TV Quote of the Day (‘Columbo,’ On Detectives’ Advantage Over Murderers)

Lt. Columbo [played by Peter Falk] [addressing psychiatrist Ray Flemming—an as-yet uncaught killer]: “You know, cops, we're not the brightest guys in the world. Of course, we got one thing going for us: we're professionals. I mean, you take our friend here, the murderer. He's very smart, but he's an amateur. I mean, he's got just one time to learn. Just one. And with us, well, with us, it's—it's a business. You see, we do this a hundred times a year. I'll tell ya, Doc. That's a lot of practice.”—“Prescription: Murder” (pilot for the Columbo series), original air date Feb. 20, 1968, teleplay by Richard Levinson and William Link, directed by Richard Irving

This Day in TV History (‘Columbo,’ Top TV Detective, Premieres)

Sept. 15, 1971—What many of its fans regard as the greatest detective series in television history, Columbo, premiered as part of “The NBC Tuesday Mystery Movie,” along with McCloud and McMillan and Wife.

I began watching Columbo in the sixth grade and it quickly became what later programmers would call “much-watch TV.” Like many other viewers, I chuckled at the personal touches that Peter Falk used to make the rumpled detective his own: the beat-up 1959 Peugeot 403 convertible, the basset hound, the foul-smelling cigars, and, of course, that raincoat.

But two other aspects of the show also endeared it to me: First, the weighing of evidence—not just hunting for clues, but also deliberating whether they were significant or even in keeping with the context of the scene. It helped cement a research orientation that eventually led me to become, at different times, a librarian, writer and editor.

Second, the murders that Columbo investigated were seldom committed by career criminals or gang members, but instead by the crème de la crème of society—a tycoon, a football team owner, an author, a movie star, a general or a politician, to name a few. It was a seemingly unending trail of villains with not just all the power and privilege someone could have, but enough craftiness to kill a human being and dispose of the evidence or manufacture a red herring.

Yet in each episode, the audience got to root for the underdog—an unglamorous detective who used not a gun or even his fists, but a carefully concealed intelligence that made the elite submit to the same forces of justice that everyone else had to do.

McCloud and McMillan and Wife, the other two occupants of the 8:30-10 PM Tuesday timeslot, have not lingered in the popular imagination to the same extent and are not seen as much today, even on vintage TV channels like MeTV and Cozi.

But Columbo endures—partly because of the genius of its format (a cat-and-mouse game between killer and detective) and partly because of the actor who brought the character to gloriously idiosyncratic life.

During this pandemic, I have watched and rewatched many of its 69 episodes, whether on cable or DVD. Others share my addiction, including the creators of the Websites “The Columbophile,” “The Columbo Podcast,” and the modestly titled “The Ultimate Columbo Site.”

I admit that, to some extent, using the September 1971 date as the starting point for the series is a bit arbitrary. Falk first appeared in the role in the 1968 TV movie "Prescription: Murder," then reprised it, in the spring of 1971, in the pilot for the series, “Ransom for a Dead Man.”

But the show began in earnest when NBC placed it as part of a rotating “wheel” with McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver as a fish-out-of-water New Mexico marshal brought to the streets of New York, and McMillan and Wife, with Rock Hudson and Susan St. James attempting to recreate the witty repartee of the “Thin Man” movie series of the Thirties and Forties.

Being grouped with the other two series satisfied one of the concerns of Falk, who wanted to keep his hand in movies and use the extra time between episodes working on scripts. (He had already been in a weekly meat-grinder of a series in The Trials of O'Brien, which lasted only 22 episodes in the 1965-66 season before being done in by The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) Like his character, he was dogged and obsessed with details, sometimes testing the patience of series creators Richard Levinson and William Link even as he helped improve the quality of individual episodes.

Longtime writing partners who had created the long-running private-eye series Mannix, Levinson and Link were inspired to produce a far more cerebral series by their youthful reading of Fyodor Dostoyefsky’s Crime and Punishment (featuring the detective Porfiry Petrovich), G.K. Chesterton’s “Father Brown” stories, and the “Ellery Queen” short stories and novels. Columbo would blend the quirky investigator of the first two sources and the relentlessly logical reasoner in the Queen stories.

Levinson and Link first outlined the character in 1960 in the live-to-air murder mystery “Enough Rope,” part of the Chevy Mystery Show drama anthology. The lieutenant, as in his later incarnation, went by no first name and pursued his suspect with initially innocent but increasingly relentless questions. But Bert Freed was a burly actor quite different physically from the shorter Falk.

