This episode first aired February 1, 1990.
This is the third of four appearances by Patrick McGoohan as well as the third of four episodes he directed. McGoohan won his second Columbo Emmy Award for his performance as Oscar Finch.
His portrayal of the Governor would end up being actor Arthur Hill’s final film appearance.
My thoughts on this episode in chronological viewing order…
Patrick McGoohan as Oscar Finch looks like Alan Napier as Alfred from the old Batman series.
A suitably ominous dark and stormy night.
Wow. A lot of thought and prep went into this murder.
Columbo struggling with that state-of-the-art fax machine!
Not sure about Columbo sniffing out the Parmigiana Reggiano like, well, Dog. He is an appreciator of fine cheeses though.
Blood UNDER the gun instead of on top of it. Suspicious! And sloppy.
But isn’t it possible that the gun would eventually slip out of the dead man’s hand? It’s not such leap.
Really? NO ONE can figure out the fax machine?
Mrs. Columbo is more tech-savvy ever since he got her a computer. Reminds me of someone I once worked with back in the day who bought his wife a computer. She became quick learner – so much so that she ended up developing software that was licensed by the FBI and paid her roughly 1 million dollars a year.
Hmmm. Only 1 of 2 pages sent!
Columbo amazed by the new fangled phones!
I love this secretary, indignant over the stench of cigar smoke.
“That oxidized relic is yours?” Brilliant.
Love the way Columbo tracks him down: “One more thing…”
Can I just say how much I love McGoohan’s performance as the cool and calculated Finch.
Love Finch’s reaction to seeing Columbo at the courthouse – none too pleased.
“He shot himself between jokes.” Well, when you put it that way, that IS suspicious.
Finch’s delayed sustained laughter is all sorts of unsettling. What a great villain.
Columbo can’t get the pen to work. “Twist it,” suggests Mackey. Is Columbo a Luddite? Was he raised Amish?
This is a great bit where Columbo asks Mackey for an autograph for his wife…
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Columbo.”
Love Columbo noting that Finch beat him to his own parking spot.
Finch offers a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the gun drop was delayed. “Brilliants, sir,”says Columbo. “I wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years.”
Wow. He admits the murder to Mackey. The bigger the circle of trust, the weaker its borders!
Does every political campaign scene have to show people in styrofoam hats celebrating to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In?
“I think you did it.” Columbo refreshingly/shockingly honest.
“That was an extraordinary remark you made just now. I’m very disappointed in you.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“I thought we had a nice relationship going.”
“Well, nothing’s perfect, sir.”
A terrific exchange.
Come on. There is no way that parking spot would have been dry if he left at 2 am. How long does it take wet pavement to dry? Am I missing something here?
That suit could have been rain-damaged at any time though, no? I mean, I understand it’s L.A. and it rarely rains but that feels like a bit of a stretch as well.
The swimming-upstream-against-the-crowd scene is kind of funny.
He matched the bite mark on the chewing gum to the teeth mark in the cheese? That IS poppycock.
What a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed this episode despite the preposterous case Columbo ultimately builds against Finch. I know bite mark analysis was a thing back when this episode was shot but it nevertheless feels kind of ridiculous. Still, Columbo does establish motive, means, and opportunity and it is a pretty strong episode overall, bolstered by the two fantastic performances of our leads – Falk and McGoohan. Columbo was more reserved than previous outings and the direction was more restrained, which I appreciated. No silly ringmaster outfits this time out, just a good, solid story and a worthy adversary reminiscent of Columbo of old. Easily my favorite episode of the new batch.
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This was a well thought out plan and I think the police would have written this off as a suicide. At this point in Columbo’s career, he had to be thought of as a “heavy hitter”. Not someone that would have been brought in for a probable suicide.
Also, the plan was very detailed. I wonder if Finch has seen something similar in his criminal cases?
The blood under the gun was odd but it could have been as you suggested.
Finch seemed like a sociopath. Did you hear him “attempt” to laugh at the murder victim’s joke? I’ve read about sociopaths mimicking what they think is normal human emotion. Of course, Finch was a politician so that plays into sociopath, too. Not a stretch there!
I’m not sure this would end in a guilty verdict.
Yes, that laugh was pretty unhinged.
It shows what a good actor Patrick McGoohan was in this episode. He plays a good deranged killer.
Yes. One of my favorites.
There was a couple of times watching the interaction between Falk and McGoohan, I thought they seem like good friends in real life who enjoyed working together and each other’s company. One was that extended laugh and McGoohan getting in his car and speeding away. Falk seemed amused. The laugh was so over the top, it was funny.
Yes, the two actually got along very well off-camera.
This was a good episode. Oscar Finch was an excellent villain. He was smart and competent. But perhaps a little over-confident which is always a red flag for Columbo.
For someone who has used a lot of technology to catch murderers in the past, Columbo sure seems to have trouble with it!
I’d have to go back and watch again but I’m pretty sure there were some goofs where Finch sometimes wore gloves when handling the gun and sometimes didn’t. He also wiped the gun down after he fired it which I would have thought would be detectable by the lab guys. But maybe not.
1990 was a few years after the first use of DNA profiling in a criminal case so I’m eagerly awaiting the use of this newfangled DNA technique to catch a murderer in Columbo.
Columbo is a self-confessed pencil guy. That’s why he couldn’t figure out the pen.
How quickly does blood dry? Surely it would have still been wet when the gun dropped.
The tooth marks in the gum and cheese was very weak evidence.
Highly unlikely the dry patch from the car would still be there 6-7 hours after the rain had stopped. It’s LA. I suspect things dry out pretty quickly in LA.
I guess we watch Columbo for the enjoyable cat and mouse between the murderer and Columbo and not for the rock solid police work and plausible evidence.
If you listen to the music you can hear “This Old Man” playing whenever Columbo discovers an important clue.
Finch is a hot-shot lawyer with powerful friends so he might get off this one. But maybe not. I suspect Mackey will turn on him, though, in an attempt to save his political career. But he’ll be a hot potato so I’m sure the governor would dump him as a running mate pretty quickly.
This is the highest rated episode of the season according to IMDB. But the remaining episodes are still rated pretty high so I’m quietly hopeful there won’t be too many stinkers coming up.
I’ve heard…uh…mixed reactions to Murder in Malibu
One of my favorite newer episodes. I don’t have much to say, other than at the time bite mark testimony was pretty popular, although most evidence was eventually tossed and convictions overturned due to lack of scientific accuracy for bite mark analysis. However, in 1979 Ted Bundy was convicted of the murder of Lisa Levy based, in part, on bite mark evidence.
But yeah, I like this one. Just not sure about Columbo making off with the cheese from a crime scene. Is that even legal?
Also, regarding the fax machine. I have noticed that several Columbo episodes feature new technology (of the day), as did the old Charlie Chan movies of the 30s and early 40s. For instance, in Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), a photograph is transmitted over phone lines from California to NYC via…a fax machine! Not so original, Columbo. 😉
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It reminds of when the first iPhones came out and there was this big scene on CSI where one of the investigators uses his phone to snap a pic of the crime scene.
Nothing dates a show faster than making a fuss over new technology!
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