Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson. It doesn’t get much better than that. From the late 1930s through the mid-1940s, they were Holmes and Watson.
I’ve seen all 14 films and they’re a remarkable mix of detective stories, crime stories, spy thrillers, suspense, and a few touches of comedy. The films gave us the definitive Holmes for an entire generation of viewers. They were exciting, thrilling, and well-played. I should stay that because a film is listed low on my list (with the exception of the #14 film), it’s not because it was a bad film. The series has so many good films in it, it was actually hard to make up my mind on the films between 2 and 14.
14) The Woman in Green (1945)
The weakest of the series. The Woman in Green was a film that struggled with its plot and villains. The character who ought to the primary villain lacked the personality of Holmes’ female antogonists in The Spiderwoman and Dressed to Kill. So, the writers brought Professor Moriarity back despite having killed him six movies prior. The problem is that the plot they created was too small for Moriarity. In previous movies, he’d tried to steal the crown jewels and then been working for the Nazis. In this film, Moriarty’s plot amounts to is a fairly gruesome blackmail scheme. Hardly stuff for the Napoleon of Crime.
13) The Pearl of Death (1944)
Holmes, while trying to illustrate the ineffectiveness of relying on an electronic burgular alarm to protect a valuable pearl, disconnects the alarm, allowing a thief to steal the pearl. From there, the story follows the premise of the Doyle story, “The Six Napoloeans.” However, it adds in a gruesome monster of a killer and makes for a suspenseful chapter in the series.
12) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
Not as exciting as the title might indicate, with a few rought spots. However, Holmes’ investigation into a series of murders at a convalescent home has a fantastic final confrontation requiring a lot of guts from our hero to pull it off.
11) Dressed to Kill (1946)
This is a film that gets trashed by some fans for everything from the title to similarities in plot to Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. The plot centers around three music boxes that were made in prison and purchased at an auction house and criminals desperate to receover them. However, I love the use of music in this plot. Also, while this film features from Watson’s goofiest moments as he’s tricked by the villain into revealing the location of a music box with the help of a puerile ruse, Watson also gives Holmes the final clue that helps him solve the case.
Currently, I’m up to Episode 10 of Season 7 of Monk on the Netflix Instant Watch, which means I’m pretty close to the end of the series. How do you get more Monk if eight years wasn’t enough? One thing that occurred to me is reading the Monk novels by Lee Goldberg (or more to the point, listening to the book through Audible). While I could have started with the first Monk novel, Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse, I decided to skip that one as it was adapted to a Season 5 episode and opt for a novel that had a far more interesting plot, Monk and the Blue Flu.
The Plot: Police are not getting what they want in negotiations with the city. With a serial killer on the loose, detectives and senior officers phone in sick, staging a blue flu to put pressure on the city.
The Mayor of San Francisco offers to reinstate Monk and make him Captain of Homicide if he’ll help out during the crisis. Monk jumps at the chance and takes command of a motley crew of discharged cops called back to duty including a senile detective, a paranoid schizophrenic detective, and a violent psychotic detective.
The Mystery: Goldberg crafted a fine mystery here, with multiple cases playing out in the novel. We’ve got nine separate murders (with a shoplifting ring thrown in for the heck of it) and three different killers.
One complaint with Monk in the later seasons was that the mystery element of the show seemed weak. No problem here. This is a fun ride with clever cases that really require some thought to solve.
The mystery is in the tradition of the cozy mystery, told without a whole lot of bloody details. In other elements of the story, Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu is about as clean or even more so than the TV version, with the notable exception of some pretty tacky flirting between two of the psychotic detectives’ assistants.
Monkness:
Of course, a Monk story is more than just a mystery. The characters on Monk, particularly Monkhimself add the comedy and drama that makes the show a winning combination even when we’re let down by the mystery. Here, Goldberg falls short.
The book is told from the perspective of Monk’s Assistant, Natalie Teager. This is a popular tactic for mystey writers to use when dealing with genius detectives (think Dr. Watson or Archie Goodwin.) It’s difficult to see the world through the eyes of a super genius, and that goes double for Monk. However, in the book, using Natalie doesn’t work well, as she doesn’t quite ring true to the Natalie we know from the TV series.
Natalie’s narration is filled with what’s known in the writing business as “telling.” We are repeatedly taken out of the story to get her opinions on everything from politics to shopping.
Her daughter, Julie doesn’t ring true either as a somewhat shallow fashion diva, nor does Captain Stottlemeyer seem to be quite right. Even Monk is occassionally not himself, going way over the top, even for him.
In one scene early in the book, Captain Stottlemeyer steps in dog doo at a crime scene. Monk insists that Stottlemeyer remove a shoe and have it sent for hazardous waste destruction-and Stottlemeyer actually goes along with this. I didn’t buy Monk going that far, nor Stottlemeyer humoring him to that degree. This also creates a strange inconsistency in the story when Monk has Natalie surrender a shoe, he insists that she remove both shoes for symmetrical reasons, but no such insistence was made with Stottlemeyer earlier.
