**SPOILER ALERT** Police Commissioner and Lt. Columbo's, Peter Falk, boss Mark Halperin, Richard Kiley, at first tries to do the right thing, in his confused mind, by covering up a messy homicide on the part of his friend Hugh Caldwell,Michael McGuire. Hugh had a big fight with his wife Janet over her going out with other men behind his back and accidentally killed her by ringing her neck.
Scared and afraid that he'll have to face the music for what he did Hugh gets in touch with his friends ,L.A Police Commissioner Mark Halperin, wife Margaret (Rosemary Murphy). Margaret tells him that Mark is playing craps at the local country club. Calling Mark the panicky Hugh is told by Mark to keep his cool and come over to the club and stay there so he can then provide an air-tight alibi for him. Going to Hugh's place Mark covers up his fiends killing by making it look like it was a murder/robbery. Mark has Hugh call him and make it sound like, with witnesses at he club listening in, that he's having a talk with his old lady whom, unknowing to those at the country club, he killed and has been dead for some two hours.
Back home Mark in bed with Margaret fakes that he heard some noise at his next door neighbors house, the Cardwells, and tell her that he just saw someone flee from the premises. Frantically calling his boys, the L.A Police, to come over and catch the perpetrator they and Lt. Columbo show up finding that Janet was murdered and her jewelry stolen.
As your trying to get your bearings straight in what Mark is up to in covering up his friends, Hugh Cardwell, wife death we then see him coming home for supper and finding his wife Margaret in the bathtub, filled with bubble bath. In the middle of what seems like a friendly conversation as Mark Mark suddenly grabs Margaret by the head pushes her down into the water drowning her!
I had to wonder what kind of police department the LAPD was with it's big cheese the "Commish" himself being a total nut-job. Not only risking his career and possibly spending a stay behind bars by covering up Hugh's killing his wife Janet but this, murdering his wife Margaret! Mark seemed to be mad at Margaret for spending her inheritance, four million dollars, on ex-convicts who she felt weren't given a chance to have a second chance in life by an uncaring and vindictive society. It was normal for Mark to be upset that he was left out in his wife's philanthropic plans but to murder her and risk getting a one way ticket to the San Quentin gas chamber was simply mind-blowing!
Again working in tandem with his fellow wife killer Hugh Mark has Hugh, with a woman's nylon stocking over his head, act as if he's burglarizing Mark's home. Hugh in full view of Mark and the pilot on a police helicopter, takes his already dead wife's, Margaret, body out of the house and dumps her into the swimming pool to make it look like he beat and forcibly drowned her. What the not so smart Mark didn't realize is that when he earlier drowned Margaret in her bathtub.
Mark trying to cover his, and Hughs, tracks targets this local burglar Artie Jessup, Val Avry, as a perfect pasty to frame the two Bel Air killings, Janet & Margaret, on. Things don't go as smoothly as Mark thought when his boy, the top homicide detective on the force, Lt. Columbo start cracking open the case. That leads a hysteric Mark to overplay his hand and plant a number of pieces of jewelery in Artie's skid row hotel room. What Mark did't know is that that Artie checked out of the dive three weeks ago and guess who's now the new tenant?
What I liked most about this Columbo episode is that it has the boss police commissioner Halperin get screwed by his lowly employee Lt. Columbo and not, as it usually would be, the other way around. Mark acted like a real schmuck in not only murdering Margaret but by not having the common sense in knowing that the clever Lt. Columbo would see through his brainless attempt to cover up his crime. We the audience and Lt. Columbo almost forgot about the original killing in the movie the accidental death of Janet Cardwell until that jerk Mark Halperin tried to frame the innocent Jessup in both Hugh and his wife's deaths.
Using Hugh as a go between in getting the pay-off money, secretly concocted by both Columbo & Jessup, Mark then tried to double-cross and set up Jessup in Janet's as well as his wife Margarets deaths. He didn't realize that Lt. Columbo tricked him into believing that he was staying at the address that was on Jessep's rap sheet. The creep fell for it lock stock and barrel implicating himself in both killings, one actively and the other as a willing accomplice.