Next, the writing duo reworked their script into a play for Thomas Mitchell (perhaps most famous for playing Scarlett O’Hara’s Irish father in Gone With the Wind). But the Oscar-winning character actor died of cancer before the drama could be taken to Broadway.

A few years later, Lee J. Cobb and Bing Crosby were suggested for the role. But Cobb’s schedule was too full, and Crosby was reluctant to come out of semi-retirement to accept the rigors of a series.

Highly regarded as a dramatic actor by Levinson and Link, Crosby would have made the character much like himself: smooth, laid-back, pipe-smoking. But Falk, in addition to the personal accoutrements I mentioned earlier, made the lieutenant a figure eminently ripe for underestimation by unwary criminals: so gravelly voiced, stooped, squinting (making use of the actor's glass eye), and shambling that his character was once mistaken for a homeless man in a soup kitchen.

You can still see Falk finding his way in his first appearance in the role, in Prescription: Murder. Like Leonard Nimoy in the pilot for Star Trek, he accentuates the intense, relentless aspects of his character initially. The passage of three years led him to emphasize Columbo's more offbeat traits in Ransom for a Dead Man. 

Nevertheless, this surface “half-assed Sherlock Holmes” (as Falk called him) didn’t miss a trick, finding an unusual bit of evidence as annoying as a bit between the teeth.

In one of the show’s great comic touches, these murderers fumed when Columbo would wheel around, just before departing, and say, “Just one more thing…” (A phrase that became the title of Falk’s autobiography.) No wonder: He was so implacable that Falk likened being targeted by Columbo to “being nibbled to death by a duck.”

But the actors playing the villains were even more likely to be thrown off guard by Falk’s ad-libbed tricks: a request for a pencil, fumbling for something in his pockets, going off on trivia, talking about his wife or another relative, or, on one memorable occasion, asking a suspect, “How much did you pay for those shoes?”

I have a confession to make here. Maybe this goes back to my Sixties childhood, when I delighted in each week’s “guest villain” on Batman, but I loved Columbo’s adversaries just as much as the detective himself. I practically hissed as these chic, wealthy, famous people carried out their killings in the most cold-blooded, cocky fashion possible, only to be brought to heel by their arrogance and by the investigator who wouldn’t let go of his quarry.

I’m sure every fan has his set of favorite baddies, but most, I think, would return to the actors who came back most often: Robert Culp, Patrick McGoohan, and my favorite, Jack Cassidy. (Yes, baby boomers: the father of David and Shaun.) These repeat offenders brought different characteristics to the roles (Culp, barely controlled resentment; McGoohan, elegant malice; and Cassidy, preening egotism), but all made memorable impressions.

Three other reasons why I liked the series:

*It gave memorable roles to middle-aged and elderly actresses. At a time when Hollywood often didn’t know what to do with actresses who were beyond the ingenue stage, Columbo provided them with multi-dimensional, if sometimes brief, roles, not necessarily confined to villains. These women included Lee Grant, Anne Baxter, Ida Lupino, Myrna Loy, Kim Hunter, Gena Rowlands, Martha Scott, Vera Miles, Ruth Gordon, Faye Dunaway, and Janet Leigh.

*It boosted the careers of rising talents, in front of or behind the camera. Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue) first won wide attention with a Columbo teleplay that Falk publicly praised when the actor picked up the first of his four Emmys for the role, while Steven Spielberg and Jonathan Demme cut their teeth as directors with some of the series’ most striking episodes. Appearing on the show early in their careers were Blythe Danner, Jeff Goldblum, Martin Sheen, Kim Cattrall, Katey Sagal, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

*It blended realistic characterization and the clues of great detective stories into great scripts. The series ranks #57 on a list of “The 101 Best-Written TV Series” compiled by the Writers Guild of America West.

Just one more thing (where did I hear that before?) on this last point: The best scripts of the series were most likely to have been written in the original run of the series, from 1971 to 1978. After a decade-long hiatus, Falk revived the role in 1989, beginning a string of occasional two-hour TV movies that continued until 2003.

But be warned: the longer the series continued, the lower its quality sank. In no small part, this was because the scripts did not match the quality of the original series. (Another sign of a below-average episode: if one of the guest stars included Falk's second wife, Shera Danese.) 