While the characters were more expressive about emotions in this story than in a normal episode of Monk, the emotional scenes had less impact. On the TV show, the writers were experts at showing us things that evoked emotion. Here, we were more told how to feel about different scenes.
Of course, to be fair, Goldberg’s task is a challenging one. While its difficult to adapt books as movies and television shows, it’s even harder to adapt a television show to a book. While, we may have an idea of what a character is like from reading a book, when we’ve seen a character on a TV show, the actor’s interpretation has given our imaginations a solid picture of who the character is, and we don’t like deviations.
You also lose things in translation between the mediums. For example, Goldberg couldn’t show us Monk during his therapy session with Dr. Kroger due to the limit of having the story told from Natalie’s point of view .
The book did have its moments in several scenes when Monk acted like Monk. Randy Disher was well-done, although we didn’t see enough of him in this story. I will say that while the looney detectives on Monk’s replacement squad were a bit stereotypical, the idea of all of these psychosises coexisting within the same division was pretty funny.
It also continued the Monk tradition of providing hope for those with mental illness. The clear message was that they could overcome their difficulties to function in society, even if their approach to life is a little different. While I won’t give away the exact conclusion, Goldberg did give Monk’s colleagues in amicable ending.
If you read Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, you can expect a pretty good mystery and a story that has its moments. However, don’t expect to get an episode of Monk via audiobook or paperback.
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu is available from Audible.
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Recently, I decided to start watching some of the David Suchet performances as Poirot. Of obvious was that famous title, Murder on the Orient Express which Suchet made in 2010.
It was different, different than anything I’d seen, heard, or read featuring Poirot. Starkly different. The story as done by Suchet reminded me more of The Dark Knight than a cozy Agatha Christie mystery. Checking IMDB, I found an interesting phenomena which would also apply to another Poirot TV movie, Appointment with Death. Viewers rate this version of Murder on the Orient Express a solid 7.9, but fan reviewers take a more negative view. I decided to begin an investigation to find which was the best adaptation of the story. So, in addition to having watched the 2010 David Suchet version, I viewed the 1970s movie and purchased the BBC Radio 4 version from Audible.
Some spoiler warnings below follow for those who haven’t seen, heard, or read Murder on the Orient Express.
There are no small parts, only small actors.-Milan Kundera
During Hollywood’s Golden Age, Black actors who made it to Hollywood found themselves playing the same old stereotypical roles the same old way
Yet, even during Segregation, a few Black performers managed to make a connection to a wider public. None did this better than Eddie “Rochester” Anderson.
Anderson was born into show business and active in Vaudeville. His big break in radio came in 1937 when he landed what was to be a one-shot performance on the Jack Benny show, but would instead start an association with Benny that would last for nearly 30 years in the role of Rochester. While Rochester was Benny’s valet, Anderson portrayal moved away from stereotypes to create one of the golden age’s most memorable characters.
Anderson became a popular regular on the Jack Benny show, with his entrances always drawing tremendous applause as seen in this 1942 video of a radio recording session:
Rochester may have been a valet, but Anderson made the character iconic and memorable with his style and perfect pitch comic timing as seen in this 1957 clip of the Jack Benny TV show.
Anderson was multi-talented. He was not only a great comedian, but he was also a talented singer and dancer. In the 1940 film, “Buck Benny Rides Again,” he gave a sterling singing and dancing performance with Theresa Harris in singing, “My, My, My:”
Appearing on the radio show, “Jubilee,” Anderson showed his comic stylings in a memorable performance of, the Vaudeville song, “Waiting for Jane,” :
Anderson also starred in several films apart from Benny including, “Cabin in the Sky.” In 1950, CBS auditioned a radio show for Anderson called, “The Private Life of Rochester Van Jones” which would have been a daily 15 minute serial. The show wasn’t greenlighted but we do have the audition recordings do exist and give us an idea of what might have been:
The more I see and hear of Eddie Anderson, the more impressed I am with him. His combination of gobs of talent and charisma was rare, and the character to achieve his dream in the face of adversity is still rarer.
Has a career decision so backfired on a star as Harold Peary’s decision to leave The Great Gildersleeve?
Peary debuted in the role of Gildersleeve in 1938 as one of many side characters on Fibber McGee and Molly. However, the popularity of the character led to one of radio’s first successful spin-offs and one of the most enduring sitcoms of the golden era.
However after the 1949-50 season, Peray left NBC for CBS, and as his sponsor, Kraft refused to allow the Great Gildersleeve to go with him, so Peary left the role of Gildersleeve. There are many reasons that have been given behind why Peary left. For example, he wanted to sing more on the show than Gildersleeve’s production team would allow. This was also during the famous talent raids where CBS was snatching up talent from NBC by paying higher contracts, a tactic by which they’d landed Jack Benny and his good friends, Burns and Allen. So for more money and more creative control, Peary was off to a new network.
The new show Peary created had him starred as “Honest Harold” Hemp, a local radio host with a bunch of whacky friends. It was called simply, The Harold Peary Show. The show was not a huge success in terms of ratings and all but one of its episodes were sustaining. While the shows weren’t uniformly bad or weak, it’s 37-week run was an uneven mess that suggests that Perry should never have left Gildersleeve.
