Publish or Perish

Of course basically all of the Columbo movies are more or less the same and they mostly can distinct itself mainly through its directing. This is one of the better directed Columbo movies and its made with lots of pace and style.

It's a Columbo movie that got made with a lot of class. It features cinematic tricks such as split-screens and also the cinematography is not just only static.

But director Robert Butler also knows how to handle its actors. Peter Falk is in good form in his Columbo role, who acts more in a police role this time than perhaps is the case in any other Columbo movie. Jack Cassidy also plays a good role as the movie its main suspect. Columbo movies almost always featured famous actors in the role of the key suspect. Jack Cassidy is not the best known actors of this bunch but he has played some good roles throughout his career, including a role in the previous Columbo movie "Columbo: Murder by the Book", directed by Steven Spielberg.

The main suspect in this movie uses a very original tactic. He tries to make himself look as suspicious as possible at first, by leaving clues and leaving suspicious statements, even though he himself did not commit the murder but hired someone for it to do it.

The approach and its actual story and the way it progresses also makes this a good and special Columbo movie to watch, that provides plenty of entertainment value. It also has plenty of twists and turns in it, although it of course also all remains rather predictable for most part till some extend.

One that's among the better ones of the Columbo movies.

8/10

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On the whole, an entertaining and well-written episode with clever ideas (a murderer who makes it look as though he has been framed, and the lock-changing) and another classy performance by Jack Cassidy.

Some of this episode's notable features include the freeze-frame shots in the opening sequence and, later, the triple-screen sequence showing what Greenleaf and Kane are doing in the minutes leading up to the murder. Greenleaf's barely-concealed distaste for Kane, with his obsession with explosives and the army, is highly amusing, as is the completely unconcerned expression on Greenleaf's face as he watches Kane collapse after the latter imbibes poisoned champagne.

What lets the episode down a little is Greenleaf's carelessness just before the murder takes place, and a contradiction between two scenes. The idea of making it look as though he was framed is a clever one, but having gone to the trouble of planning the "frame-up" meticulously, he then makes an open threat against Mallory's life in front of witnesses at Geoffrey Neal's party ("My dear friend, if you do you will die"). When Columbo visits the writer's agent (Eileen McRae), she tells him that Greenleaf didn't know about Mallory's new book (Columbo: "But still, the book would still belong to Mr Greenleaf, wouldn't it?" Eileen: "You've got a lot to learn about the publishing business, Lieutenant. Riley Greenleaf didn't know anything about the book, Alan never talked to him about it and never would.") This contradicts what Greenleaf had said in front of her the night before ("His new book belongs to me and I've got him on the contract"), so what McRae tells Columbo isn't true, and she should have known that. Why on earth doesn't she give Columbo this crucial piece of information? Greenleaf makes another curious slip when Columbo visits him at his home. Realising that he has been "framed", Greenleaf - who supposedly doesn't know about Mallory's new book - hands Columbo a motive: "Alan walked out on me, took his book to another publisher, and I suppose in anger, I killed him." If he wanted it to look as though Kane had framed him, he didn't need to give himself a strong motive for killing Mallory, especially since Kane wouldn't have known that Mallory was planning to go to a new publisher. Again, it's hard to reconcile this careless error with the thorough planning that goes into the first murder. The fact that Greenleaf's car "accident" coincides to the minute with the murder is also a little obvious.

A couple of other oddities: no autopsy is performed on Kane after his death, yet Columbo frequently orders them in other episodes even where the cause of death seems to be obvious. This means that the poison, which would have been an important clue, goes undetected. Also, Greenleaf phones Kane from his office to set up their final meeting - another unwise move given that the phone company records could have been checked, but mysteriously, this too goes undetected. One also has to wonder how Greenleaf had initially planned to kill Kane, as he only spots "How to Blow Anything up in 10 Easy Lessons" by chance. He takes a huge risk in relying on the spaced-out war veteran's guidance. A terrible, very obvious edit mars the brief scene where Columbo talks to the locksmith outside the latter's shop.

There are several reminders of other episodes. In the opening scene, Greenleaf uses the phrase "tribute to American ingenuity", which is repeated verbatim in Double Exposure. The two piano pieces played at Neal's party also feature in several other episodes including A Stitch in Crime, Lady in Waiting and Ransom for a Dead Man, and the music played while Greenleaf watches a film likewise features in other episodes, including The Most Crucial Game (scene where Columbo visits Eve Babcock, aka Regoczy, at her apartment). This scene reminds me of the scene in Double Exposure where Columbo comes to tell Bart Keppel about the murder of Roger White, as once again, the murder is watching a film while being told about the second murder in an episode. Michael Lally puts in just the briefest of appearances, at the end of the scene where Greenleaf leaves the car park where he had his car accident. One final little coincidence is the fact that typewriters and champagne feature in all three of Jack Cassidy's episodes.

PUBLISH OR PERISH is a short and straightforward mystery for the ever-dedicated Lieutenant Columbo. The villain of the piece in this one is series regular Jack Cassidy, playing a snotty publisher who finds himself peeved when a bestselling author cuts him off, planning to go with a rival house. He's not about to let this stand, however...

The scant running time means that PUBLISH OR PERISH is a fast-paced movie. The murder is already over and Columbo already investigating in the first twenty minutes. The twists and turns and uncovering of plot points is cleverly done, including a few things that I missed myself, and the cast is very good. Cassidy makes for a delightfully unpleasant bad guy, and real-life bestselling author Mickey Spillane has a pivotal cameo. And John David Chandler is up there with Reggie Nalder in terms of evil-looking actors.

As usual, this production belongs to the ever-great Peter Falk, who's on top form as the apparently befuddled detective. His interlude in a posh restaurant is a comic highlight , but overall the detective's force of personality has never been, well, so insistent. PUBLISH OR PERISH marks Columbo at his most dedicated.

Jack Cassidy returns as another killer, this time a publisher called Riley Greenleaf who is about to lose one of his top authors to a rival firm, so concocts an elaborate scheme to give himself a drunken alibi, ending in jail after a forced auto accident, that brings in Lt. Columbo(Peter Falk) who first believes it to be a frame-up, but the later murder of the actual, bomb-making assassin(and would-be author) puts the case in a whole new direction. Mariette Hartley guest stars. Exciting episode with Cassidy playing a character not unlike the one he played before('Murder By The Book') A shame some plot connection couldn't have been made from that...

Jack Cassidy gives an unquestionably energetic and gritty performance in his second Columbo adventure as a murderer, which oddly mirrors the theme of fictional writing that marked his previous appearance in "Murder By the Book."

Cassidy plays Riley Greenleaf, a revengeful publisher who sees his best writer (ironically played by real-life author Mickey Spillane) poached from under his nose. So he hires an unstable bomb specialist, Eddie Kane, to murder him and leave evidence at the scene to give the impression that somebody is trying to frame Greenleaf, whilst the latter goes on a drinking spree to give himself a cast-iron alibi when the murder is committed. Greenleaf then tries to pin the murder on Edddie Kane...

A really clever, expertly written and holding mystery, which slips in some very key evidence (literally) at the end. The script is tightly structured and put together in a very professional fashion, typified by the strength of Greenleaf's alibi which makes things very difficult for Columbo all the way through, coupled with the undoubted composure of Cassidy's character, who is continually plotting in a distinctly unruffled fashion, long after the first murder has been committed.

To my mind, a very high calibre Columbo story; stylish, well-handled and not telegraphed with the predictability that has weakened some potentially top-notch Columbo adventures.