By Dawn's Early Light

Just fantastic! Along with 'Any Old Port in a Storm' (Donald Plesance) this is in my opinion, one of the two best Columbo episodes ever made. The story is gripping from start to finish, the direction is tight, the script is full of wonderful moments, and the acting is superb as the two leads spark off one and other. Patrick McGoohan fully deserves the Emmy he won for his performance here.The characterisation is excellent too. Although it's impossible to condone murder, you can almost sympathise with McGoohan's character, such is the strength of his performance. He has no family and his military academy is his whole life. In a sense he loves it and would do anything to protect it; even kill a man who tries to, in effect, destroy it. The supporting players all put in enjoyable turns too and despite their short amount of screen time, play fully developed characters rather than just one dimensional cardboard cut-outs. I must have watched 'By Dawn's Early Light' a dozen times, and I will probably watch a dozen times more in the the future. What more can I say? Go and watch it!

The episode was very good. However, the filming location of the episode is incorrect. The episode was filmed at The Citadel: The Military College of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. I know this because I am a cadet there. The error should be corrected.I really enjoyed this episode, even though I watched it at two in the morning. It was interesting to see how the campus looked back then.I liked it. But it was my first Columbo episode, and I am, admittedly, a little biased. The portrayal of cadet life at the school was pretty accurate. It left out the hazing and most of the Fourth Class System, which is much worse than portrayed. The acting was very well done.

This is one of the few Columbo's in which the acting quality is so outstanding, it makes the detective element that much better.

I did not know much about Patrick McGoohan as an actor before seeing him in this episode as Colonel Lyle C. Rumford. While I was watching this mystery, I found myself more in awe with his acting than with the actual detective element. Watching him made me look into his work more and more. As a matter of fact, I learned that McGoohan won an Emmy Award in 1974 for "Best Guest Star on a TV Series", for this episode.

If you want to see acting at its best, watch this episode the next time it shows up on the Bravo! Channel.

Patrick McGoohan's steely and nuanced performance earned him an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor , but his presence on the screen is hardly "supporting". He dominates every scene in which he appears which is almost every scene in the film . It is a tour de force performance that keeps the viewers eyes glued to his tightly -wound ,explosive face and body that he keeps under control so well . His trademark sly smile and clipped verbal delivery from "Secret Agent" and "The Prisoner" are still there . We just don't see this kind of pure acting on TV anymore from a character that is allowed so much screen time without the usual gimmicky intrusions or plot diversions . This episode is sheer joy to watch as 2 very fine artists play their roles to perfection .

Col. Lyle C. Rumford (Patrick McGoohan) is commandant of a military academy whose chairman of the board, William Haynes (Tim Simcox), wants to turn the place co-ed. (That's about the best motive for murder I've seen in a "Columbo" episode.) Haynes, who is the grandson of the academy's founder and was once a cadet under the colonel, has further decided to boot out his hated former commandant. He also insists on firing the ceremonial cannon on Founder's Day, which gives Rumford a devious idea. After an explosion that kills Haynes and looks like an accident caused by a negligent cadet (Mark Wheeler), our rumpled Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) is on the case—and he quickly learns this was no accident.

"Columbo" is always a good showcase for the actor playing the villain, but McGoohan's performance (for which he won an Emmy) may rank as the most fascinating in the series. In addition to his unsettling mania for discipline, there seems to be a lost little boy hiding underneath his rigid exterior. Twice he hints at homosexuality. He has a lust in his eyes when he promises to punish his boodle boy for unshined shoes. Later he says "No" much too quickly when Columbo asks if he's ever had a rivalry over a woman.

Howard Berk's script is happily free of gimmicks. We already have to suspend our disbelief to accept that a single police lieutenant would encounter more than one of these tricky, high class murders in a lifetime; or that any one of these cases wouldn't bring him fame and an instant promotion. We don't need the added burden of miracle wrinkle creams ("Lovely but Lethal"), implausible murder swaps ("A Friend in Deed"), identical twin killers ("Double Shock") and subliminal advertising ("Double Exposure"). Here we have a plausible murder scheme that the killer has good reason to think he can get away with—provided no one looks into the matter too closely. But Columbo does; and once he realizes the "accident" was foul play, that's it. A less than brilliant detective could have taken it from there, but Columbo does a thorough job of it. He even takes up temporary residence in the barracks to pick up every possible clue.

Harvey Hart's direction is fine, despite a bad opening shot. I happen to have seen this episode several times and I'm always annoyed when I see the camera creep up on McGoohan. That implies that a *person* is creeping up on him, but it turns out it's only us, the "Columbo" fans.