Now You See Him

The boarding house interview scene with Mike Lally was filmed several months after principal photography was completed on the episode. The writers hadn't completed, or could not agree on, the plot twist featuring Lally as a damning witness who could help to reveal Santini's true identity. Peter Falk himself wrote and directed the scene. Lally had appeared in 20 previous episodes of Columbo in minor roles or as an extra, making him the second-most cast actor of the show behind Falk. Lally's son said the scene, which uses Lally's real name for his character, was Falk's gift to the elderly Mike Lally for his otherwise nameless contributions to the series.

Detective Sergeant John J. Wilson is identified by name not only by Columbo but by himself, and both characters mention having worked together earlier. They did work together before in The Greenhouse Jungle (1972), but Detective Wilson's name (played by Bob Dishy) in that episode is Frederic, not John J.

The original German version from the 1970s was censored due to the Nazi topic. The dubbing changed Jack Cassidy's character Santini from the ex-Nazi Stefan Mueller to a wanted British bank robber named Stanley Matthews. Also this Columbo episode was slightly cut in places where the dubbing changes would have become obvious (i.e. the last few seconds of the scene where the name "Stefan Mueller" can be read on Jerome's letter). In the 1990s the German TV network "RTL Television" had the uncut version of this episode re-dubbed, now sticking to the original plot and preserving the Nazi-topic.

Referenced in Late Night with Seth Meyers: Sarah Silverman/Nico Hiraga (2021)