"Columbo" is the Marmite of detective series; you either love it or you loathe it. I loathe it (for reasons which will become clear later) but my wife loves it, so for the sake of domestic harmony I have to agree to watch it sometimes.
The character of Columbo (who originally had the surname Fisher) was created by the writers Richard Levinson and William Link in a short story which they later elaborated into a television drama and a stage play. The play served as the basis for this TV movie, which marked the first occasion on which Peter Falk played Columbo; he had been played by Bert Freed in the first TV drama and by Thomas Mitchell and Joseph Cotten on stage. The film, like the play on which it was based, was entitled "Prescription: Murder", although after the detective had become the hero of his own television series it was broadcast as "Columbo- Prescription Murder".
Dr Ray Flemming, an eminent psychiatrist, murders his wife Carol so that he can be with his mistress Joan and avoid the cost of a divorce. Joan, a young actress who is also one of Flemming's patients, helps him by impersonating Carol in a complicated scheme to provide Flemming with an alibi and make it look as though Carol was killed by a burglar.
You may think that the contents of the last paragraph amount to a spoiler, but only if you have never actually watched a Columbo film. It would be virtually impossible to write a spoiler about a Columbo film. They virtually always invert the standard whodunit formula whereby the identity of the killer and his or her motive for the killing are withheld until the end of the movie so that Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or whoever can provide the solution. According to the standard Columbo formula this information is always provided at the very beginning; the only mystery lies in how Columbo will trick or badger the killer into confessing or giving away vital evidence. (Levinson and Link should perhaps have kept the name Fisher, because he is always fishing for information).
This inversion of the standard formula is one of the two main reasons why I dislike the Columbo series; telling a murder mystery story this way round seems to rob it of all its excitement and tension. (The standard method can lead to some dull, formulaic movies, but it can also be used as the basis of films as good as Branagh's recent "Murder on the Orient Express"). The other reason is that the Columbo films are police procedurals seemingly written by people who know very little about police procedure. If a real-life detective behaved like Columbo does, interviewing suspects in a badgering, wheedling manner, forever trying to trick them into betraying themselves without informing them of their Miranda rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer present, he would no doubt be sacked from the force and any prosecution based on such evidence would be thrown out of court by the judge on the basis of gross police misconduct. Columbo eventually "solves" the Flemming case by staging a phony "suicide". I dread to think that the real-life courts would say about such a perversion of justice. 3/10.
The character of Columbo (who originally had the surname Fisher) was created by the writers Richard Levinson and William Link in a short story which they later elaborated into a television drama and a stage play. The play served as the basis for this TV movie, which marked the first occasion on which Peter Falk played Columbo; he had been played by Bert Freed in the first TV drama and by Thomas Mitchell and Joseph Cotten on stage. The film, like the play on which it was based, was entitled "Prescription: Murder", although after the detective had become the hero of his own television series it was broadcast as "Columbo- Prescription Murder".
Dr Ray Flemming, an eminent psychiatrist, murders his wife Carol so that he can be with his mistress Joan and avoid the cost of a divorce. Joan, a young actress who is also one of Flemming's patients, helps him by impersonating Carol in a complicated scheme to provide Flemming with an alibi and make it look as though Carol was killed by a burglar.
You may think that the contents of the last paragraph amount to a spoiler, but only if you have never actually watched a Columbo film. It would be virtually impossible to write a spoiler about a Columbo film. They virtually always invert the standard whodunit formula whereby the identity of the killer and his or her motive for the killing are withheld until the end of the movie so that Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or whoever can provide the solution. According to the standard Columbo formula this information is always provided at the very beginning; the only mystery lies in how Columbo will trick or badger the killer into confessing or giving away vital evidence. (Levinson and Link should perhaps have kept the name Fisher, because he is always fishing for information).
This inversion of the standard formula is one of the two main reasons why I dislike the Columbo series; telling a murder mystery story this way round seems to rob it of all its excitement and tension. (The standard method can lead to some dull, formulaic movies, but it can also be used as the basis of films as good as Branagh's recent "Murder on the Orient Express"). The other reason is that the Columbo films are police procedurals seemingly written by people who know very little about police procedure. If a real-life detective behaved like Columbo does, interviewing suspects in a badgering, wheedling manner, forever trying to trick them into betraying themselves without informing them of their Miranda rights to remain silent and to have a lawyer present, he would no doubt be sacked from the force and any prosecution based on such evidence would be thrown out of court by the judge on the basis of gross police misconduct. Columbo eventually "solves" the Flemming case by staging a phony "suicide". I dread to think that the real-life courts would say about such a perversion of justice. 3/10.