The Good
There were some good points to The Harold Perry Show. First was the performance of Perry himself. He always did the best he could with the material that was wrote for him. In addition, he did have a beautiful singing voice and his crooning was a highlight of most episodes.
Then there was the Joseph Kearns as Old Doc Yancy (aka Old Doc yak yak), an elderly vetrinarian. His delivery and character were perhaps the most consistently funny part of the show.
It also has to be acknowledged that some touches were funny such as the musical chimes at the house of one of Harold’s girlfriend who was a dance teacher, and their take off on tupperwear called Warbleware, which were dishes that sang.
Finally, the show did have heart. Perry went to entertain the tropps at a Veteran’s hospital and asked the audience to help supply gifts. However, the show’s most moving moments came towards the end when Cousin Marvin came to live with Harold and Perry used the show to raise awareness for the Boys Club of America and read the now classic Alan Beck piece called, “What is a Boy” in two seperate episodes. Also, towards the end of the run, Perry recognized one boy or girl across America for acts of Honesty.
The Bad
The show lacked consistency. While the supporting cast that stayed through the show’s run, including Parley Baer as Pete The Marshall, was okay. The show kept adding and removing cast members throughout the show’s run. There were at least three love interests for Harold in the series. There were the episodes where Cousin Raymond were staying with him and the Cousin Marvin episode towards the end.
In addition, to the constant rotating carasoul of side characters, it was kind of hard to get a beat on who Perry’s character was. In early episodes, the focus of the character was that he was always honest and civic minded. The honest part doesn’t last long in the world of sitcoms as people being less honest gets people into more comic trouble. As for the civic minded part, that took a downturn during the Mayoral campaign episodes.
The first five episodes of the show were fun to listen to. However in episode 6, the show began to go downhill a bit. But in Episode 7, it hit bottom and stayed there for some time. After the focus of the first seven episodes was on Honest Harold’s run for Mayor against his self-centered rival, Stanley Peabody. When Harold discovers that running for mayor is a hard job, he tries to sabotage his own campaign and then casts thd decisive vote for Peabody to avoid the responsibility. Even in a sitcom, that doesn’t make us think a lot of the character.
The show stayed at bottom through most of the next ten episodes which featured Haorld’s lazy cousin Raymond, who was little more than a stereotypical slacker. The show then clunked along until it got quite a bit better when Haorld’s little orphaned cousin Marvin came to live with him, promting some fatherly episodes that were charming and funny
These paternal episodes were far more fun and entertaining than many previous episodes which focused on unfunny romantic subplots with women we cared little about. Had the show began with this sort of focus, it might have made it.
The Aftermath
Harold Perry billed the final show as the last show of the season. In reality, the show would never return. After more than a decade playing one of radio’s most recognizable characters, Perry found his career in decline in 1951, even while Gildersleeve would continue on for four more seasons with Willard Waterman playing Gildersleeve.
On The Harold Perry Show, a constant joke was that all was on television was old movie, but it was television that would hold the key to Perry’s future. Perry guest-starred on a wide variety of shows including Perry Mason, Red Skelton, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Public Defender. He only landed three recurring roles on TV: Herb Woodley on Blondie, Mayor LaTrivia on the unlamented Fibber McGee and Molly (which featured neither of the stars who made those roles famous) and as the voice of Fenwick Fuddy in a series of 1970s Hanna Barbara cartoons. He never approached the star status he enjoyed as Gildersleeve.
When The Great Gildersleeve came to television in 1955, the series lasted only one season with Waterman in the lead and is panned by many fans. I can’t help but wonder if Perry could have made a better go of it and enjoyed long television success as William Bendix did in bringing his great radio show, The Life of Riley to television.
This episode has a good twist in it. For starters, the primary villain is none other than the Deputy Commissioner of Police (played by Richard Kiley). For another, he didn’t commit the initial homicide.
The story begins with a friend of the Deputy Commissioner meets him at a bar and tells him he just killed his wife in a moment of rage and doesn’t know what to do. The Commissioner assures him he’ll take care of it and carefully re-arranges the crime scene to make it look like it was the work of a burgular who had been hitting local homes and arrange an alibi for his neighbor.
Then the Commissioner murders his own wife and uses the occasion of the wake for the first man’s wife to enlist the help of the first killer in covering up his own murder.
This case presents a unique challenge to Columbo. There are several cases when the prominent murderers he hunts will use their connections to pressure Columbo to back off, but this time Columbo is facing off against corrupt superior with more direct authority and control over the investigation. Even as Columbo produces more inconsistencies with “the burgular did it” story, the Commissioner pushes him towards that one answer.
The Commissioner is one of Columbo’s chilling villains, combining his sociopathic nature, an intimidating personality, and the raw power of a high police official.
In the end, Columbo has to get very creative and enlist the help of the real burgular to solve the case in one of Columbo’s memorable endings.
2) Now, You See Him-1976
This episode is the second Jack Cassidy episode on the list. This is perhaps the Columbo episode I enjoyed the most. Cassidy is fantastically believable as the Great Santini, a clever magician with a past that he must keep secret at all costs which leads him to kill his employer who is blackmailing him.
