Believe it or not, this is my first time watching Columbo, and as I’ve been skipping all the guy murderers to focus on the gal murderers in preparation for the upcoming Distaff Columbo Draft with Sergio and Nick, I can’t say my viewing is making me an expert on either the series or its lead character. Skipping around as I have done, however, leads to some interesting observations, like the occasional flexibility of star Peter Falk’s portrayal of the erstwhile Lieutenant, depending on the personality of the killer of the week. (Or month – even at its least sporadic, Columbo only aired every three weeks.)

I’m sure the overall effect on this viewer is also influenced by the writing and/or direction of each specific episode. Take “Lady in Waiting,” one of the final teleplays from Season One. This one was written by Steven Bochco, who wrote for a number of the Universal Studio detective shows, like Ironside and McMillan and Wife, before going on to rule the airwaves during the 80’s and 90’s with gripping weekly dramas like Hill Street Blues, L. A. Law, and NYPD Blue. “Lady” was directed by Norman Lloyd, a veteran from both behind and in front of the screen. You might remember him as the doomed enemy agent Fry in Hitchcock’s Saboteur (“The sleeve . . . the sleeeeeeve!!!”). Lloyd helmed episodes of Hitchcock’s TV series and many other shows. He also kept his hand in the acting ring, both in film and television; perhaps his most famous role on the small screen is that of Dr. Daniel Auschlander in St. Elsewhere.

To my relief, we find a kinder, gentler, less bumbling Columbo here, and the biggest reason might be the antagonist he faces this time out. Beth Chadwick (Susan Clark) is easily the most sympathetic killer we’ve met so far. Under the shadow of a controlling father and flighty mother, she has become plain and insecure. Her father is now dead, her mother (Jessie Royce Landis) has fled to a nice island, and Beth resides in the family mansion with her older brother Bryce (Richard Anderson), who looks upon all her choices – particularly her tastes in men – with disdain. Beth is in love with company employee Peter Hamilton (Leslie Nielsen), but Bryce believes him to be a fortune hunter and threatens to fire him if the relationship continues. 

What’s a poor girl to do but get a gun?!?

Clark was a mainstay of television for four decades, earning an Emmy for playing Babe Didrikson in a TV movie and warming the hearts of millions as the mom in the sitcom Webster.  She also played many movie roles, but she never earned A-status and might be the least famous actor to headline a Columbo episode in these early days. 

That said, Clark is wonderful here. Her insecurity is the opposite of the hubris that plagued the other murderers in Season One, and the result is that this story plays out differently than a “typical” Columbo episode. Beth comes up with a plan to murder her brother that is far from foolproof and then goes wrong from the start. We even get a fun scene where Beth imagines her plan unfolding perfectly and then is roused from her dream to the harsh reality that things have gone wrong from the start. From then on, she has to improvise, and while she gets away with murder for a while, we feel more suspense here as Columbo hovers around and Peter begins to wonder what has gotten into the woman he loves. 

In the inevitable final face-off, Columbo confronts Beth in a distinctly muted way and lays out the evidence that will convict her. Beth pulls a gun on Columbo, and in one of the nicest moments in the series so far, he looks at her sadly and says, “You don’t want to do that.” He explains that the police are right outside and will capture her. “Besides,” he adds, “you’re too classy a lady for that.” And in the end, Beth isn’t looking for money or clothes or any of the trappings of a good life: she just wants respect.

Clark may not make quite the villainous impact that Lee Grant did, but her Pygmalion-like transformation is fun, and her insecurity makes for a nice change from the norm. Plus, it’s always a pleasure to see Jessie Royce Landis on screen, playing Beth’s odious mother and towing around a vicious Silky Terrier whose barking makes Columbo nervous. 

With the alarums out of the way (a home security system helps Columbo trap Beth in her lies), it’s time for the excursion – and here you would think we would be in luck! In “Dagger of the Mind,” the Lieutenant is honored for all his investigative successes by getting sent to London to observe the latest crime-solving techniques at New Scotland Yard. Being Columbo, he loses his luggage at the airport, but he has fortunately kept his camera and spends ten or so minutes of the episode taking pictures of the sights. Evidently, while the bulk of this episode was filmed in L.A., Falk and a location crew went to Great Britain to shoot footage. 

Things should go from good to better as Columbo finds himself matching wits with a wide assortment of British stars. There’s Bernard Fox as the Chief Superintendent of the Yard, John Williams as the victim, theatrical producer Sir Ronald Haversham, Wilfred Hyde-White as that mainstay of the Golden Age, a devious blackmailing butler, and even Ronald Long, the man who used to sell prunes on television, as the manager of a wax museum. And, of course, there’s Honor Blackman, whom we all know from her work on The Avengers and her turns as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger and Hera, Queen of the Gods, in Jason and the Argonauts. Here she plays Lillian Stanhope, fading star of the West End who has managed to seduce Williams’ character into financing a comeback for her and her husband, the overblown thespian Nicholas Frame – played by the sole American guest star, Richard Basehart – in a new production of Macbeth. 

When Sir Roger realizes that Lily’s sweet nothings mean nothing, he threatens to cut off financing, whereupon he and Nicholas begin to fight in Lily’s dressing room. The actress flings a jar of cold cream in their direction and magically – and fatally – beans Haversham on the noggin. Thus, rather than a murder premeditated in cold-blood, we get a comic misadventure as Nick and Lily stage the producer’s death to look like an accident in his country home. (FUN FACT: I had a pair of cats coincidentally named Nick and Lily, who were far more adorable than this pair!) Bad luck for our amoral duo that they keep making one mistake after another. And even worse luck that the victim’s niece is married to the Chief Superintendent of New Scotland Yard, who happens to have L.A.’s greatest detective in tow. 

With this cast and setting, it should have all worked out perfectly, but “Dagger of the Mind” turns out to be kind of a drag. At ninety-five minutes in length, it feels padded by all the London footage, and there’s really no clever mystery here to sink one’s teeth into. Plus, if you have a fairly low threshold for tolerating Columbo’s shtick, all the “fish out of water” stuff quickly wears thin, and the low regard that the British hold for the American for much of the running time starts to feel offensive. Sadly, the “cleverness” Columbo displays doesn’t offer much evidence for his status as a great detective: much of what he does here is guess work (although there is a nice bit regarding the way the victim treated his books), and he traps the murderous pair with a dirty trick rather than any real evidence. 

Blackman and Basehart work well together, but they come off as second-rate parodies of British theatrical aristocracy rather than the murderers rooted in reality that we have seen so far. The fact that they commit a particularly brutal second murder shows they mean business, but it’s impossible, given their performances, to take them seriously. But I’m holding high hopes for what’s coming next on the Columbo train: the very next episode also deals with the acting world – this time it’s Hollywood! –  with Anne Baxter as another fading star. Then we’ll look at a Season Three episode starring Vera Miles as the queen of a beauty empire. I have a feeling that both these merry murderesses will impress me more than Blackman and Basehart do here.