By this time, Levinson had died while Link was busy with another long-running detective series, Murder She Wrote. As executive producer of the new movies, Falk was involved even more intimately with their creation than he was before. He might have taken on more than he could handle. 

One sign of it: two episodes that departed from the cat-and-mouse format of the show—meaning that any other detective could have been inserted into the space reserved for “Columbo” with no one in the audience being the wiser. Falk loved playing the character so much that he simply didn’t know when to stop.

But at its best, Columbo is virtually unrivaled among detective series. Falk enjoyed acclaim on stage and the big screen, but television gave him his greatest vehicle.

This Day in Film History (John Payne, ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ Male Lead, Dies)

Dec. 6, 1989—Even as the TV was on in the house playing his—and countless other people’s—favorite holiday movie, John Payne—a likable B-movie lead best known for Miracle on 34th Street—died at his Malibu home at age 77 of congestive heart failure. 

The proximity between death and Payne’s most famous role made it practically inevitable that I would write about him. 

As I learned more about his life, though, I found that Payne was far more interesting than that pleasant attorney he played who, by saving a department store Santa named Kris Kringle from an insane asylum, won the heart of a skeptical mother and her adorable little girl. 

Not unlike the trial in his holiday classic, Payne’s life took some unexpected turns. the scion of a well-to-do Virginia farmer, he saw the family circumstances sharply reduced after the Great Crash of 1929. While studying drama and voice at Juilliard and Columbia University, he took radio work and roles in low-budget Shubert shows. 

When Hollywood finally beckoned, studio execs, eyeing that lanky frame, cast him in musicals instead of in the obvious—Westerns and crime dramas. As a 20th Century Fox contract player, he appeared in the likes of Tin Pan Alley, Sun Valley Serenade and Hello, Frisco, Hello.

Actresses liked Payne just as much as their screen characters—so, while not in the same class as, say, Errol Flynn, he did quite nicely for himself, with three wives (Anne Shirley, Gloria DeHaven and Alexandra Crowell Curtis) and romances with the likes of Jane Russell and Kansas City Confidential co-star Coleen Gray.

One actress who enjoyed being around Payne—professionally, though not romantically—was Miracle on 34^th Street co-star Maureen O’Hara. They had already co-starred in two films, To the Shores of Tripoli (1942) and Sentimental Journey (1946), and would go on to make another, Tripoli (1950).  

Miracle would turn out to be especially enjoyable for them. Early on, they realized they were working with fine material (the George Seaton screenplay would, in fact, win an Oscar). At the end of the day, the two would go out with co-star Edmund Gwenn, often strolling up Fifth Avenue. 

Even so, none in the group ever thought the film would remain a beloved Christmas film over 70 years after its release. 

Legends cling to the film and its star, some true (at the time of his death, O’Hara wrote in her autobiography, Payne was writing a sequel to it) and some not (when Miracle was being created, Payne’s daughter Julie later related, he could not have used his own money to get it produced because he was not only paying alimony and child support to his first wife but needed to support his third child, with his second wife). 

Like the somewhat older Dick Powell, aging forced Payne to demonstrate his versatility beyond the  musical comedy roles that gave him his start. Film noirs such as The Crooked Way and 99 River Street provided him with tougher roles, and a two-year stint in the TV western The Restless Gun gave him the opportunity to play an anti-hero.

Ironically, Payne’s last acting role, as a former musical star in the detective series Columbo, reflected in some senses his own dire circumstances of the decade before. 

On the show, his career feels guilt over a long-ago car crash that derailed his career and that of his co-star (played by Janet Leigh). In real life, Payne had been struck by a car in New York City in 1961. 

“No one thought I would live,” he recalled in an interview a decade later. “I had a fractured skull. My left leg was broken in four places. My chin was literally cut off. There was a question of whether or not the leg would have to be amputated."

Corrective plastic surgery, performed on the back of his head, allowed Payne to resume his career several years later. 

But the scars from the accident were still visible in close-ups and, having grown tired of hours of filming, he decided not to continue acting after his Columbo guest appearance in 1975. 

Fortunately, shrewd show business and real estate investments allowed him to live out his last years comfortably.

Quote of the Day (Frank Capra, on Peter Falk)

“Peter Falk was my joy, my anchor to reality. Introducing that remarkable talent to the techniques of comedy made me forget pains, tired blood, and maniacal hankerings to murder Glenn Ford. Thank you, Peter Falk.”—Veteran director Frank Capra, on his 1961 film, Pocketful of Miracles, and its marvelous supporting actor, Peter Falk, in The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography (1971)

At the time of Capra’s memoir, Peter Falk was about to ascend to another level of stardom, as Columbo, TV’s premiere detective of the Seventies and, more rabid fans might insist, of all time. 

