***SPOILERS*** A notch above the usual Columbo made for TV movies in that Let. Columbo, Peter Falk, isn't as annoying and pesky as were used to seeing him and shows that he's really trying to solve a murder. Not fake his way through the movie by throwing the murderer off guard with his nerdy and childless antics that he's so well noted for. Here Let. Columbo has to solve the murder with a fireplace poker of Carl Donner, Stephen Elliott, who's brains were smashed in by his cheating wife Nadia, Lesley Ann Warren, lover and personal head shrinker, or psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Collier, George Hamilton.
It all began when Dr. Collier together with Nadia spilled the beans about their sexual relationship right in Carl's face with the smug and arrogant Collier daring him, like having a duel for Nadia's love, to do something about it! Well Carl did attacking both Dr. Collier and Nadia with his fists only to end up getting bopped from behind by Collier with the poker splitting his skull opened. In an effort to cover up the crime Dr. Collier concocts this cock & bull story about Carl and Nadia, of course Dr. Collier was nowhere around during the murder, being the victims of a home invasion. Sounds good doesn't it but you know what the detective in charge of investigating the murder our hero Let. Columbo doesn't quite buy it! In fact the only witness to the crime Nadia can't quite seem to get her story, that her lover Dr. Collier made up for her, straight making Columbo highly suspicious that she's making the whole Migilla,long and disjointed winded duologue in Yiddish, up.
**SPOILERS*** Dr. Collier now seeing that Nadia is about to crack under the pressure plans to off her, by an induced or hypnotic enforced suicide, as well. Before you know it Nadia gets this call from the good doctor using an secret and subconscious phrase or code word:" Go take yourself a cold dip in the pool and cool off: Hearing that, the magic and fatal words, Nadia without thinking jumps naked as a jay bird five stories to her death into the swimming pool beneath her patio apartment. The fact that Dr. Collier was so ready and willing to knock off the woman that he supposedly loved-Nadia Donner-proved that he had no use,in the romance department, for her at all. All he needed from Nadia was her brain to experiment with like the rats rabbits and monkeys in his on campus laboratory. What Dr.Collier didn't know is that Let. Columbo got his number, and It isn't his car license plate, and is going to lay it on him when he lest expects it! At the very scene of the crime the Donner beach house where he had committed it!
It all began when Dr. Collier together with Nadia spilled the beans about their sexual relationship right in Carl's face with the smug and arrogant Collier daring him, like having a duel for Nadia's love, to do something about it! Well Carl did attacking both Dr. Collier and Nadia with his fists only to end up getting bopped from behind by Collier with the poker splitting his skull opened. In an effort to cover up the crime Dr. Collier concocts this cock & bull story about Carl and Nadia, of course Dr. Collier was nowhere around during the murder, being the victims of a home invasion. Sounds good doesn't it but you know what the detective in charge of investigating the murder our hero Let. Columbo doesn't quite buy it! In fact the only witness to the crime Nadia can't quite seem to get her story, that her lover Dr. Collier made up for her, straight making Columbo highly suspicious that she's making the whole Migilla,long and disjointed winded duologue in Yiddish, up.
**SPOILERS*** Dr. Collier now seeing that Nadia is about to crack under the pressure plans to off her, by an induced or hypnotic enforced suicide, as well. Before you know it Nadia gets this call from the good doctor using an secret and subconscious phrase or code word:" Go take yourself a cold dip in the pool and cool off: Hearing that, the magic and fatal words, Nadia without thinking jumps naked as a jay bird five stories to her death into the swimming pool beneath her patio apartment. The fact that Dr. Collier was so ready and willing to knock off the woman that he supposedly loved-Nadia Donner-proved that he had no use,in the romance department, for her at all. All he needed from Nadia was her brain to experiment with like the rats rabbits and monkeys in his on campus laboratory. What Dr.Collier didn't know is that Let. Columbo got his number, and It isn't his car license plate, and is going to lay it on him when he lest expects it! At the very scene of the crime the Donner beach house where he had committed it!