The Greenhouse Jungle

A kidnapping proves to be a cover for a man and his uncle to make a quick buck by splitting the ransom money. Things are going along smoothly until the uncle decides to change the plan from a kidnapping to a murder. Columbo is on hand (with a partner) to solve the case with his own unique style.

This may be my favorite of the Columbo episodes that I've seen so far. Ray Milland makes an excellent adversary for Columbo. In The Greenhouse Jungle, he proves he could chew the scenery with the best of Hollywood. Columbo's "partner", Sergeant Wilson (Bob Dishy), is one of the few comic relief type characters I've ever seen that is really funny. The rest of the supporting cast is also quite good.

But the thing that makes this one of my favorite Columbo is the mystery itself. The way Columbo solves the murder in this one is truly surprising. Even though the clue that leads to the resolution of the murder is in plain sight, I didn't realize what it was or even why it was in the movie. It's a notch above the normal Columbo fare.

To anyone unfamiliar with Columbo, this would make a great place to start.

Considering the star power this episode had, including Ray Milland, Bradford Dillman, Arlene Martel, and the great William Smith, I feel it failed to deliver, mainly because the guilty parties act too guilty. As another reviewer mentioned years before, Milland seems to go way beyond what a guilty person would act like, and shows no remorse at all, which is unrealistic to me. Even though the story is very entertaining, including a hilarious fall down a wooded trail by Columbo, mostly everyone is unlikable, especially Cathy Goodland, played by an unimpressive Sandra Smith; her career lasted only a few years later, and that doesn't totally surprise me. The motive and crime seemed lazily put together, and the only redeeming aspect to me was the subdued performance by Smith, who usually plays a hood. As critical as I've been so far, let me add that this is still a fairly entertaining episode, minus any realism, but there are at least some laughs along the way.

In the course of the Columbo series there are some perpetrators you feel sorry for and some you truly hate. Ray Milland in this episode falls into the latter category. He's a cynical and manipulative sort who really does think he's smarter than everyone else. He even tries to play off Bob Dishy making the first of two appearances as an earnest young police sergeant against Peter Falk at one point as Falk zeroes in on him.

The orchid growing Milland has a rather worthless nephew in Bradford Dillman and he administers with the bank a rather stringent trust with a strict allowance for him. He wants his hands on the money and there is an emergency clause to get some more out. They fake a kidnapping with a ransom demand of $300,000.00 and then Milland kills Dillman.

The beauty for Milland is that Dillman had a cheating wife in Sandra Smith who is prime for something like this. She also has a boyfriend in William Smith who casts well as a villain in any number items he's been part of the cast. But of course it doesn't fool Peter Falk who Milland thinks is dumb. The fate of all villains in this show.

I wish Bob Dishy had been cast in more than two of the Columbos. I like him here almost as much as a good defense lawyer in Law And Order. He and Falk work well together.

This most manipulative of villains gets his just desserts, but you have to watch to see how.

This is a very well written entry in Columbos second season. The guy writing the script was originally a pulp novelist(Jonathan Latimer) who then wrote 23 original Perry Mason series episodes among his television credits. His writing shows up well in this episode.

Ray Milland, an excellent actor definitely helps bring this show off too. Milland, a veteran screen actor from the 1950's turns in a fine performance and the support Faulk gets in this show is good as well.

The plot is about a husband living on a trust allowance plots with his Uncle who controls the trust to get $300,000 thousand dollars out of it. The Uncle then turns around & murders him, trying to throw Columbo off the scent only to trap himself.

Milland is excellent in this episode.

This isn't Columbo's best, but it is still a well-plotted episode. I do agree it does focus too much on the secondary characters and I think Peter Falk and Ray Milland were more deserving of more scenes together. Still the plot is intriguing, the pacing is more playful than usual, the script is intelligent, the locations and photography are once again striking and the direction is good too. The acting is pretty much top notch, Peter Falk of course is exceptional, while Ray Milland gives one of my favourite guest performances on the show's run as he is suitably bolshy and calculating here. Overall, it is an enjoyable episode, even with its flaws. 8/10 Bethany Cox