AlsExGal
Joined Apr 2007
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Paul Galesko (Dick Van Dyke) is a world famous photographer with a nagging wife, Frances. He married her when he was getting started, but now he doesn't need her anymore since he is completely self-sufficient. I can get why he would want to divorce her given her constant insults, but he decides on murder.
He makes it look like she's been kidnapped, ties her up in a remote cabin, and takes her picture in front of a clock that he has brought along that displays the wrong time to throw off the police and give himself an alibi. He then frames a recently released ex convict for the murder by having the convict do various errands for him as a proxy and stashing incriminating evidence in the ex-con's room when he is out. After Galesko murders his wife he murders the ex-convict in what he claims was an exchange of gunfire during the ransom delivery.
The police know nothing about any of this until Galesko calls the police after he kills the ex-convict. And then all of his problems begin when Lieutenant Columbo enters stage left.
What bothers Columbo initially? That the ex-convict was just recently released from prison, had no friends or relatives on the outside and no job, and yet seemed to have plenty of walking around money. This starts him nosing around, looking for an accomplice. How he catches Galesko is one of the more ingenious Columbo endings.
Dick Van Dyke didn't get a lot of well remembered roles between "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the 60s and "Diagnosis Murder" in the 90s. This is between those two roles with him playing a remorseless villain for a change, and it works very well.
This episode, besides the great finale, has two particularly great bits of comic business. One is Columbo giving a ride to a DMV employee who gives driving tests. The examiner cuts the ride short because he is appalled both by Columbo's driving and the unsafe state of his car. The other comic bit is when Columbo goes to a soup kitchen to talk to a witness and is mistaken by the nun in charge for a homeless man. When he is able to correct her and prove he is a police officer, she then assumes he is under cover. She just can't believe a plain clothes officer would walk around so ill groomed!
He makes it look like she's been kidnapped, ties her up in a remote cabin, and takes her picture in front of a clock that he has brought along that displays the wrong time to throw off the police and give himself an alibi. He then frames a recently released ex convict for the murder by having the convict do various errands for him as a proxy and stashing incriminating evidence in the ex-con's room when he is out. After Galesko murders his wife he murders the ex-convict in what he claims was an exchange of gunfire during the ransom delivery.
The police know nothing about any of this until Galesko calls the police after he kills the ex-convict. And then all of his problems begin when Lieutenant Columbo enters stage left.
What bothers Columbo initially? That the ex-convict was just recently released from prison, had no friends or relatives on the outside and no job, and yet seemed to have plenty of walking around money. This starts him nosing around, looking for an accomplice. How he catches Galesko is one of the more ingenious Columbo endings.
Dick Van Dyke didn't get a lot of well remembered roles between "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in the 60s and "Diagnosis Murder" in the 90s. This is between those two roles with him playing a remorseless villain for a change, and it works very well.
This episode, besides the great finale, has two particularly great bits of comic business. One is Columbo giving a ride to a DMV employee who gives driving tests. The examiner cuts the ride short because he is appalled both by Columbo's driving and the unsafe state of his car. The other comic bit is when Columbo goes to a soup kitchen to talk to a witness and is mistaken by the nun in charge for a homeless man. When he is able to correct her and prove he is a police officer, she then assumes he is under cover. She just can't believe a plain clothes officer would walk around so ill groomed!