"Columbo" Ransom for a Dead Man (1971)

Director:

Richard Irving

Writers:

Dean Hargrove (teleplay)
Richard Levinson (story) ...

TV Series:

"Columbo" (1971)

Original Air Date:

1 March 1971 (Season 1, Episode 0)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

A lawyer comes up with a clever plan to murder her husband. After the deed is done, a seemingly slow-witted...

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Lawyer | Detective | Crime Solving | Detective Series

Cast

Peter Falk	...	Columbo
Lee Grant	...	Leslie Williams
John Fink	...	Michael Clark
Harold Gould	...	Agent Carlson
Patricia Mattick	...	Margaret Williams
Paul Carr	...	Hammond
Jed Allan	...	Phil
Charles Macaulay	...	Richard
Hank Brandt	...	Attorney (as Henry Brandt)
Jean Byron	...	Pat (as Jeane Byron)
Richard Roat	...	Perkins
Norma Connolly	...	Celia
Harlan Warde	...	Paul Williams
Bill Walker	...	Crowell
Timothy Carey	...	Bert

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-7 (2004) | UK:PG | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Barney's Beanery - 8447 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, California, USA

Company:

Universal TV

Trivia:

Produced as a second pilot for the Columbo TV series, three years after Prescription: Murder (1968) (TV). Its success led to Columbo being made part of a rotating Mystery Movie wheel of programs for most of the 1970s.

Quotes:

Lt. Columbo: Unique woman.
Agent Carlson: What's that?
Lt. Columbo: Oh, I say, uh, she's an exceptional woman.
Agent Carlson: What do you mean?
Lt. Columbo: Well, when the phone rang, you know, she ran to the phone, she picked up the receiver, and uh, she never asked her - her husband if he was all right.
Agent Carlson: I don't see anything strange about that. The woman was frightened, under stress.
Lt. Columbo: That's right, yeah, yeah, she - she was, she was under stress, right. Gee, I just can't help thinking though, but... if I was in the hands of kidnappers, and my wife didn't ask me if I was okay, uh... I'd think about that.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "Rupan sansei: Part II: The Skateboard Murder Mystery (#3.21)" (1979)

Those digital zooms!

The murderess was brilliantly acted, but for a victim to be so honest and principled as he was described, why would such a clean living man want to marry a woman of pure deceit? I thought the step-daughter was bad tempered and obnoxious because her father had been killed, as well of her dislike of her step-mother.

Production wise, the editing showed us some rather sloppy cutting. The scene where Columbo picks the locker is bad, and the scene where the plane with Columbo and the murderer lands, suddenly has a huge building right behind it. Obviously, re-shooting these small things is a buck too far.

But a good episode, a better pilot in my view, which got its worst marks for the large amount of digital zooms, put there by the director, which I started to look out for.