Television<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Actually, there\u2019s little I can say about Columbo<\/em> that hasn\u2019t already been said in this feature<\/a> by Shaun Curran, which recently appeared in the BBC website\u2019s \u2018Culture\u2019 section.\u00a0 I\u2019d take issue with one of the feature\u2019s comments, though, that the \u2018concept of class warfare wasn\u2019t central to the creators\u2019 thinking\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Well, class warfare may not have been on the radar of William Link and Richard Levinson, the writing-producing duo who invented the character.\u00a0 But I\u2019m pretty damn sure it was at the forefront of most viewers\u2019 minds while, episode after episode, they watched Columbo, the most humbly blue-collar of detectives, use his softly-spoken but bloody-minded persistence to wear down a succession of rich, arrogant, entitled sophisticates who, convinced of their own brilliance, believe they\u2019ve just committed the perfect murder.\u00a0 I\u2019m certain those viewers cheered when, at the end of each episode, Columbo comprehensively outsmarted those bigshots and nabbed them for their misdeeds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The show\u2019s atypical structure saw each episode begin with some stinkingly rich, stinkingly amoral character \u2013 an art dealer, a bestselling novelist, a company CEO \u2013 commit a murder in some ingenious fashion.\u00a0 Immediately, we\u2019d be plonked into that person\u2019s affluent world: mansions, penthouses, country retreats, exclusive clubs, golf courses, fancy cars, swimming pools, yes-men, servants, hangers-on.\u00a0 Columbo wouldn\u2019t appear until after 20 minutes or so, when the police are called.\u00a0 You can imagine the murderer\u2019s mental cry of delight when they realise that this bumbling, zero-class klutz is handling the investigation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ah, but the viewers know better.\u00a0 Columbo is on the case and the disgustingly wealthy git is going to suffer<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His apparent obsequiousness (\u201cThe wife thinks you\u2019re terrific!\u201d) gives way to a gradual but relentless process of psychological torture as some teensy-weensy inconsistency (\u201cJust one more thing\u2026 One thing that\u2019s bothering me\u2026\u201d) arouses the wily detective\u2019s suspicions and he starts tightening the screws on his quarry.\u00a0 No wonder that when the climax of each episode arrives and Columbo reveals all \u2013 usually by setting some final trap in which the culprit irrefutably incriminates him or herself \u2013 arrest is usually accepted with a minimum of fuss.\u00a0 The bigshot murderer has been thoroughly ground down by this disheveled, raincoated dispenser of justice.\u00a0 Prison will seem a blessed relief after what they\u2019ve just been through.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Colombo, with his rubbish clothes, hair and car (an elderly Peugeot 403), his clumsiness, his dozy dog and his bossy wife who, despite never making an appearance, lurks as a formidable presence in the background, might be an everyman figure.\u00a0 But he also helps rectify the injustices in the American Dream that allow such unprincipled scum to rise to the top while the decent folk get stuck at the bottom.\u00a0 As Joyce Van Patten\u2019s nun remarks in Negative<\/em> Reaction<\/em>, \u201cA man\u2019s worth is not judged by the size of his purse.\u201d\u00a0 Really, each episode of Colombo<\/em> ought to be watched with L\u2019Internationale <\/em><\/a>playing softly in the background.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Universal Television<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, which are my favourite Columbo<\/em> episodes?\u00a0 Well, there\u2019s 1973\u2019s A Stitch in Crime<\/em>, which is fascinating because Columbo is pitted against Mr. Spock<\/a> himself, Leonard Nimoy, who plays an ambitious heart surgeon using his medical know-how to bump off a colleague so he can take control of a research project.\u00a0 Ironically, this episode has less logic and more emotion on display than usual. \u00a0We get a rare glimpse of Columbo losing his cool.\u00a0 When Nimoy laughs at him condescendingly, he smashes a water pitcher onto the former Vulcan\u2019s desk and spits: \u201cI believe you killed Sharon Martin\u2026 and I believe you\u2019re trying to kill Dr Heideman!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Double Shock<\/em>, also from 1973, in which smug \u2013 okay, all Columbo<\/em> villains are smug \u2013 identical twins, played by Martin Landau, conspire to kill their wealthy uncle by electrocuting him while he\u2019s having a bath.\u00a0 What makes this episode a joy is the horror shown by the victim\u2019s prim, cleanliness-obsessed housekeeper (played by Jeanette Nolan) while Columbo trudges about her pristine household with his dirty shoes and crumbling cigar.\u00a0 You get the impression she\u2019d rather have her employer\u2019s murder go unsolved than have this apparent oaf tramp over her expensive carpets.\u00a0 \u201cYou belong in some pigsty!\u201d she shouts at him, patience finally snapping.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The shiny-pated, bug-eyed Donald Pleasence was everywhere in 1970s films and television, so it was inevitable that he\u2019d turn up in Columbo<\/em>.