Any Old Port in a Storm

Adrian Carsini (Donald Pleasance) runs a California winery owned by his younger half-brother (Gary Conway, in a flat performance) who reveals he's about to sell it. This enrages the older wine connoisseur who knocks the young playboy out cold and ties him up in the wine cellar. Soon Carsini has committed a murder and makes it look like a scuba diving accident. Our rumpled Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) is on the case and is willing to harass everyone—even Carsini's cold but devoted secretary (Julie Harris)—until he's discovered the truth.

Leo Penn directs a script by Stanley Ralph Ross (from a story by Larry Cohen) that is mainly excellent. The murder—or rather its cover up—is splendidly tricky. Columbo's scenes with his main adversary and the secretary are inventive and witty. "Columbo vs. wine connoisseur" was a premise waiting to happen, and Ross makes the most of it. Not all the scenes are as tight and purposeful as they are in "Murder by the Book" or "A Stitch in Crime," but this slow-paced episode never seems to drag.

What makes this "Columbo" rank among the best are Julie Harris, in a familiar but welcome performance, and Donald Pleasance, who seems to have lived in his character for years and knows the man's every aspect, from his imperious snobbishness and petulant tantrums to his nervous boyishness and childlike enthusiasm. We don't care about the half-brother; but a second tragedy happens in the wine cellar, and it's one of the saddest moments in the series.