Scared and afraid that he'll have to face the music for what he did Hugh gets in touch with his friends ,L.A Police Commissioner Mark Halperin, wife Margaret (Rosemary Murphy). Margaret tells him that Mark is playing craps at the local country club. Calling Mark the panicky Hugh is told by Mark to keep his cool and come over to the club and stay there so he can then provide an air-tight alibi for him. Going to Hugh's place Mark covers up his fiends killing by making it look like it was a murder/robbery. Mark has Hugh call him and make it sound like, with witnesses at he club listening in, that he's having a talk with his old lady whom, unknowing to those at the country club, he killed and has been dead for some two hours.
Back home Mark in bed with Margaret fakes that he heard some noise at his next door neighbors house, the Cardwells, and tell her that he just saw someone flee from the premises. Frantically calling his boys, the L.A Police, to come over and catch the perpetrator they and Lt. Columbo show up finding that Janet was murdered and her jewelry stolen.
As your trying to get your bearings straight in what Mark is up to in covering up his friends, Hugh Cardwell, wife death we then see him coming home for supper and finding his wife Margaret in the bathtub, filled with bubble bath. In the middle of what seems like a friendly conversation as Mark Mark suddenly grabs Margaret by the head pushes her down into the water drowning her!
I had to wonder what kind of police department the LAPD was with it's big cheese the "Commish" himself being a total nut-job. Not only risking his career and possibly spending a stay behind bars by covering up Hugh's killing his wife Janet but this, murdering his wife Margaret! Mark seemed to be mad at Margaret for spending her inheritance, four million dollars, on ex-convicts who she felt weren't given a chance to have a second chance in life by an uncaring and vindictive society. It was normal for Mark to be upset that he was left out in his wife's philanthropic plans but to murder her and risk getting a one way ticket to the San Quentin gas chamber was simply mind-blowing!
Again working in tandem with his fellow wife killer Hugh Mark has Hugh, with a woman's nylon stocking over his head, act as if he's burglarizing Mark's home. Hugh in full view of Mark and the pilot on a police helicopter, takes his already dead wife's, Margaret, body out of the house and dumps her into the swimming pool to make it look like he beat and forcibly drowned her. What the not so smart Mark didn't realize is that when he earlier drowned Margaret in her bathtub.
Mark trying to cover his, and Hughs, tracks targets this local burglar Artie Jessup, Val Avry, as a perfect pasty to frame the two Bel Air killings, Janet & Margaret, on. Things don't go as smoothly as Mark thought when his boy, the top homicide detective on the force, Lt. Columbo start cracking open the case. That leads a hysteric Mark to overplay his hand and plant a number of pieces of jewelery in Artie's skid row hotel room. What Mark did't know is that that Artie checked out of the dive three weeks ago and guess who's now the new tenant?
What I liked most about this Columbo episode is that it has the boss police commissioner Halperin get screwed by his lowly employee Lt. Columbo and not, as it usually would be, the other way around. Mark acted like a real schmuck in not only murdering Margaret but by not having the common sense in knowing that the clever Lt. Columbo would see through his brainless attempt to cover up his crime. We the audience and Lt. Columbo almost forgot about the original killing in the movie the accidental death of Janet Cardwell until that jerk Mark Halperin tried to frame the innocent Jessup in both Hugh and his wife's deaths.
Using Hugh as a go between in getting the pay-off money, secretly concocted by both Columbo & Jessup, Mark then tried to double-cross and set up Jessup in Janet's as well as his wife Margarets deaths. He didn't realize that Lt. Columbo tricked him into believing that he was staying at the address that was on Jessep's rap sheet. The creep fell for it lock stock and barrel implicating himself in both killings, one actively and the other as a willing accomplice.