"Columbo" Dagger of the Mind (1972)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Richard Quine

Writers:

Jackson Gillis (teleplay)
Richard Levinson (story) ...

TV Series:

"Columbo" (1971)

Original Air Date:

26 November 1972 (Season 2, Episode 4)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Lilian Stanhope and Nicholas Frame are two actors in London. They have to act in Macbeth and the producer is Sir Roger Haversham who is Lilian's lover...

Plot Keywords:

Actor | Scotland Yard | Investigation | Fight | Murderer

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Primetime Emmys.

Cast

Peter Falk	...	Columbo
Richard Basehart	...	Nicholas Frame
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	Tanner - The Butler
Bernard Fox	...	Det. Chief Supt. William Durk
John Williams	...	Sir Roger Haversham
Honor Blackman	...	Lilian Stanhope
John Fraser	...	Det. Sgt. O'Keefe
Richard Pearson	...	Diver - Pathologist
Arthur Malet	...	Joe Fenwick - Stage Doorman
Harvey Jason	...	The Director
Ronald Long	...	Mr. Jones
Hedley Mattingly	...	Customs Man (as Hedley Mattingley)
John Orchard	...	PC Charlie Fatheringham
Peter Church	...	Constable
Walker Edmiston	...	Gardener

Runtime:

USA:100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-7 (2005)

Filming Locations:

Imperial College Library, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England, UK

Company:

Universal Studios

Trivia:

After his character collects Columbo from Heathrow Airport, John Fraser, who has spent nearly all his career in the UK, only appears in scenes filmed outdoors, as part of the restricted filming in Britain.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: The pearl dropped in the museum lands on carpet, but sounds as if it was bouncing on a hard floor.

Quotes:

Nicholas Frame: Most people, Columbo, have frightful taste, yourself included.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Columbo: Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star (1991) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Pass Me By

A tepid "Columbo" effort featuring a shallow view of Londoners, weak comedy relief and a pair of cartoonish murderers

Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman are Nicholas Frame and Lilian Stanhope, a famous husband-and-wife acting team about to do "Macbeth." Just before dress rehearsal, Sir Roger Haversham (John Williams), the impresario behind this production, discovers they have tricked him – Lilian has seduced him for his money and Nicholas put her up to it. He secretly visits her dressing room to tell her the show is off. Nicholas joins them, and the three wind up in a scuffle that ends when Lilian hits Sir Roger on the head with a cold cream jar, accidentally killing him. They move Sir Roger's body back to his home and make it look as if he fell down a flight of stairs. Too bad for them our rumpled Lt. Columbo, visiting London as a guest of Scotland Yard, brings his sharp eye to this case.

Some English IMDb posters have already noted that this is a shallow and condescending view of Londoners, and I believe them. Nothing about this episode rings true, and the plot is thin stuff.

Basehart and Blackman have no trouble playing affected stars, but their roles are caricatures of actors, not real people. There's no fun in watching Columbo play cat-and-mouse with a couple of cartoons. In fact, this episode starts going badly the moment he enters the scene. We first see him bumbling and inadvertently creating havoc at the airport, a would-be comic sequence that falls flat. Columbo is funny only when his seeming ineptitude causes his quarry to underestimate him. Whenever the writers have him clowning like this, you wonder if they underestimate him, too. They even having him stumbling through crowds, trying to take pictures of all the London landmarks. For all these scenes add to the story, the producers might have scrapped the location shooting and spent the money on a better script.

This whole thing just feels like a cheap imitation of an English murder mystery down to the unsatisfying conclusion at a wax museum. If Basehart and Blackman weren't having such obvious fun with their roles (they even get to play a little Shakespeare), this would be a complete bore. Columbo may be a fish out of water in England, but so is "Columbo."

MISCELLANY. This is the second episode so far to feature an unpremeditated murder. The first was in "Death Lends a Hand."