In contrast to the refined Mr. "Sherlock Holmes" and the gentleman "Poirot".. and the gentle lady "Miss Marple".. the writer and director "William Link" sits down at his desk in 1968, and draws the first lines of the character "Columbo"..
The unkempt police lieutenant.. with his khaki coat, and his tie that isn't tied properly.. and the tail of the cravat behind longer than its front end.. and his shirt collar, each side quarrelling with the other.. and the cigar in his hand..
You see "Columbo" getting out of his dilapidated car.. whose licence plate hangs by a single nail.. and which barely runs.. but it has a radio that receives a "police scanner".. and you say this can't possibly have anything to do with criminal investigation.. especially when you see his lazy dog "Fang".. which does nothing that the dogs of detectives and police do.. it neither tracks criminals nor is of any actual use other than being "Columbo's" companion..
"Columbo," despite this "scruffy" appearance of his.. possesses extremely sharp intelligence.. and he once said to the criminal in the story "the case of the farewell of the crime of extraordinary intelligence":
"All my life I've been stumbling over smart people.. not smart people like you.. no.. you know what I mean.. at school.. in life.. everyone was smarter than me.. but I understood that through reading and hard work.. I could surpass them..."
"Columbo" has an iron memory.. that never lets him forget any detail. In addition to that, despite his appearance - and unlike his dog - he is highly active.. full of vitality.. moving about and roaming all the time, visiting places and frequenting the crime scene.. and you might see him in the last place you could possibly expect, at the last time you could possibly expect..
"Columbo" relies, in solving the puzzle of crimes, in addition to the traits we mentioned.. on confusing the suspect, distracting him and putting him under pressure.. thereby making him slip up..
Meaning "Columbo" might be talking to you as a suspect.. and ask you a question.. and suddenly, before you answer, he leaves you without prior warning and goes into the bathroom..! True, he will come out of the bathroom with his trousers and coat soaked with water.. and he might have forgotten his trousers themselves are open.. but this is one of his methods for confusing his opponents..
"Columbo" confuses the suspect in another way.. always after he has shown you that he was convinced by your words and by the story you made up.. he goes off and you breathe a sigh of relief.. you find he has come back, popped up at you suddenly, and is saying to you his famous line while scratching his forehead: "Excuse me.. just one more thing".. and he throws you a word or a sentence showing that your words are contradictory.. and he smiles at you an infuriating smile.. and leaves you tense.. and walks away..
"Columbo" is extremely polite.. and he has a talent for sometimes making the criminal feel that he has got away with his crime and that he doesn't suspect him.. so that pushes him to err and fall..
Nobody knew "Columbo's" full name.. but in the case "Dead Weight".. we can pause the shot in the episode where "Columbo" shows his identity at the port.. and we find written on it "Lieutenant/ Frank Columbo" - Los Angeles Police..
"Columbo" as a policeman.. his colleagues and superiors know his abilities well.. while the district attorney's office, the first time they saw him, was not convinced by him when his chief referred his first case to him.. and the DA's office kept pressing the police to replace him..
Later on.. when a terrifying case comes along, or an extremely difficult or complex one.. the district attorney's office presses the police hard to refer it to "Columbo"..!
"Columbo" draws on his immense experience gained from the army.. because he fought with the US Army in the Korean War.. before he ended his service and joined the police force and was taken under the wing of "Sergeant Gilhooley", who was like a mentor and a father to him.. and who taught him a great, great deal about police work and about ways of trapping criminals.. that's why "Columbo" never forgets the favour and always mentions this sergeant in his stories..
In any case, "Columbo" adores his work as a policeman in the "homicide department".. Once, in the face of an influential killer.. he tried to push "Columbo" out of the department through his influence and connections in the "Prescription Murder" case, but he discovers that he remains afraid of "Columbo," who keeps pursuing him insistently.. until he finally brings him down..
Unlike the stories of "Sherlock Holmes" and "Poirot" and "Miss Marple".. in which the crime remains a difficult and hidden puzzle for the reader until the detective solves it.. Columbo's stories are of the type "Inverted detective story" known as "howcatchem".. at the beginning of the story you see the crime and the criminal, you know the killer and you know that he committed his crime.. and how he skilfully hides the evidence.. and then you watch "Columbo" as he gathers simple details, corners the criminal and brings him down brilliantly..
Sometimes you don't know how the killer committed his crime.. as in the case "A deadly state of mind".. in which you see the victim throwing herself of her own free will, with no threat, no violence and no reason whatsoever.. from the fifth floor, and coming down a lifeless corpse.. but Columbo works out that the killer drugged her and stripped her of her will with the drug "Barbiturate" and convinced her that she was jumping into a swimming pool..
