In Season 2, Episode Four, Columbo sent its raincoated hero to London, gave him a camera, and shot lots of footage of the Lieutenant trying to get a photo of the Queen – and it was frankly a drag. So I’m happy to report that, in Season 2, Episode Five, things have mightily improved. Columbo is back in Los Angeles – in Hollywood, to be precise, right on the Universal lot – and this time he is in pursuit of Hollywood royalty. 

There is much cleverness to be thankful for in “Requiem for a Falling Star.” The leading lady in question, Nora Chandler, is a clever amalgam of Margo Channing, the fading Broadway star from All About Eve, and Nora Desmond, the now-reclusive screen queen from Sunset Boulevard. Whether it was stunt casting or not, the producers scored a coup putting Anne Baxter, who had smashed it in the title role of Eve Harrington, in the role of Nora. And while it may of course all be an act, the idea that Columbo is star-struck in the presence of his nemesis is played for genuine laughs. My favorite bit occurs at the beginning when the Lieutenant first appears all rumpled in that stupid raincoat at Nora’s front door, checks his nails and quickly cleans them before he meets his idol. 

There is also something in the plot of “Requiem,” written again by Perry Mason stalwart Jackson Gillis, that I have not encountered so far in the series: a genuine plot twist. I went back and forth on whether I should reveal it or not here; in the end, I realized that I couldn’t really debate a couple of pros and cons without doing so. But I’m going to save it to the end and give you a warning if you care to skip any spoilers. 

As the episode’s title suggests, Nora’s star is fading, and she is reduced to making hokey TV movies that capitalize on her faded glamor – just like a lot of old stars were doing in the 70’s. The opening of the episode contains a lovely fake-out, as Nora sashays dramatically through a gorgeous apartment, flings open the bathroom door, pulls out a gun and shoots a man in his shower. But this “murder” is just a scene from a movie being shot, and it ends with Nora and her crew happily congratulating each other on its successful completion.

The story proper concerns Nora’s real-life feud with notorious gossip columnist Jerry Parks, a truly odious lizard played to perfection by Mel Ferrer. Jerry has been blackmailing Nora for years over some financial chicanery, but now he has gone one step too far by romancing the star’s longtime personal assistant, Jean Davis (Pippa Scott, lovely and subdued). On a fateful night, Nora tracks the lovers to a local restaurant then drives to Jerry’s house and douses his garage with gasoline. She waits for Jerry’s car to approach and then as it hits the carport, she strikes a match. She then hurries to keep a dinner date with her studio executive boyfriend, played by Kevin McCarthy, and appears relaxed and happy when the maître d’ arrives with news that the police are there to see her. 

So, to everyone’s surprise, is Jerry Parks – because due to a flat tire, he lent out his car to none other than poor, deceased Jean Davis. You almost feel sympathy for Nora as she topples over into a faint and must now scramble to figure out what to do next, particularly when Jerry contacts her and lets her know he is certain that she is responsible for Jean’s death. 

The rest of the episode, for the most part, plays out as a typical Columbo tale, with the “cat and mouse” stuff being particularly charming, due to how excited the Lieutenant gets around the star. Universal must’ve earned back all the money it spent doing location shooting in London by setting this entire episode within the studio confines. One clever plot point is that Nora, who has been a star since she was 17, had an actual home built for her on one of the lots where she can live while she is making a film. It’s a grand house with a lovely fake garden and a fountain that sadly no longer works. There is one fantastically un-typical moment where Columbo visits his prey and finds her in consultation with none other than Edith Head, the famed Hollywood clothes designer. Yes, it’s the real Edith Head, and she nearly steals the show. (And the episode’s costumes are fabulous!)

We’re edging toward the big twist now, and it reveals my biggest ups and downs about the episode. So if you’re not a Columbo-phile and want to be surprised, skip the next paragraph. 

