"Columbo" The Most Dangerous Match (1973)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Edward M. Abroms

Writers:

Jackson Gillis (teleplay)
Jackson Gillis (story) ...

TV Series:

"Columbo" (1971)

Original Air Date:

4 March 1973 (Season 2, Episode 7)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

A chess player murders his opponent before a big match. Lt. Columbo must out-maneuver this crafty, but craven, killer.

Plot Keywords:

Chess | Murder | Chess Grandmaster | Police | Murder Suspect

Cast

Peter Falk	...	Columbo
Laurence Harvey	...	Emmett Clayton
Lloyd Bochner	...	Mazoor Berozski
Jack Kruschen	...	Tomlin Dudek
Heidi Brühl	...	Linda Robinson (as Heidi Bruhl)
Paul Jenkins	...	Sergeant Douglas
Michael Fox	...	Dr. Benson
Oscar Beregi Jr.	...	Proprietor (as Oscar Beregi)
Mathias Reitz	...	Anton
Richard Drout Miller	...	1st Reporter (as Drout Miller)
Manuel DePina	...	2nd Reporter
Stuart Nisbet	...	Dr. Sullivan
Abigail Shelton	...	Nurse
John Finnegan	...	1st Workman

Runtime:

Germany:74 min | Italy:70 min | USA:73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-7 (2005) | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Universal TV

Trivia:

The final combination of the chess game played between Dudek and Clayton in the restaurant and finished in Dudek's hotel room was actually played in game Wolthuis-Alexander, Maastricht 1946. In the movie Dudek demonstrated the line leading to mate, in the actual game black resigned after the first move of combination, Qxb4. Also, Columbo, when reading from Dudek's notation, says that Black resigned on the 41st move. In the actual game from 1946, the sequence takes place earlier in the game (Black resigned on the 25th move).

Goofs:

Continuity: As killer chess-champ Emmett Clayton steps into an elevator at the hotel, his shoes are light tan loafers, suede-looking, almost matching his suit. When he gets off the elevator, his shoes have been transformed to shiny black leather, with silver buckles.

Quotes:

Emmett Clayton: Well, chess *is* the ultimate test of the human mind, isn't it?
Tomlin Dudek: You think so? I always thought it was women.

Soundtrack:

Sunday Mystery Movie Theme

Columbo outwits a chess champion in this superior effort

Columbo often plays a kind of chess game with his opponents, but this time his adversary is an actual chess champion.

Emmett Clayton (Laurence Harvey, with echoes of his tormented character in "The Manchurian Candidate") has a nightmare before an important chess match, a nightmare the director helpfully visualizes for us as a giant fog-filled chess board, on which Clayton and his opponent are chess pieces. Clearly, he's worried about his match with Tomlin Dudek (Jack Kruschen, who looks a bit like Captain Kangaroo), a kindly old fat Russian. Later, the two meet, not coincidentally, in a French restaurant, where they begin using the salt and pepper shakers and other objects on the table as chess pieces. The game continues in Clayton's apartment – secretly, because both Dudek's doctor and his coach would throw fits if they knew the diabetic Russian was out late, eating rich foods with his opponent. Clayton loses the impromptu game and has a nervous fit, from which Dudek tries to calm him down.

Meanwhile, Columbo appears before there's even a murder: Dudek's coach had panicked and called the police when the champion didn't show up in his hotel room on time. So Columbo is aware of this man even before something serious happens.

The next day something does. Clayton decides he must murder Dudek before the match. He concocts a scheme that makes it look as if Dudek met with an untimely accident in the hotel's trash compactor. But our rumpled and seemingly disorganized Lt. Columbo is on the case.

Clayton makes for an interesting adversary. He refuses to play along with Columbo's pretense, forcing our resourceful detective into some quicksilver improvisation. Clayton won't pretend for a moment that Columbo is just interested in clearing a few things up, and he calls him on it immediately. He also won't stand for Columbo's usual forgetful routine. Wonderfully, he demonstrates his own superior memory in a way I'll leave for you to discover. Clayton is also nearly deaf, a handicap that has both unusual advantages and unexpected perils.

The script is not as quite as sure and deft as the great "Columbo" episodes, like "Murder by the Book" and "A Stitch in Crime." But it comes very close. I particularly loved the scene where Clayton plays chess with a series of fawning opponents as Columbo grills him. And then there's the ending, which is very satisfactory. This is a must-see for "Columbo" fans and good entertainment for anyone else.