Even though, the music and style of the Great Santini are totally 1970s, there’s a certain edge of coolness even watching this episode 30 years later, and Cassidy plays the murderer with a great deal of charm throughout the episode.
This episode saw the return of Sergeant Wilson (Bob Disky). Wilson had appeared in the 1972 episode, “The Greenhouse Jungle” as a young by the book police sergeant who chafed against Columbo’s unorthodox methods, only for Columbo to be proven right after Wilson arrested the wrong man. In, “Now You See Him,” Wilson has grown a bit and actually is helpful to Columbo on the case. It should be noted that this is the only time that giving Columbo a sidekick worked out well.
With a solid denouement featuring Columbo’s own magic trick with some key help from Sergeant Wilson, this is a fun way to spend 75 minutes.
1) A Stitch in Crime-1973
This episode begins with a fairly clever murder plot in which a Dr. Barry Mayfieldplans to murder his partner by putting temporary sutures where permanent ones ought to go, which will lead to the doctor’s death. A nurse finds out and the Mayfield kills her to stop her from spilling the plan.
As Nimoy is most famous for playing Spock on Star Trek many reviews will reference this as Spock v. Columbo. The comparison is not entirely without merit. Nimoyis cold, calculating, and throughout most of the episode, detached and unemotional. He’s the picture of a perfect sociopath and very menacing. The scene right before he murdered the nurse is perhaps the most startling in the series.
Like with “A Friend in Deed,” what makes Mayfield a particularly dangerous killer is not just that he’s a heartless murderer, but his position. In this case, as he’s a doctor who is supposed to be a healer, it adds another dimension to the character.
In this episode, Columbo has to work to prevent the original murder that Dr. Mayfield set out commit. This adds some additional tension to the episode that isn’t your ordinary episode of Columbo. This episode is also notable for being one of the occassions where Columbo gets mad at a killer and shows it:
The ending to this episode just can’t be beat. As we get to the end, it does look like Columbo may have lost or more accurately, got a split decision that will leave Dr. Mayfield free. It’s only in the last forty-five seconds that Columbo pulls it out.
Of course, other fans have their favorites. And it’s a hallmark of Columbo movie reviews that on nearly every 1970s episode, some fans will insist it was one of Columbo’s best and others will insist it was one of the weakest. Your feedback is always welcomed.
The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Moviesseries will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.
UPDATE:
Linked by the Rap Sheet where folks are discussing their own favorites and suggesting substitutions.
7) Fade Into Murder (1976): This episode of Columbo was far from the most difficult case Columbo had to crack, however the guest murderer made the episode entertaining.
William Shatner plays the role of Actor Ward Fowler. Fowler plays a famous TV crimefighter, Detective Lucerne. Fowler kills the woman who is blackmailing him and tries to put the blame on her husband.
Shatner is perfectly cast as the hammy actor who tries to “help” Columbo solve the case by getting in character as Detective Lucerne. The interaction between Falk and Shatner is fun. The highlight of the episode comes towards the end when Fowler, in character as Detective Lucerne accuses himself of having committed the murder!
6) Murder By the Book (1971): There’s a reason Jack Cassidy played the murderer on Columbo three times. Cassidy makes for a dashing and deceptive villain, and the chemistry between him and Falk made each outing memorable.
The plot centers around a writing team, where one member of the team writes best-selling mysteries and the other. Ken Franklin runs the business end. When the creative genius decides to leave the team, Franklin decides to kill him. The way Franklin commits the murder, it looks like he was miles away from the muder room.
The case presents a serious challenge to Columbo and thinks get even more complicated when someone who could blow Franklin’s alibi tries to blackmail him. “Murder by the Book” was directed by a young Steven Speilberg.
5) Columbo-“Short Fuse” (1972)
Roddy McDowell plays Roger Stanford, a genius and the nephew of the owner of a chemical plant who murders his uncle by turning a box of cigars into a bomb.
Stanford’s scheming doesn’t stop there. He spends the episode trying to manipulate his aunt into giving him control of the factory through a series of cunning moves. Of course, the young genius is dismissive of Columbo which turns out to be his undoing.
This episode, written by radio veteran Jackson Gills, features a fantastic ending on board a gondola lift.
4) Death Lends a Hand (1971):
This was the first of three Robert Culp appearances and the best of the three. It was a unique story for a number of reasons.
The first one is that the killing was not premeditated. Culp plays Bremmer, the an ex-cop head of a security and investigations firm that lies to a client to tell him his wife wasn’t cheating on her, and then tries to blackmail the wife in hopes of getting some juicy information. When she comes to his door, threatening to tell her husband the truth, Bremmer gets angry and smacks her so hard that he kills her. He then tries to make it look like a robbery that happened somewhere else.
Bremmer then gets into an even better position to further the cover-up when the grieving husband brings him in to help Columbo investigates. Columbo begins to catch on, and Bremmer tries to get Columbo off the case by offering him a job with his security firm.
