Our exploration into Distaff Columbo jumps to the second episode of 1976 and the first episode of the 1977 season. Both are a mere 75 minutes in length, both concern a murderess who is both sympathetic and ruthless – although one of them a character named Ruth and the other played by an actress named Ruth! – and both contain incredibly gullible victims. Neither episode wholly works, but one is much better than the other, largely due to a magnificent guest star turn.  

“Old Fashioned Murder” features Joyce Van Patten as Ruth Lytton, the curator of a family-owned museum. A dried-up spinster since her fun-loving sister Phyllis (Celeste Holm) ran off with her fiancé, Ruth devotes her entire life to her work, fights over money with her brother and business partner Edward (Tim O’Connor) and has only one genuinely loving relationship – her niece Janie (Jeannie Berlin). When Edward threatens to close the museum and sell all its treasures to provide the family with a good life, Ruth starts to plot and plan. This results in the death of Edward and a museum guard, who happens to be the wastrel brother of niece Janie’s married lover. 

For someone as smart as Ruth is presented to be, the plan is rather ridiculous, depending as it does on the museum guard being stupid enough to follow Ruth’s bizarre instructions. Suffice it to say that our un-merry murderess inspires Columbo’s suspicions with a mistake so basic that I learned about it first in an Encyclopedia Brown story. The relationship between Ruth and the Lieutenant is kind of sweet, and its hallmark is that every time Columbo goes into his humble shtick, Ruth calls him on it. That’s the best part of what is otherwise a dull episode with some weird tonal dissonance. 

Joyce Van Patten has had a long career in film and television as a character actress known for her dry and funny delivery. Unfortunately, Ruth is a very serious character, but at least Van Patten takes her seriously, and Falk tones down his goofy-Columbo side because it doesn’t work on this adversary. Everyone else, however, is performing in another type of show. Berlin is okay sometimes and over-the-top at other times. O’Connor plays the brother like a prissy prig, but at least he’s barely in the episode. Worst of all is Celeste Holm, an actor I’ve always adored: here, she plays comic relief in a way that can only annoy us. 

“Old-Fashioned Murder” manages to fall short in its setting and murder plan, its investigation and denouement. Ultimately, it’s a waste of Van Patten’s talents and, at best, a fair-to-middling episode. So let’s jump to the beginning of Season 7 and to the episode that I have been frankly waiting for since I agreed to draft all these Distaff Columbo episodes.

“Try and Catch Me” is the second Columbo episode to pit the wily Lieutenant against a mystery author. Here it’s prolific writer Abigail Mitchell, played by Ruth Gordon at the age of 80. Nine years earlier, Gordon won an Academy Award for appearing in my favorite horror film, Rosemary’s Baby, and she seems to be channeling Minnie Castevet with her hilarious walk and breathless delivery. 

Abigail had one love in her life: her niece Phyllis, who disappeared at sea during a yachting trip with her husband Edmund (Charles Frank, taking a long break from playing Dr. Jeff Martin on my soap, All My Children). Abigail believes that Edmund murdered Phyllis and is determined to make him pay for his crime. She does so in a cold-blooded way, manipulating Edmund to enter the giant safe in her study and then locking him inside to die. 

And then, like Ruth Lytton before her, Abigail makes a stupid mistake for which there is no coming back: Edmund leaves his car keys on her desk and Ruth swoops them up, but instead of disposing of the keys, either in the garden outside her home or in the Hudson River (she is about to fly from L.A. to New York), she buries them in the giant ashtray in the hall. She might as well have scrawled “Catch me, Columbo” in the sand! 

For a brilliant mystery author, Abigail behaves this stupidly throughout the episode. The keys are found, but by the writer’s assistant Veronica (Mariette Hartley, playing a delightfully ditzy blackmailer). Abigail seems perfectly content to acquiesce to Veronica’s simple demands (pay me more!), but then she doubles down on the lunacy with those keys. You would almost think that the great Abigail Mitchell had herself written several episodes of Columbo, knew full well that her chances of getting away with murder were nil, and decided to be especially accommodating with her giveaway clues.

All this said, I enjoyed myself immensely watching this one. The repartee between Gordon and Falk is delightful throughout: they’re clearly both onto each other, and they keep playing little “gotchas” which are parried and returned. Case in point: Columbo ends up at a country club where Abigail is addressing a meeting of women who are all fans of her work. She sees the Lieutenant come in the door and immediately invites him up to address the crowd. What is surprising and fun is the speech that Columbo delivers, revealing more about him as a character and allowing him to directly address his quarry. 

I’ve also always been a big fan of dying messages, and it turns out that Edmund sent one in the last few hours of life. It’s a clever message, and so is the step-by-step way that Columbo deduces its existence. 

Finally, there’s the ending, which resonates in a far different way from “Forgotten Lady.” Abigail is exposed, and with adorable frankness she asks Columbo to not arrest her as she is really a harmless old lady. The Lieutenant’s reply speaks to their mutual respect of their adversary’s professionalism. But what is left unsaid is that Abigail killed a man with no proof that he actually murdered her niece. Charles Frank plays the role with enough ambiguity that you can’t ever sure he isn’t an innocent man. In fact, I would argue that his eagerness to follow Abigail’s instructions is just as strong an indication of a man who wants to please a woman he admires as it may be that of a fiend who intends to someday rob her. 

Ultimately, there was something a bit disappointing about “Try and Catch Me.” But the presence of Ruth Gordon and a lovely cameo by Columbo’s basset hound Dog, who also featured in “Forgotten Lady” (Hey! I grew up with basset hounds!) makes this one a pleasure to watch. Movie stars! Dancers! Writers! It does seem like when Columbo brought in a female killer, she tended to have an artistic bent! Our next foray concerns a TV executive – well, you could cynically argue that there’s no artistry there! – and then we move into the kinky world of sex therapy! See you then!