A couple weeks ago, a couple weeks before his sixteenth birthday, the Younger told me that he’s recently been on a “nostalgia kick.”
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Can one be nostalgic at sixteen? Perhaps. I do know that he tapped into my nostalgia, though, when he “formally invited” me to watch Columbo with him.
Columbo is my favorite cop show, hands down — and I like cop shows, so that’s saying a lot.
It’s great in so many ways. At the top of the list, of course, is the character: Peter Falk built an amusing, ambiguously bumbling, tenacious detective with a complicated relationship to his suspects — sometimes disdainful, sometimes angry, often sympathetic, almost always polite. Columbo rarely gloats. Indeed, many of the best episodes end with a triumph tinged with melancholy.
The stories are amazing, too, with the criminals’ ingenuity and with the inevitable seed of their undoing. Both of these are emphasized by the innovative structure of the episodes where, since we witness the murder, the question is not whodunnit? but how’s he gonna prove it?
Adding to the fun is the parade of guest stars. I don’t know how many of the big names were in fact big names at the time, or how many of them became big names later, but the list is really, really long: Martin Landau, Honor Blackman, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Janet Leigh, Patrick McGoohan, Julie Newmar (Adam West’s Catwoman), and (as they say) many, many more!
There’s a level of social commentary, as well. As the Younger noted after only a few episodes — I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t really noticed this on my own — the killer is almost always wealthy. Much of the humor comes from Columbo’s fish-out-of-water stance, which charms us and disarms the suspect.
Sometimes his bumbling through affluence is merely amusing, as when Columbo mistakes an antique silver dish for an ash tray (“I have one at home that looks exactly like that!”), or asks how much someone’s shoes cost.
But sometimes Columbo explicitly uses his position to throw his suspect off guard. Once the Younger made his observation, scenes like this one (from “Etude in Black,” where Columbo investigates the murder of a pianist by a hyper-rich conductor — I’ve embedded the video at the end of this entry, for those who’d like to see the scene) stood out to me:
Columbo shows up at the home of the conductor, Alex Benedict (John Cassavetes) early in the investigation. The conversation works on two levels: there’s the social commentary about what we’d now call wealth inequality, for sure, but Columbo uses that socially awkward conversation to throw Benedict off balance.
Columbo begins by rambling on about how beautiful Benedict’s mansion is, and asks questions about how much money is involved. Benedict is both bemused and annoyed:
[scrippet]
BENEDICT
Did you have anything specific you wanted to talk to me about?
COLUMBO
No, I’m going to get to that, but I’m fascinated by money. Aren’t you?
BENEDICT
Yeah, I’m fascinated by money — uh, for what it can do, that’s all.
COLUMBO
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what I was going to ask you is this: how much do you make?
BENEDICT
I think that’s very impertinent, how much do I make.
COLUMBO
Tours?
BENEDICT
I don’t know.
COLUMBO
Concerts?
BENEDICT
I don’t know.
COLUMBO
Publishing?
BENEDICT
I don’t know.
COLUMBO
Well, et cetera, et cetera. I make \$11,000 a year. So at \$11,000 a year, I’ve got \$750,000 for the house, \$18,000 in taxes, 200 in furniture… how much help do you have?
BENEDICT
I have five, including the gardener.
COLUMBO
You got that, and the money, plus, plus, plus. 11,000 times 10 years, 110,000. 11,000 times 100 years, 1.1 million. Well, let’s say 900,000. That’s 90 years work for me just to live here. Without eating.
BENEDICT
So what’s the point?
COLUMBO
Well, I guess the point got delayed because I got so wrapped up in the house.
[/scrippet]
And what was the point? Columbo says that he wants Benedict’s autograph so that Mrs. Columbo could compete in the cops’ wives’ “snobbery” as they compare whose elbows their lowly husbands have rubbed up against. But we of course see that the whole conversation is a ruse, a kind of reversed red herring, leading the suspect in the wrong direction and putting him on edge.
That scene contains everything that makes the show great.
I will add that, for me, Columbo has the added appeal that comes from — yes! — nostalgia. I was a kid when it aired every three weeks (in rotation with two other mystery series, McMillan and Wife and McCloud). For a good chunk of that time, my parents limited my television consumption to one hour per day, which I spent watching The Avengers (Steed! Mrs. Peel!). But my parents would allow us extra screen time for (at least, this is how I remember it) two shows: any Jacques Cousteau special, and Columbo.
A couple years ago, I bought the complete set and watched two or three episodes each week until I’d seen them all. (The Younger would join me, occasionally, and stick around if he liked the story — thus, I guess, his nostalgia?). It still holds up! Out of seven seasons and 24 additional TV movies, I hated exactly two episodes; both of those turned out to be written by Ed McBain, a prolific crime novelist who basically ignored the formula and tried to make Columbo work as a typical ticking-clock thriller. Even Falk’s acting couldn’t salvage those stories.
In addition, there were a couple more that just weren’t as strong as the others — good enough, but not great. But out of 69 episodes, that’s a pretty good record.
So my kid’s and my respective nostalgias have overlapped a bit here. We’ve been sitting down many summer evenings to watch an episode together. He’s a teenager, so I’d be happy to have any opportunity to bond. But I’m especially pleased that we’re bonding over something of such high quality. There’s a lot that teenagers like that I just . . . can’t. You know?
Oh, just one more thing:
An amusing convention of the show involved the ever-elusive Mrs. Columbo. Columbo mentioned her a lot throughout the series; indeed, he often credited her with ideas that helped him solve his cases. Yet she always remained off stage — which created its own delicious suspense whenever it seemed that we might finally meet her at, for example, a dinner that she and Columbo had been invited to, or at some point during the cruise that she and Columbo were taking.
All this made the spin-off show Mrs. Columbo such a misguided idea. Even if it hadn’t been weakly written, and even if I’d been able to see Kate Mulgrew (much later, of Star Trek: Voyager fame) as Columbo’s wife, the whole premise went against everything the main show had set up.
I made it through two episodes, and regretted them both.