Much of our sympathy for Nora (yes, sympathy is a funny word, but that’s how it sometimes works in inverted mysteries) lies in the fact that she accidentally killed a woman of whom she was very fond instead of the truly unlikable creep she meant to do away with. This is helped along quite a bit by Ferrer’s performance, which is nasty without going overboard. It’s another lovely ode to All About Eve, where Eve Harrington’s nemesis was also an odious gossip columnist, played even more brilliantly by George Sanders. But in the end, Columbo reveals to everyone’s surprise that Jean Davis was Nora’s intended victim all along. It seems that Jean knew Nora’s long-missing husband was actually buried beneath the fountain. The star decided to kill her assistant, fearing that someday Jean might reveal this fact to her lover/Nora’s blackmailer. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; if anything, there are too many hints that will pull alarms in the head of any regular GAD reader. No, it’s all . . . fine. But in the end, it really doesn’t make much sense as a twist. Making it seem like Jerry was the intended victim doesn’t do Nora much good because she has just as big a motive for wanting him out of the way. Why not just kill the guy – or kill them both on their honeymoon? Jean has loyally kept Nora’s secret for so many years (she killed her husband when she discovered him cheating on her in their own bed) that it doesn’t really make sense for Nora to suddenly believe Jerry would worm the secret out of his new wife. 

I have an idea for a much better approach that Gillis could have taken to this plot that would’ve made “Requiem for a Falling Star” stand out as one of the series’ most distinctive episodes. Ferrer is so good here and would have clearly made a brilliant guest-murderer himself. Why not capitalize on the feud between star and reporter and have the identity of Jean’s murderer kept in the dark? Let Columbo stalk both characters – he does this anyway – and do his Columbo thing until he ferrets out which of them actually did the killing and why. I know – it’s not inverted . . . but it’s brilliant!

Season Three begins with another Jackson Gillis script and another murderous queen – this time, the Queen of Beauty! In “Lovely But Lethal,” Vera Miles plays Viveca Scott, head of a failing empire called Beauty Mark. She needs a miracle to boost her sales, and she thinks she’s found it in a new cream that makes wrinkles disappear all day long. But the formula is stolen by one of her chemists and ex-lovers, Karl Lessing (Martin Sheen, looking incredibly cute!), and he plans to sell the cream to Viveca’s hated rival, David Lang (Vincent Price – honestly, the cast here couldn’t be better.) 

Viveca finds all this out because she has planted a mole in Lang’s office: his secretary Shirley Blane (Sian Barbara Allen, who appeared in some really creepy TV-movies in the 70’s and played an early love interest of the leading man in one of television’s creepiest shows, The Waltons). Chain-smoking Shirley would do anything to rise in the industry alongside Viveca, and it leads the beauty queen to a fatal showdown with the sadistic young chemist. 

Honestly, there’s nothing that really sets this one apart from a typical Columbo plotline, but I really enjoyed it. Its 75-minute running time moves swiftly. Miles is terrific as Viveca, and while we never sympathize with her as we did with Susan Clark or Anne Baxter, the fact that her crime was completely unpremeditated and leads to all sorts of complications gives her wordplay with Columbo an extra zing. And the episode leans into an element of horror in the way the beauty industry is portrayed: it underlines Dick De Benedictis’ score throughout and sets the tone of several early scenes. What exactly are we putting on our faces or injecting into our veins? I’m reminded of that scene in 1978’s Death on the Nilewhen Linnet Doyle threatens to shut down Dr. Bessner’s clinic because his injections of armadillo’s urine had caused her dear friend to go barking mad. 

And speaking of Christie, there’s a second murder here of a most deserving victim that utilizes either aconite or belladonna, something Agatha fiddled with in a few mysteries, including putting it in beauty cream! 

There’s no sudden or especially clever “gotcha” moment at the end here, but Columbo engages in a series of quiet deductions that lead him inexorably to Viveca. And the final straw, for once, is openly telegraphed several times as both the Lieutenant and the Beauty Queen both find themselves suffering from an unexplained itch. Plus, as much as Columbo plays with his prey here, we get plenty of scenes between Falk and other characters where he appears almost normal! All in all, a most enjoyable episode!

Next time, we have a Season 3 episode with another male villain and female accessory. So far these have disappointed me, but since the female is played by a truly great actress, I have higher hopes. And our second episode jumps to Season 5 and yet again explores the world of a fading star, played by someone who was as close to Vera Miles as her own sister!!