Bremmer was one of Columbo’s most worthy adversaries, and in order to get his man, Columbo has to use a good bit of trickery. Sometimes, this can come off as contrived, but the end to this episode is one of the most memorable in the series.
This episode was also well done from a visual and music perspective. The scene when the death occurs and Bremmer hides the body is fascinating viewing. Taken with a nearly unbeatable mix of Peter Falk and Robert Culp, and you can see why this is a classic that helped to put Columbo on the map.
The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.
Columbo was a unique detective show in that the murderer’s identity was (almost) always known from the beginning. What made the show interesting was how Columbo would solve the crime and where the flaw in the murder lay.
Each episode represented a battle of wits between Columbo and the murderer. Columbo, due to his disheveled appearance and quirkiness, would almost be underestimated by the killer, who would try to lead Columbo down the path they wanted him to follow. Sooner or later, they would realize that Columbo was no fool and they’d move from helpful to hostile.
Columbo in some ways was the opposite of Dragnet. It was almost a police fantasy where a Police Lieutenant rarely supervised any men and didn’t carry a gun, and all of his cases involved the rich and/or famous who committed murder at an alarming rate.
Somehow, it worked. Arguably, it worked best during the show’s original 1970s run. So far, the only Columbo revival movie I’d put in the same category as the best 1970s shows is 1989’s Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. However, I’ve not seen every one of the latter movies, so I’ll limit this list to the 1970s run:
10) The Conspirators (1978):
In “The Conspirators,” Irish poet and undercover IRA agent Joe Devlin (Clide Revill) kills an arms dealer who tried to double cross him and his conspirators.
Revill turns in a charming performance as Devlin with fantastic chemistry with Falk. The show has some fun and relaxing scenes as Columbo and Devlin play darts, make up limericks, and talk about their past.
The show also does have some serious undertones as it deals with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Unlike the 1975 episode, “A Case of Immunity,” the writers didn’t fictionalize world affairs. Devlin had publicly renounced violence and was raising funds for the victims of Northern Ireland, but the money was actually to be used to buy guns to go to Northern Ireland which sadly did happen with quite a few international charities.
Columbo’s challenge is not only to find the arms dealer’s murderer but to stop the arms from going to Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Devlin has to get the arms without his dealer.
In a series that featured a lot insufferable snobs, the showdown with Devlin was a pleasant change that made for a memorable end to the 1970s run.
9) Murder Under Glass
At the other end of the relationship scale from the chummy Murder Under Glass. Columbo. In the 1977 episode, “Try and Catch Me” Columbo admits to liking people in general, and even some of the murderers he met, and explained his overall positive outlook on life:
It’s rare for Columbo to express dislike for a suspect which makes the ending of “Murder Under Glass” so interesting as both Columbo and the killer express their dislike for each other.
Throughout most of the episode, Columbo and food critic Paul Gerard remain polite, even cordial, however, it’s clear these two have growing contempt for each other. Gerard poisoned a restaurateur who had gotten tired of being blackmailed by Gerard. Gerard then frames a young Italian immigrant for the crime.
The case is fully based in the world of high class dining, and the writers did fantastic research to make the episode come alive. The most notable thing we learn in the episode is that Columbo is a good cook. While this contradicts an earlier episode, seeing Columbo cook was so fun, I don’t really care.
“Murder Under Glass” comes down to a final scene where Columbo and the murderer prepare a meal, with the murderer becoming one of the few Columbo killers to think of killing off the good Lieutenant to evade capture.
8 ) Requiem for a Falling Star (1973)
One became one of the cliche’s of Columbo series was Columbo saying to the murderer, “The wife and I are really big fans.” After a while, I developed the theory that the police could most easily catch murderers by placing anyone Mrs. Columbo is a fan of under police under surveilance.
One of the earliest and most effective examples of this was in “Requiem for a Falling Star.” Here, it really works.
Aging actress Nora Chandler (Anne Baxter) kills off her assistant. Columbo is called into investigate. He is very excited to meet Miss Chandler, so much so that he calls up his family.
Throughout the episode, Columbo remains very kind and respectful towards Chandler, even as her guilt becomes more obvious. Chandler remains gracious towards Columbo until the end when she really feels him closing in on her.
This episode also features quite a bit more mystery than your average Columbo episode. Oftentimes, both the motive and method of the crime are laid out completely. I have to admit that I was a little confused by how Chandler pulled off the murder, and the motive remained a mystery until the final scene.
Taken together with great chemistry between Peter Falk and Anne Baxter, this is one of the most enjoyable Columbos out there.
Continued next week…
The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.
This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.
What if Sherlock Holmes had been born in modern times? The BBC’s series, “Sherlock” gives you a good idea of how the greatest detective of them all would be different.
I have to admit being apprehensive of the new series and not really sure I’d enjoy it. However, there’s little chance that Benedict Cumberbatch will replace Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock definitely has some merit.
The idea of doing Sherlock Holmes in modern times is hardly a new one. The Rathbone-Bruce series for Universal did it fairly well. And sixty years later, what is old is new again.
Of course, moving Holmes into the 21st Century is fraught with perils. Done wrong and it becomes a fish out of water comedy. Overdo it and you risk losing sight of the character.