\u00a0 In the episode Any Old Port in a Storm<\/em>, yet another one from 1973, he plays a fanatical wine connoisseur who at one point rages at a waiter: \u201cThis wine has been oxidized by overheating\u2026! \u00a0An exciting meal has been spoiled by the presence of this liquid filth!\u201d \u00a0However, unusually, Pleasence\u2019s character is sympathetic overall. \u00a0Indeed, he only murders his dastardly half-brother when that half-brother threatens his beloved winery.\u00a0 And, unlike most of Columbo\u2019s adversaries, he\u2019s sporting in defeat.\u00a0 When he realises the game is up, he even shares a final glass of wine with the detective.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1974\u2019s Swan Song<\/em> has Colombo investigating a plane crash that\u2019s resulted in the deaths of two women. One is the wife and the other is the backing singer of country-and-western star Tommy Brown, who was piloting the plane and miraculously got thrown clear during the impact and suffered only minor injuries.\u00a0 But the truth is less miraculous.\u00a0 Brown had got himself into a compromising situation with the background singer when she was way<\/em> too young for such things, and his wife (played by the marvellous Ida Lupino) was blackmailing him into donating large sums to a religious project she championed.\u00a0 To rid himself of these two sources of torment, he drugged them when they were on the plane, bailed out with a parachute, and turned up at the crash scene to make it look like he was on board when it went down, but survived.\u00a0 I find this episode\u2019s script far-fetched, but as Brown is played by Johnny Cash, and it\u2019s basically Columbo versus the Man in Black<\/a>, it makes my pick of favourites.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Universal Television<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, my all-time favourite Columbo episode is Troubled<\/em> Waters<\/em>, a 1975 episode that has Columbo and the missus taking a break on a 1970s cruise ship, an experience that I have to say looks like hell on earth.\u00a0 Columbo is asked to help after rich slimeball passenger Robert Vaughn murders the ship\u2019s lounge singer and tries to pin the blame on a pianist (played by Dean Stockwell).\u00a0 What makes this episode a pleasure is not only that Columbo is up against Vaughn, The Man from UNCLE<\/em><\/a> (1964-68), but also that he\u2019s allied with John Steed from The Avengers<\/em><\/a> (1961-69), for playing the perplexed ship\u2019s captain is none other than the splendid Patrick Macnee.\u00a0 While Columbo drives Macnee and his crew to distraction by insisting on calling their beloved ship a \u2018boat\u2019, we get tantalising suggestions that we\u2019re going to see Mrs. Columbo at last \u2013 though inevitably, Columbo, and the viewers, keep \u2018just missing’ her.\u00a0 (When the purser informs Columbo that the captain would like to see him, he asks worriedly, \u201cIt\u2019s not about my wife, is it?\u00a0 I mean\u2026 she likes to have a good time, sometimes she gets carried away\u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Columbo<\/em> was revived in 1989 and carried on with another two dozen episodes and specials until 2003, eight years before Peter Falk\u2019s death.\u00a0 These later Columbo-es<\/em> weren\u2019t as good as the ones from the 1970s, although it was always a pleasure to see the character on screen, still socking it to the high and mighty.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With Falk gone, there\u2019s been talk of remaking the show, the most promising talk proposing Mark Ruffalo as the actor who\u2019d take over the raincoat.\u00a0 Now, while Columbo<\/em> obviously wouldn\u2019t be the same without Falk, I\u2019d still welcome a modern-day version of the show that has the rumpled detective shuffling into luxury 2021 penthouses with his shabby raincoat and malodorous cigar, first inviting derision from, then causing irritation to, and finally striking terror into the likes of the Trumps, the Kardashians, the Kochs, the Murdochs, the Musks and so on.\u00a0 I\u2019d welcome the sight of him annoying villainous investment bankers, hedge fund managers, real estate tycoons, arms dealers, celebrity reality-TV stars and pampered YouTube influencers into submission, before collaring them and sticking them behind bars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yes, today, when a quarter of the world\u2019s wealth now resides in the pockets of some 175,000 billionaires and multi-millionaires<\/a>, and much of it didn\u2019t get into those pockets through honest means, we need Detective Lieutenant Columbo more than ever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Universal Television<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a9 Universal Television When I was a kid during the 1970s, British television was awash with imported American detective and police series.\u00a0 My schoolmates and I agreed that the genre had a \u2018big five\u2019 \u2013 maybe because the title characters of these five shows had gimmicks that impressed them deeply on our young … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/C-LN.jpg\")
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