Dagger of the Mind

Columbo shows up in London without his suitcase as even when this was filmed, they lost them. He says it is his wife's case but why he came to London without his wife when I am sure Scotland Yard would have paid for both of them? This is a nice tourist episode as a lot of Londons sights are shown. The cast is great as almost the entire cast became well known to American audiences after this was made. Honor Blackman is a bonus as she is a great performer and she was already known as Pussy Galore before this.

The plot on this one is a little weak in that the murder is an accident and Columbo has to result to trickery to trip up the murder solution rather than using his usual proved police methods of homicide investigation. Then again, as this episode was done more for the famous cast and London scenery, I didn't really mind.

May 2022

Yep here we have my very favourite episode of Columbo, and i know i am in the minority here, as there are plenty of reviews saying this is peoples least favourite episode.

Personally i prefer all the Columbo episodes where they tried something different rather than the usual format.

This was is set in London, which allows for a much different setting and quite a lot more comedy elements, as well as a really strong cast in this one, Bernard Fox, Wilfrid Hyde White, Honor Blackman and Richard Pearson amongst others.

So for me the most fun episode of all.

8.5 out of 10.

At least there are some English actors, with real accents. Not surprisingly Richard Basehart's accent is hilarious - but better than Dick van Dyke's Cockney. While far from the best Columbo, this is a favourite as I was studying at Imperial College at the time and saw the crew preparing for the scenes. At one point there were a lot of jeering students (definitely 'Miners' - Imperial College graduates will understand) interrupted things. For this reason it brings back very happy memories of College days.

The "London Wax Museum" is not, as was stated in an earlier review, Imperial College. It's the entrance to the Royal College of Music, which is surrounded by Imperial College. The RCM would have got the cash, not IC. The Ipcress File scenes were further east, on the corner of Exhibition Road and Prince Consort Road. I spent two years living almost opposite the RCM, so knew the area very well.

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."

I am a die-hard Columbo fan and I guess all of the episodes, excluding the most recent ones, are my favorites. But Dagger of the Mind is one of my favorite favorites. It has wonderful performances by Honor Blackman and Richard Basehart and a familiar Hitchcock actor, John Williams.

This movie has one of my favorite scenes of all time - Blackman sobbing hysterically over a coffin and babbling to Columbo (we find out later she thinks he's from the press). In the midst of her over-dramatic performance, Columbo, in his most innocent voice asks, "Is there any way for me to get tickets? I'd LOVE to see the show." Too funny. Columbo is a great character. It's a shame that the last few episodes were not up to the wonderful standards of the old episodes and his comeback episodes of the early '90s. I haven't given up hoping he'll be back in top form before Falk decides to retire.