Again, the plot was only so-so but the humor in this episode was outstanding. Funny when thinking back on this series I didn't remember it as funny.
(SPOILER ALERT)Twin brothers (Martin Landau) plot to murder their uncle who is getting ready to marry (Julie Newmar) and change his will. One brother is a TV chef, the other a banker. And there is an amusing routine with Columbo helping the chef out on TV. A TV show within a TV show always plays a bit awkwardly. Somehow they feel they need to make it more amateurish.
But the most amusing scenes used veteran actress Jeanette Nolan (300 TV appearances) to play a housekeeper who has trouble tolerating Columbo's messes. The two of them are perfect together. So once again you can see Falk enjoying himself in every scene. There are other interesting bits in this episode.
6 comments:
Oh, I always loved Columbo, Patti! I know some episodes are better than others, but I have some fond memories of watching that show.
My family watched the Columbo-McCloud-McMillan rotating series every Sunday night. (Did it air Sundays?) Can’t remember a single plot. Can remember the characters and some of the guest stars. There's a Columbo with John Cassavetes where he and Falk looked like they were trying to crack each other up. Do you remember another series that had three stars that rotated week by week called THE NAME OF THE GAME? I have vague memories of Gene Barry, Robert Stack and Anthony Franciosa.
We are continuing to watch the Columbo episodes at a very slow pace. We have them all on DVD. I do also remember watching them when they were in the rotation that Elgin mentioned, when I was living with my first husband in base housing near Riverside, CA.
In 1922 I bought THE COLUMBO COMPANION, a book about the first 45 episodes I think. I haven't read any of it yet.
I remember both!
In watching them again over the last several years, I've mostly been surprised how sloppily even the good episodes are edited...I suspect there were various bits where Falk, particularly, was causing some static on the sets (Suzanne Pleshette recalled as much from her first-season episode)...the Julie Newmar sequence in this one seems to be among the notable examples in this episode.
But I always recalled the funny bits...one of the reasons I'd watch along with my parents, particularly my mother, who liked COLUMBO even more than she did PERRY MASON and (with an extra heartthrob aspect) any James Garner or Robert Wagner series that would be telecast (I watched the Garners with her, too, when there was one).
Yes, Elgin, THE NAME OF THE GAME with those stars, spun off from the telefilm FAME IS THE NAME OF THE GAME, was a rotating series very nearly before there were others on US tv (FOUR STAR THEATER was, I think, the first, or at least the first that comes to mind). FOUR IN ONE helped launch McCLOUD and NIGHT GALLERY, and McCLOUD was incorportated into the first, indeed Sunday, NBC MYSTERY NOVIE (as COLUMBO when finally brought to series would be, which is why those episodes have no opening theme music in repeats...at least till the COLUMBO revival episodes, if then). There was briefly a second NBC WEDNESDAY MYSTERY MOVIE which was far less durable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NBC_Mystery_Movie
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