"Columbo" fans - favorite episode?

[mac56]

"Columbo" is probably my favorite detective series, followed by "The Rockford Files" and "Monk". Actually I mean the original run of "Columbo" on NBC in the 70s. The remake attempts kind of suck. In any case, I just finished watching my favorite episode. From 1973, it was "Any Old Port In A Storm" and featured Donald Pleasance as the villian and Julie Harris as his loyal loving secretary. It's remarkably good because Pleasance plays a villain that is actually worthy of Columbo's tenacity. The interplay between him and Peter Falk was a rare gem.

Okay, does anyone else have a favorite "Columbo" ep?

[unblock]

1. i like the one where he says, "oh, one more thing" as he's walking out

or maybe the one where he keeps asking the guilty guy "whayddya make of that?"

[mac56]

2. Oh, yeah! I saw that one!

;-)

[Cassandra]

3. Murder Under Glass

The restaurant critic one, although the winery one is good, too.

[mac56]

4. Did you know Jonathan Demme directed that one?

God, I need to get out more.

[unblock]

5. actually, there was one in a MENSA house

of course the characterization of mensan was silly, but i did enjoy the bit about the woman who was doing complete household inventory for insurance purposes.

columbo asks, "shouldn't you be walking around the house to do that?"

and the woman replies, "why would i need to do that?"

[NightTrain]

6. Hey! I was going to say "Any Old Port in a Storm."

That was a terrific episode, wasn't it? :yourock:

[mac56]

7. High praise indeed, sir.

Do you remember "Swan Song"? The ep with Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash?

On edit: I misremembered. June wasn't in it. Ida Lupino played the wife of Johnny's character.

[peekaloo]

8. Jack Cassidy as the lazy writer who kills his partner.

May have been the pencil thin mustache but I always thought Jack C. was truly evil.

[mac56]

9. That's a good one.

Cassidy also played an evil magician in another ep.

I really, really have to get out more.

[Lancer]

10. Janet Leigh as the Norma Desmond type

washed up old movie star. That one was a two-hour movie, I think.

[pacalo]

11. "Etude in Black"...

John Cassevettes plays an orchestra conductor who kills his mistress, a concert pianist, before a concert. The conductor unknowingly leaves his customary lapel carnation at the murder site & performs at the filmed concert without it. Realizing his error during the concert, the conductor goes back to the victim's home after being told about the murder. He meets Columbo & manages to find the carnation left behind. Using tv footage of the concert, Columbo distinguishes that the conductor wasn't wearing his traditional lapel carnation at the concert, yet was wearing one at the victim's home the night of the murder.

[Awsi Dooger]

12. "I Was Murdered By..."

That's probably not the correct title, but it's how I remember the episode. An elderly woman who is a famous author kills her nephew, I think it was, in a fit of revenge by closing the safe when he is inside. She departs for a weeklong trip and seemingly has an alibi.

Columbo notices odd scratches on the small safety deposit boxes in the safe, and finally puts them together in correct order, forming an arrow pointing to the ceiling. After unscrewing the lightbulb, there is one piece of paper, a title page from the woman's manuscript in which the nephew blacked out a word or words so it named his killer, "I Was Murdered By Abigail Van Buren." Funny how that name came to me while writing this post. I think it's the correct character name.