Short Fuse

This one has Roddy MacDowell as the chief villain, a conniving and brilliant member of a family that owns some kind of gigantic chemical plant, only two victims away from the presidency. Good support too, from James Gregory (huffing and puffing), Anne Francis, Ida Lupino, and William Windom.

In order to eliminate the two obstacles to his career path, MacDowell blows one of them up with an exploding cigar and frames the other one for fornication and first-degree mopery.

Comic moments include Colombo being forced by circumstances to take a 15-minute ride on a tram suspended from cables, at times half a mile above the earth. Steve Bochco was the story supervisor and he knows his character. Colombo is frozen with fear but never speaks a word, perhaps unable to. He just stands there like a statue, avoiding the windows, while his guide points out all the scenic features.

The climax is good too, however implausible. MacDowell is led to believe that the exploding cigar is now aboard the tram, along with him, Wisdom, and Colombo. As the time passes and the moment of destruction ticks nearer, he becomes more nervous, finally betraying himself by becoming hysterical and ripping the box of cigars out of Colombo's hands.

It's lots of fun.

Curious note: Both Falk and Anne Francis were raised in Ossining, New York, the site of Singsing Prison, born only a few years apart. Falk visited his home town recently on a kind of nostalgic tour. Arriving, he was greeted by an enthusiastic, cheering crowd, raised his hands, smiled gratefully, and announced, "I gotta take a leak."

It should have been Sir Roddy McDowall in my opinion. Why he never got knighted for his contributions to acting and drama, I will never know. This episode also feature Ida Lupino, another legendary actress, writer and director herself. Sir Roddy as I will call him plays a genius character who wants too much from his stepfather who played the evil Vice Presidential candidate in the original Manchurian Candidate. His plan is ingenious but there are exceptions being that Sir Roddy's character is still no match for Lieutenant COlumbo's genius. You have to laugh with him at the end of the film. Like most COlumbo episodes, you have to pay attention. We know who kills the character but how does Columbo catch him or her in some cases is just as fascinating as the episodes themselves.

Columbo's adversary here is Roddy McDowall the heir to a chemical company fortune who's a brilliant chemist in his own right. But he's given little to do and therefore indulges in silly behavior. As he is a chemist he's got the knowledge and skill to plant a bomb and rig it so that he's got a perfect alibi, miles away from the scene. And he's even got Anne Francis as an alibi.

Francis is James Gregory's secretary and he's an uncle by marriage to McDowall whose blood aunt is Ida Lupino. He's wanting to sell the company which McDowall thinks should be his. Gregory is the target and McDowall with his knowledge of chemistry and explosives rigs a bomb in a box of cigars which goes off while Gregory and chauffeur Lawrence Cook are in the car miles away.

McDowall is such an arrogant twit you practically stand and cheer when Peter Falk nails him. And he doesn't do it with evidence either. In fact in a somewhat slow moving episode the finale with the confession makes up for it. How Falk exposes McDowall is really something.

I love Columbo and I think these episodes from the early 70's are always an interesting time capsule. Probably the only episode to feature Silly String! I wonder if that was a recent invention at the time? I don't have a review so much as a question - what happened to Columbo's fear of heights in the last scene? Riding the tram seemed to make him sick the first time, but he couldn't be more cool and collected when riding it at the end?

Roger (Roddy McDowell) is a very spoiled jerk....but he's been able to stay working at the chemical plant because he's the nephew of the owner. But the owner's husband (James Gregory) is sick of bailing Roger out of problems and is determined to buy him out and force him out of the company. But before he can do this, the seemingly lazy Roger comes up with a clever plan to blow up his uncle...and it succeeds wonderfully (unless you are the uncle). Can Columbo figure it out or will this just be seen as an accidental death?

There were a couple problems which prevented it from being better. First, Columbo figures out the solution to the case almost immediately. Sure, he's smart...but the only way the character could know as quickly as he did was if they read the script!! Second, Roddy McDowell's character was very smug...and easy to hate. He also had some very annoying mannerisms and my family was rooting for him to die...which isn't going to happen since he's the villain. A bit of a misstep for the series.