Thankfully, the producers avoiding doing this. Cumberbatch’s Holmes is a driven deductive genius. Martin Freeman is his able friend and companion, Dr. Watson, who is a British Veteran of the Afghanistan campaign.
Cumberbatch Holmes’ more than anything else embodies the genius’ sense of boredom in Holmes and the desire for intellectual challenge. Holmes expressed this in the Red Headed League, “My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence.”
This desire was expressed in the Holmes stories themelves in Holmes’ drug use. Also, in the 1939 Fox Movie, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Moriarity preys on Holmes intellectual curiosity by giving him a fascinating crime to solve, so that Moriarity can commit a far larger crime.
Given that this Holmes is part of a particularly bored generation, his boredom is amped up to the nth degree in this portrayal. The effect is somewhat hyperactive and occassionally intense.
One of the highlights of Sherlock was its very effective use of modern video methods to highlights Holmes’ deductions. When Holmes explains a complex deduction, the camera does a close-up on the physical clues Holmes observed to form his deductions, a kind of Sherlockovision that’s quite appealing.
The pacing is exciting, albeit a tad too quick at times, but not when compared to other modern programs.
There are a couple bones to pick with Sherlock and the episode, “The Great Game.”
The one thing really off to me about Holmes in this story is Holmes’ handling of the Bruce Partington Project (based on the Bruce Partington Plans story.) Mycroft comes to Holmes to ask him to find the missile plans and even though Holmes is incredibly bored, he refuses the commission and ignores Mycroft’s repeated requests for help even when he has no other work pending. Apparenting, some sibling rivalry with a heavy-duty dose of angst has been added to the plot and Holmes is willing to risk British security over it.
Also in this episode, the portrayal of Professor Moriarty was done poorly. We’re left with no real clue as to the practical motivation for his crimes. Andrew Scott’s performance of Moriarity was reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s joker, although not nearly as well done.
Beyond this though, Sherlock is an intriguing take on the most famous detective of them all and I’ll be eager to see the second series next Fall.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Parental Advisory: In terms of its content, it earns TV-14 rating with quite a bit of violence and some adult situations, as well as a handful of cursewords.
Sherlock Availability:
Sherlock is available as a DVD from Netflix also is available as either a digital download or a DVD from Amazon.
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Television has its Christmas traditions. A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, andHow the Grinch Stole Christmas survive through the wonder of reruns and videos.
The Golden Age of Radio also had its Christmas traditions, some things that for years were part of what Christmas was in America. Thankfully, through the power of MP3, we can step back in time and rediscover some of the best:
1) Christmas in Pine Ridge
The recurring Lum and Abner Christmas special in the 1930s was somewhat of an odd show. There wasn’t any comedy to speak of. The plot centers around Lum, Abner, and Grandpappy Spears helping out a young couple that’s gotten stranded in Pine Ridge, where the mother is giving birth. The family is clearly met to parallel the Holy family travelling to Bethlehem.
The episode’s theme shows Pine Ridge at its best and in its fifteen minutes, it’s poignant, thoughtful, and even philisophical as Lum reflects as well on the old year ending and the New Year coming.
While most people living in the 21st century have no idea who Lionel Barrymore is. Mention, “Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life” and people will have no problem remembering the distinctive voice of the wheelchair bound adversary of Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey.
One key contributor in Barrymore playing Potter was that Barrymore had a lot of experience in the role of miser. From 1934-53, he played the Role of Ebenezer Scrooge for 18 of 20 Christmases. He relinquished the role once to his brother John in 1935 and in 1938, Orson Welles took the part. However, in 1939, while Welles was still the boss at the Campbell Playhouse, Barrymore was Scrooge once again. This time in an hour long adaptation that showed off the amazing talent that was Lionel Barrymore with Welles’ narration making the show a must-hear. Listen and you’ll find out why, for an entire generation, Barrymore was definitive Scrooge.
If you say, Bing Crosby and Christmas, the first song that will undoubtedly come to mind is, White Christmas. However, this was not the song most common to Crosby Christmas Special. It was Adeste Fideles, which is commonly known as Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
Whether Bing Crosby was hosting the Kraft Music Hall, Philco Radio Time, or the General Electric show, Adeste Fidelis would lead off. Crosby would first sing the song in Latin, and then everyone on stage and at home was invited to sing the song in English.
While less people understand the Latin version now than in Crosby’s day, the performance is quite powerful and was simply a great way to begin another great Crosby Christmas.
The Marx Brothers remain one of the most beloved comedy teams of all time. Yet, they’re mostly remembered for film. While Groucho’s later years enjoyed a radio (and later television) resurgance with the hit game show, “You Bet Your Life,” the brothers as a team didn’t do a whole lot of radio work together.
The one big radio gig involving both brothers was the 1932-33 radio series, “Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel” (also known as the Five Star theater.) starring Groucho and Chico as characters very similar to those portrayed in the Marx Brothers films with Groucho playing Flywheel, an attorney and Chico playing the role of Revelli, his faithful sidekick. The show had the feel of the Marx brothers films, partially because the show’s chief writer was Nat Perrin who wrote for several of the Marx Brothers films.
