The set up at the beginning is good enough, and the movie has other virtues. Columbo is his usual bumbling self and the plot is by no means dull or disjointed. Dabney Coleman makes a good nervous murderer. And Little Richard RULES. The guy has only a few minutes screen time but he's one of the best things in the picture, seated at his on stage piano and pounding out something that sounds like a variation on the theme of "Tutti Frutti." What a voice! Even when he speaks its terminal contours curl upward so that every utterance ends in a high-pitched squeak! And there are surprises in store for the viewer.
But the formula is a little shakier than usual. For one thing, some of the murder's machinations are hidden from the viewer as well as from Columbo, so that as Coleman's scheme unravels you rub your eyes and ask, "Where did THAT come from?" Another weakness lies in the number of improbabilities. Every episode of course has its lucky breaks. Example from another episode: Columbo enters a large carpeted living room in which a murder has taken place, glances around, and spots the discarded stub of flint from a cigarette lighter on the floor. Okay. We can live with that. Columbo's intuitions are guided by the great Jub-Jub in the sky. But here there are so many implausibilities that it becomes painful to our willing suspension of disbelief.
Example from this episode. Coleman has no alibi until it turns out that his picture was taken by an automatic speeding camera 50 miles from the scene of the murder at the time it was taking place. Columbo replicates the act and compares the picture taken of himself to the picture taken of Coleman. They look identical except that Columbo's nose leaves a shadow and Coleman's didn't. This "proves" (Columbo's word) that someone else was driving the car with a mask of Coleman's face over his or her own. Well, I guess my intuition has no mojo but I would suppose that if a driver happened to tilt his shadowless face a few degrees downward in the direction of the steering wheel, a shadow might appear under his nose where there had been none before. Nope. The errant shadow explanation did not work for pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle in his back yard and it does not work here either.
I don't mean to put this episode down or to be too harsh on it. It's generally well acted (with a few really puny efforts from one or two bit players) and entertaining. It's just not among Columbo's best.
But the formula is a little shakier than usual. For one thing, some of the murder's machinations are hidden from the viewer as well as from Columbo, so that as Coleman's scheme unravels you rub your eyes and ask, "Where did THAT come from?" Another weakness lies in the number of improbabilities. Every episode of course has its lucky breaks. Example from another episode: Columbo enters a large carpeted living room in which a murder has taken place, glances around, and spots the discarded stub of flint from a cigarette lighter on the floor. Okay. We can live with that. Columbo's intuitions are guided by the great Jub-Jub in the sky. But here there are so many implausibilities that it becomes painful to our willing suspension of disbelief.
Example from this episode. Coleman has no alibi until it turns out that his picture was taken by an automatic speeding camera 50 miles from the scene of the murder at the time it was taking place. Columbo replicates the act and compares the picture taken of himself to the picture taken of Coleman. They look identical except that Columbo's nose leaves a shadow and Coleman's didn't. This "proves" (Columbo's word) that someone else was driving the car with a mask of Coleman's face over his or her own. Well, I guess my intuition has no mojo but I would suppose that if a driver happened to tilt his shadowless face a few degrees downward in the direction of the steering wheel, a shadow might appear under his nose where there had been none before. Nope. The errant shadow explanation did not work for pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle in his back yard and it does not work here either.
I don't mean to put this episode down or to be too harsh on it. It's generally well acted (with a few really puny efforts from one or two bit players) and entertaining. It's just not among Columbo's best.