Within a few years, many people would forget that for two years in a row, at the beginning of the 1960s, the actor had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscars, in Murder, Inc. and Pocketful of Miracles.

Those who worked with the actor—who, sadly, died of Alzheimer’s this past weekend—never could forget his prior work, though. 

They knew that Falk pulled off the same trick in the early Sixties that he would later in the decade: take two figures on the same side of the law and make of them vastly different human beings, each with their own highly individual, quirky lives.

In Murder, Inc., Falk’s portrayal of violent hitman Reles first caught the attention of Hollywood. 

But a year later, when Frank Capra was fuming over how star Ford was throwing his weight around, Falk managed to save the director’s faith in humanity (though not in Hollywood, as this turned out to be his last movie) as a gangster’s bodyguard, appropriately named Joy Boy, in Pocketful of Miracles.

The energy flags in parts of this remake of the director’s 1933 Lady for a Day (itself an adaptation of Damon Runyon’s short story "Madame le Gimp"), but never when Falk is on screen. 

The climax comes when he’s asked to masquerade as the rich husband of boozy street beggar Apple Annie, whom his boss, bootlegger Dave the Dude, is convinced brings him luck with her fabulous fruits.

In sputtering rage that reaches hilarious heights, Falk's Joy Boy declares, in no uncertain terms, that this is beyond the limit of even his loyalties: “I ain't gonna marry her! An' y'know why? 'Cause my wife don't like it when I go around marryin' people! She's funny that way!” 

This scene alone probably netted him the Oscar nomination.

As for Columbo: In my tween years, I never missed an episode—and, I’m convinced, neither did a number of classmates, who remarked that my raincoat of the time reminded them of the police lieutenant’s. 

We were all caught up on the multiple idiosyncrasies—not just the raincoat, but also the cigar, the car as worn as the raincoat, and the references to a wife who never appeared—that made Columbo as unlikely and memorable a master of crime ratiocination as Sherlock Holmes.

(It's hard to believe anyone else inhabiting this role, but Bing Crosby, of all people, had originally been offered the part. He rejected it, joking that it would interfere with his golf game!)

I was surprised to find out nearly a decade ago that Falk had had an earlier go at the detective show format, in a TV series called The Trials of O’Brien. 

He wasn’t a married police officer this time, but a divorced attorney who, despite constantly having to hustle because of his spendthrift ways, invariably found the killer. Yet the two characters shared the same crafty intelligence.

I watched an episode of this short-lived (one season, 1965-66) series--which mixed comedy with homicide--at the Paley Center for the Arts in Manhattan, and was delighted to see that Elaine Stritch played the lawyer's secretary. (The series came out on DVD a couple of years back, if you can get your hands on it.)

Besides his brilliance (the producer of Trials, Richard Alan Simmons, echoed Capra in calling Falk “a comedic genius”), co-workers remembered the actor for his generosity. 

One of the great guest stars of Trials, Faye Dunaway, found herself, by the early ‘90s, in a career trough. No longer receiving good offers on film, the Oscar-winning actress consulted her old friend about a TV series pitched to her.

Now on his second run as Columbo, Falk pulled out a script that he’d written himself some years ago and had put aside until he could find the appropriate actress. He offered it to Dunaway. The role, on an episode called “It’s All in the Game,” led to an Emmy for the actress--a bright point in a year that saw her own attempt at a sitcom end miserably.

Why was Columbo such a success? As a youngster, I was too caught up in the detective’s uncanny unraveling of the crime to notice the overwhelming pattern of the criminals he stalked: not street hoodlums, but mystery novelists, music maestros, fitness gurus, big-time lawyers--the rich and famous. 

TV analyst Jeff Greenfield noticed the pattern early on, writing in The New York Times in 1973 about “the most thoroughgoing satisfaction ‘Columbo’ offers us”: “the assurance that those who dwell in marble and satin, those whose clothes, food, cars and mates are the very best, do not deserve it.”

For the child of a blue-collar family coming to terms with the role of class in this world, then, watching Columbo offered a fun egalitarian fantasy, a kind of revenge on the nation's elite who brought a perfect storm of disorder and corruption on America in the late '60s and early '70s. Thank you, Peter Falk.