Like most radio produced in that period, transcriptions of Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel were not treated kindly. Most episodes were simply lost to the ages. What survives in common circulation is one full episode, and two partials.
While the episodes themselves didn’t survive, the scripts did. And when 25 of scripts were rediscovered, it fueled an ambitious project by the BBC: remaking a lost Marx brothers classic for radio.
The BBC’s planned to hire two actors to play the scripts as Groucho and Chico. In some ways, it was a daunting proposition as Groucho and Chico are iconouic figures. However, the actors chosen by the BBC, Michael Roberts as Groucho/Flywheel and Frank Lazarus as Chico/Revelli, were more than equal to the task. Lazarus’ Chico was dead on. Roberts sounded more like a Groucho impersonator, but he had the style of Groucho down well enough that it didn’t much matter.
The show ran for three six episodes series in 1990, 1991, and 1992. The episodes in the first series were composites of several different scripts and also added in some elements from the Marx Brothers films. The second and third series episodes tended to be based on a single show.
The whole concept of the BBC’s efforts are to be commended. I wish there was more of it. There are several radio shows where a significant gap exists in available episodes, but scripts also exist. It would be great to see other shows revived. Although the BBC set a high bar with Flywheel.
And for my part, I give the BBC a transatlantic thank you for bringing two comedy legends back to life for 18 “new episodes.”
The pure amount of old time radio available to the general public online is mind-blowing. Several sites boast of upwards of 100,000 separate programs. With my podcasts, I bring listeners shows that I’ve discovered searching online. However, every episode we play is here as the result of a lot of other people’s efforts.
Radio Preserved:
Most radio programs were not thought by the producer to have some intrinsic value after their first airing with the exception of syndicated programs. However, many episodes were preserved. Some were saved on transcription discs and others from recorded reel-to-reel tapes.
The details of this process can be quite involved. It’ll suffice to say that a working knowledge of how to actually play these discs is extremely rare. Equipment can be expensive with spare parts hard to come by.
In addition, before these tapes and transcription discs can reach us, someone has to carefully digitalize them and then make them available on the Internet. So, free old time radio comes to us with a lot of expense and effort from many folks who end up remaining anonymous for the most part.
The notable exception to this is the Old Time Radio Researcher’s certified sets include credits for folks who work on compiling their sets. There are also a couple interesting weblogs and podcasts that give us a peak into the world of radio preservation.
Rand’s Esoteric OTR gives us a great look into the world of digitalizing old radio. a wide variety of programs. Occasionally, the blog will feature a previously uncirculated episode of Suspense, but often times features weird, wonderful, and forgotten programs. Rand serves as a sort of cultural archaeologist. With each episode, he posts a picture of the Transcription he digitalized and sometimes a story of how he found it.
Grandpa’s IPOD is a unique website. Lisa inherited her grandfather’s collection of 250 transcriptions and is in the process of digitalizing them with some assistance from her audio engineer/husband.
We can mulitply the efforts on these blogs by several thousand and we have an idea of what it takes to get the transcriptions digitalized. And without these efforts, as well as a lot of trading and sharing, so much radio would not be available for
By the time the 1990s rolled out, Bill Cosby was huge. He’d had many great efforts in television and other forms entertainment. He was supercool superspy Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking I Spy series. He was producer and host of the award-winning Fat Albert Series. However, his greatest success was the Cosby Show, which provided 1980s family friendly comedies that had gone missing for so many years (and have since disappeared again.)
Cosby in the 1990s brought two classic TV concepts back to the American screen.
The first was Groucho Marx’s classic, You Bet Your Life. Cosby was a huge fan of Marx and considered him one of the four best comedians of all time along with Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, and W.C. Fields. Unlike the other three, Cosby actually got to know Marx a bit. More than anything else, he’d admired Marx for You Bet Your Life. Cosby had even met the old producers of You Bet Your Life to get a chance to do it and been turned down. In the 1990s, on the heels of the Cosby show and becoming a $90 million man, Cosby could pretty much get any project he wanted and so he got to follow in the footsteps of one his heroes in the 1992-93 version of You Bet Your Life.
The show may have been a little too early. A revival of You Bet Your Life could have gone well in the reality TV era, but alas made it only one season in syndication, and was not widely viewed or known. The only video clips available are from those folks sharing appearances by their relatives on the show. These two clips from the show are priceless comedy, although they go on a little long, it’s worth a viewing:
Cosby wasn’t done bringing classic concepts to a new audience. In the late 1990s, he revived another vintage TV concept. Art Linkletter did his House Party show for 24 years over CBS radio and television, and had been best remembered for its Kids Say the Darnedst Things segment.
Cosby once again revived a classic concept as he took his turn questioning kids and hearing the surprising answers they gave.
The big difference between You Bet Your Life and Kids Say the Darnedst Things is that Art Linkletter was still alive and in fact Linkletter worked with Cosby on the program. When I watched Kids Say the Darnedst Things for the first time, I was very curious as to who Linkletter was. I had no idea, growing up.
