reviewed by: Charity Bishop
           

I was in a pet shop the other day and happened to glance down into a pen full of basset hounds. At the exact same moment, my father and I pointed and exclaimed, "Columbo's dog!" Peter Falk in that role has become something of a legend around our household, since for many years we have gathered around the television together to watch the eccentric detective sleuth out murders in his wrinkled trench coat, cigar ever at the ready. Some of my favorite-ever films are included in this series.

Famous psychic Elliot Blake (Anthony Andrews) has been using his mental skills to live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of a psychic research institute. Asked to prove his prowess in the field for a secret branch of the US government, Blake runs amuck of his former mentor, with whom he developed many of his fraudulent tactics. His old friend has been hired to disprove Blake's talents, little realizing that he's about to wind up on the short end of one of his own magic tricks. Decapitated by his own guillotine, Lt. Columbo (Falk) is called in to investigate. It does not take him long to figure out who is responsible, and then the fun begins as he attempts to trap Blake into a confession. Columbo is not like your average murder mystery. There is no "whodunit," only the brilliance of watching the detective figure it out and pin the murder on the guilty party. The smallest detail can be an enormous clue, and there's always something the criminal has overlooked.

This collection of five made-for-television films include a series of wonderful guest stars. Fisher Stevens, Lindsay Crouse, Robert Foxworth, Patrick Bachau, and Fionnula Flanagan all play a role, while the mysteries themselves are complex and fascinating. The irony of having Andrews star in "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine" is not lost on me, since only a few years earlier he became well known in England for his depiction of The Scarlet Pimpernel, whose greatest passion was saving the heads of the French aristocracy from just such evil justice. In "Murder, Smoke, and Shadows," we get a glimpse behind the scenes at a movie studio, which accumulates in a magnificent scene that makes use of illusions. "Sex and the Married Detective" explores the dangers of fantasy, while "Murder, A Self Portrait" has a brilliant sequence of memories that intersperse with the storytellers.

Each of them have a unique premise, but all of them follow the same basic format: we watch a murder being committed, then watch Columbo link the pieces together and close his nets in on the person responsible. Whether it's missing paint spatter or a trick of the light, he's always got something up his sleeve. All of the stories are well filmed and beautifully acted, but most of them have mild content concerns, and blood spattered crime scenes. "Guillotine" involves a psychic, but he is eventually disproved and his tricks revealed. A man is graphically electrocuted in "Smoke," and a body is blown up in "Deceptions." A woman is drugged and then drowned (unseen) in "Self Portrait." Most of the episodes reference affairs, and/or casual sexual lifestyles, but the worst is in "Sex and the Married Detective." The main character is a sex therapist and talks quite bluntly about her profession, both on the radio and with her clients. She comes back to the office one night to find her partner frolicking with her secretary in the "therapy room." Dressing up like a hooker, she lures him into some foreplay before putting a bullet in him.

"Murder, A Self Portrait" is a complicated story of a painter with three women in his life -- his current wife, his ex-wife, and his model, all of whom he is involved with. There are various nude paintings in his art room, and his model is shown a couple of times in different poses (her bare back is seen). But even with their faults, all of the episodes kept me fascinated. It's the quirks that make them so memorable, from Columbo's frequent mentions of his never-seen wife, to the beloved basset hound simply named "Dog" who is pampered, petted, and taken everywhere he goes. It's hard to forget the detective who made rumpled fedoras popular again.