In a wonderful story, "A friend indeed," a US government commissioner kills his wife.. by drowning her in a swimming pool.. and he hides her jewellery and accuses one of his workers.. an innocent person.. of killing her..
"Columbo" tries to prove the crime against the state commissioner, the "man of evidence and consummate law".. but he cannot.. until the innocent man is arrested.. and they take him along with the policemen and "Columbo" to the house of the man whose address is recorded in his police records.. and during the search.. the commissioner takes out of his pocket a handkerchief containing pieces of his wife's jewellery and stuffs it under the man's bed mattress.. without anyone seeing him..
"Columbo" tells the commissioner frankly that he believes he is the killer and that he killed his wife.. and the "commissioner" tells him that he has thus lost his badge and his future as a policeman is over.. During the discussion and in front of everyone.. one of the policemen comes with the handkerchief of jewellery.. and says he found it under the mattress.. and the commissioner laughs mockingly at "Columbo" and says to him.. that this is irrefutable evidence that the accused is the killer.. and the "commissioner" announces in front of everyone.. that he had been watching this house for months and saw the accused nervous and confused after the crime, coming back and going home several times a day, and he watched him selling pieces of the jewellery as he brought them down from his house..
But "Columbo" accuses him of having planted this jewellery just now.. and when the inspector explodes.. "Columbo" announces to him calmly.. that this is "his" house...!
The cunning "Columbo" had swapped the house addresses on the files in the criminal investigation department.. and therefore the house they are standing in right now was "Columbo's" own house..!! And therefore all the commissioner's talk about watching the house for months.. and the jewellery under the mattress.. has no meaning except that he is the killer and is trying to frame an innocent man..
As for the case "How to dial a murder".. the dignified psychiatrist "Dr. Eric Mason" ..was living alone after his wife was killed in a mysterious car accident.. and he owned two ferocious Doberman dogs.. which one day attacked his lifelong friend "Dr. Charles Hunter," who was used to visiting him and staying with him in the house after his wife's death.. and without prior warning they attacked him in the house's kitchen for no reason and tore him limb from limb to death..
The two dogs are seized and procedures are taken to have them executed by the police.. but "Columbo" refuses.. and keeps the dogs for a while and says he "retrained them" and returns them to their owner..
Columbo is certain that Dr. Eric is the killer.. and he visits him one day.. and plays billiards with him in his home and accuses him of killing his wife and his lifelong friend because he discovered their betrayal of him with each other.. and that he programmed the dogs so that when they hear a certain innocent word they turn into killing machines.. and in that way he killed his friend, who heard his message on the answering machine in the kitchen with the two dogs beside him.. and they received the command and.. and tore him apart..
"Columbo" tells the killer frankly that he is not a clever investigator.. on the contrary.. he was a stupid killer who left many gaps behind him.. so the killer tells him that he deserves to know the word that turns the dogs into killing machines.. and it is "Rosebud" and he says it while pointing at the two dogs at Columbo..
And that means the dogs will pounce on "Columbo" and tear him to death..
Indeed the dogs rise from beside the fireplace with astonishing speed and pounce on "Columbo" and knock him to the ground.. and rush at his face and neck.. and then they begin licking his face and covering him with kisses in front of the astonished Dr. "Mason".. and "Columbo" announces to the killer that he played the answering machine tape word by word within earshot of the two dogs in the police holding cell.. and learned the magic word early on.. and retrained them.. so that when they hear it.. they smother the victim with kisses..!
The most beautiful embodiment of the character "Frank Columbo" was "Peter Falk," the one in these pictures.. who passed away on June 23, 2011..
Since "William Link" is a director by trade.. the character does not first appear in a book.. no.. American television picks it up straight away in a series of the same name.. before it comes out in books.. the last episode of it was "The last installment" in 2003.. "Columbo" did not die in the last episode.. but the writers stopped writing about him.. and Universal turned away from producing his episodes..
There is a statue in a square to this day of "Frank Columbo" as "Peter Falk" embodied him, and his kind, lazy dog "Fang," in "Budapest" in Hungary..
Talking about Columbo could take weeks.. but I think the time has come for us to talk about the clever detective "Madame Fletcher".. and there will be more of the talk..
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References
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1 - http://www.columbo-site.freeuk.com/books.htm
2 - https://goo.gl/KeQqsN
3 - https://goo.gl/hnar7K
4 - https://goo.gl/fasDn1