A Deadly State of Mind

Episode aired Apr 27, 1975
TV-PGTV-PG
1h 10m

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

1.9K

YOUR RATING

Peter Falk and George Hamilton in A Deadly State of Mind (1975)

Crime Drama Mystery

A psychiatrist, who specializes in hypnosis, murders the husband of his mistress and convinces her to lie to the police; it's up to Lt. Columbo to discover the truth.A psychiatrist, who specializes in hypnosis, murders the husband of his mistress and convinces her to lie to the police; it's up to Lt. Columbo to discover the truth.A psychiatrist, who specializes in hypnosis, murders the husband of his mistress and convinces her to lie to the police; it's up to Lt. Columbo to discover the truth.

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

See production, box office & company info

Trivia
This is one of the few episodes of Columbo (1971) in which the original murder is a spontaneous act. In most episodes, the murder is carefully planned.

Goofs
The murderer's car hit a column, and there's a blind witness. The car must have been damaged, and some material from the bumper must have smeared on the column. Still, the police fail to check that.

Quotes
Charles Whelan: [watching a rat in a maze] He looks just like one of my junior editors!
Dr. Anita Borden: We call her Willy.
Charles Whelan: Sorry, I don't have a Willy.

Soundtracks
Mazurka No.6 in A Minor, Op.7 No.2
(uncredited)
Composed by Frédéric Chopin
From the audio unit which Columbo switches on

User reviews25

Review

Top review

7/10

In flagrato

In a lot of Columbo episodes you can feel sorry for the perpetrator, sometimes they're driven to kill and the one who died probably should have. Other episodes show a carefully planned scheme gone awry because of the way Peter Falk digs for clues. But this one was spontaneous as it gets. Husband Stephen Elliott catches his psychiatrist colleague George Hamilton with his wife Lesley Ann Warren and Hamilton kills him in the struggle.

Hamilton was one of the most hateful perpetrators ever in the Columbo series. Being a psychiatrist and knowing how the human mind works, he prepares a careful scenario about a home invasion and it looks pretty good. But an extremely tiny piece of evidence convinces Falk otherwise and also Warren begins to fall apart.

However what Hamilton does to cover up after this is where his true worthlessness of a human being is shown. You will stand up and cheer when Falk nails him and how he nails him.

Got to love that Lieutenant Columbo.

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