This was the second pilot for Columbo, done in 1971. The first one had been a TV movie, and after its success, the network asked for another pilot to see if the character could hold up in an actual series. I assume Falk's schedule accounts for the two or three-year break.
"Ransom for a Dead Man" is an excellent movie, starring Lee Grant as a cold, smart, beautiful attorney, Leslie Williams, who kills her husband and then sets everything up so that it looks like a kidnapping has occurred. Later, the police find his body.
Like so many offenders, Williams writes Columbo off as an idiot, but by the time she realizes it's an act, it's too late. "You're always going for the jugular," she notes. She does her best to off-balance him, at one point taking him flying and handing the controls to him.
If Columbo isn't bad enough, her stepdaughter Margaret comes home from Switzerland unexpectedly and is sure Williams had something to do with her father's murder.
This is a very entertaining, well-acted episode, but it has a few holes. One is the fact that without help, Williams is able to get the body, dead weight, into the trunk of her car. Secondly, and I might be mistaken, it looks like when she pushes him into the ocean, he's covered in brown paper wrapping tied up with string - not sure not only how she did that, but how she then got him down to the cliff's edge. Dealing with dead weight isn't easy.
Someone brought up a second plot hole, which I won't reveal, but I don't agree. It has to do with her stepdaughter. Williams makes an assumption about Margaret which is untrue, and Columbo tells her that her biggest problem is that she "thinks everyone is like" her.
Still, as with most of the Columbos, I liked it.
"Ransom for a Dead Man" is an excellent movie, starring Lee Grant as a cold, smart, beautiful attorney, Leslie Williams, who kills her husband and then sets everything up so that it looks like a kidnapping has occurred. Later, the police find his body.
Like so many offenders, Williams writes Columbo off as an idiot, but by the time she realizes it's an act, it's too late. "You're always going for the jugular," she notes. She does her best to off-balance him, at one point taking him flying and handing the controls to him.
If Columbo isn't bad enough, her stepdaughter Margaret comes home from Switzerland unexpectedly and is sure Williams had something to do with her father's murder.
This is a very entertaining, well-acted episode, but it has a few holes. One is the fact that without help, Williams is able to get the body, dead weight, into the trunk of her car. Secondly, and I might be mistaken, it looks like when she pushes him into the ocean, he's covered in brown paper wrapping tied up with string - not sure not only how she did that, but how she then got him down to the cliff's edge. Dealing with dead weight isn't easy.
Someone brought up a second plot hole, which I won't reveal, but I don't agree. It has to do with her stepdaughter. Williams makes an assumption about Margaret which is untrue, and Columbo tells her that her biggest problem is that she "thinks everyone is like" her.
Still, as with most of the Columbos, I liked it.