Cosby introduced Linkletter to a new generation. Most episodes of Kids Say the Darnedst Things featured some footage of some of Linkletter’s most hilarious moments. Linkletter, in his mid-80s at the time, appeared frequently on the show. Cosby always showed a warm regard for Linkletter and never illustrated it better than with a touching surprise tribute to the man on CBS:
Those who saw Linkletter and Marx in their prime feel that Cosby’s efforts were not as good. There’s certainly something to it as both Linkletter and Marx performances were definitive.
I don’t think the point of Cosby’s effort was displace either of these two legends. Rather, Cosby did the shows because he enjoyed and loved the originals, and his efforts helped to bring awareness of the originals back into the public mind. And there’s nothing better for a top entertainer to do than that.
I’d never heard of Going My Way until I was searching through my instant watch queue on Netflix, though I’d heard of its sequel, The Bells of St. Mary.
Going My Way stars Bing Crosby as Father Chuck O’Malley, a young priest from St. Louis who has been given the task of setting in order a troubled New York City parish on the verge of bankruptcy and with many of its youth involved in crime. Father O’Malley must do so without hurting the feelings of elderly priest Father Fitzgibbons (platyed beautifully by Barry Fitzgerald.)
While Crosby was one of the most talented singers and showmen of his generation, his performance as Father O’Malley was anything but showy. Father O’Malley comes off as a “right guy” who is humble and graceful. While technically, he’s been put “in charge” of the parish by the Bishop, he refuses to assert himself, but respects the work of Father Fitzgibbons.
Barry Fitzgerald was equally masterful with Father Fitzgibbons. His portrayal of Father Fitzgibbons is as a stubborn man set in his ways, but with a kind heart and dedication that has kept him at his parish for 45 years, seperated from his aging mother.
What makes the movie work is the chemistry between the two characters. In these type of films, it’s often tempting to play up a sense of rivalry between the old minister and the young one. Yet, Going My Way takes an entirely different tact, as the old man the young one grow to love and respect each other.
It’s a bit of a misnomer to call this film a musical, as the characters rarely sing in this two hour film. Crosby does sing a few times, and when he does, it’s powerful. Perhaps one of the most informative scenes was when Father O’Malley was advising a young singer who was gesturing as she sang. Father O’Malley criticized the gesturing and suggested that she needed to was to put more emotion into her singing.
And that’s what made Crosby’s singing is the film so memorable. Whether, it was, the soft and mellowtitle song or the debut, “Swinging on a Star,” he delivered it with just the right emotion.
My favorite scene was the one in which Father O’Malley put Father Fitzgibbons to bed after the older priest to bed. They’d talked about their mothers and how Father Fitzgibbons hadn’t seen his 90 year old mother in 45 years. Father Fitzgibbons asked if O’Malley knew “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra” and Crosby sang it beautifully:
The film wasn’t perfect. At two hours, it could have been quite a bit shorter without some extraneous plot elements such as seeing the Metropolitan Opera perform one scene from Carmen, and the budding romance of the banker’s son. However, the latter subplot did provide one of the film’s best scenes.
However, these are very minor shortcomings in a great film, and the featured attraction is the warmth of Crosby and Fitzgerald to create a timeless classic.
Some folks refer to the entire period of radio history from 1929-1962 as the “Golden Age of Radio.” The term is a bit inprecise. I’d argue that the Golden Age of Radio actually ended in 1951, and that the Silver Age lasted until 1965 when Theater Five went off the air.
The year 1951 was the first that Television first turned a higher profit than radio. Seismic shifts were beginning to happen between television and radio, that would make TV ascendant. The comedy show. The long-running sitcom, The Life of Riley ended its radio run in 1951 to become a TV mainstay, a years George Burns and Gracie Allen left for television land. It became increasingly hard to launch successful new radio shows. Many shows that would have been hits five years before ended up serial oddities. Many existing franchises hung on for sometime, but by the time shows like Gangbusters, Counterspy, One Man’s Family, Amos ‘n Andy, and The Great Gildersleeve took their final bows, they’d long since lost the attention of the American people.
Stars and writers began to go where the money was. Thus radio began to lose a lot of its premier talent as grade-A actors became less likely Radio was changing dramatically.
The silver age of radio was different than the Golden one. First of all, most shows produced during this period such as Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel. really did seem to have an adult audience in mind, rather than a family audience as families were abandonning the radio for new black and white televisions.
Radio also tried to be more Avante-garde with shows like The CBS Radio Workshop. The Silver age contains most of the great Science Fiction of the radio era, with show, X Minus One and Exploring Tomorrow. As well, several anthology shows such as CBS Radio Workshop and Theater Five contains a ton of science fiction stories.
Radio gave way to television and lost audience as golden age radio actors migrated to television. There were some weak scripts that doubtless left some golden age aficionados pining for the good old days when writers like E. Jack Neuman, Gil Doud, and Blake Edwards created great scripts for Grade-A actors like Dick Powell, William Bendix, and Elliot Lewis. Yet, there were some scripts that were written so well that a listener had to smile at a great episode that most of America had missed.
