Publish or Perish

Columbo is one of my all-time favourites, and Publish and Perish epitomises everything about why I love the series so much in the first place. It is slickly filmed and very well made, and the electronic score adds much to the atmosphere. The script is tightly written with enough to tense and humorous moments to delight even the fussiest of all Columbo fans, and never lets go even at the conclusion, which is wholly satisfying and tense, and the story is clever and compelling. Peter Falk is the embodiment of the iconic detective, and Jack Cassidy in a suitably gritty proves to be one of the series' most memorable guest stars. John Chandler is also great as Kane, and Mickey Spillane's appearance is interesting(if not necessarily for the quality of his acting) Overall, Pulish and Perish is wonderful, a Columbo great. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Riley Greenleaf (Jack Cassidy) publishes the bestselling sex novels of Alan Mallory (Mickey Spillane), who is about to leave Greenleaf and sign with a rival firm eager to publish his new novel set during the Vietnam War. But Greenleaf's firm has a life insurance policy on Mallory. Enter Eddie Kane (John Chandler), a bomb enthusiast and Vietnam veteran, who has written a manuscript called "How to Blow Anything Up in Ten Easy Lessons." Greenleaf thrills him with the promise of getting it published; Kane in turn considers doing a hit job on Mallory a trivial favor. Little does Kane guess what Greenleaf has planned for him after filling that part of the bargain.

"Publish or Perish" is a rehash of a great early "Columbo" episode, "Murder by the Book," which also starred Jack Cassidy. This time Cassidy has a far more complex murder plot—too complex for his own good. There are too many ways it could go wrong, as it inevitably does. Still, he seems to have our rumpled Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) going for awhile. Although Greenleaf makes some tiny Freudian slips, which Columbo immediately seizes upon, he actually seems to convince our brilliant detective that someone is trying to frame him. Then again, we can never quite read Columbo. Is he—as is almost always the case—only pretending to buy the murderer's line of bull?

This is no "Murder by the Book," but it's an entertaining episode with a good cast. Cassidy is fine doing pretty much what he did in "Book." Chandler is perfectly cast as the hit-man and gives a memorably creepy performance. Mariette Hartley appears as a rival publisher, beautifully freckled and free of makeup. Spillane is no actor, but it's fun seeing the real-life pulp novelist in this role. Robert Butler directs Peter S. Fischer's script in a show-offy, but mainly effective manner: the murder scene, at one point, shows us Cassidy, Chandler and Spillane in a thrice-split screen. Billy Goldenberg provides a weird electronic score that I enjoyed. "Columbo" fans will be happy with this one.

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.

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" marks the second time Jack Cassidy starred as a villain on "Columbo". It also is interesting because the famous pulp writer, Mickey Spillane, stars as the murder victim!

Riley Greenleaf (Cassidy) is a publisher who apparently holds grudges. When he learns that a best-selling author is about to leave his company, he plots to murder him using a very elaborate plan and a seriously disturbed young man who enjoys blowing up things! The plan works great...until Greenleaf tries too hard to tidy up every loose end. As is typical of most "Columbo" episodes, this results in his brilliant plan unraveling.

This is an enjoyable episode...one worth seeing. My only worry is that my wife is also a best-selling author and I think I'd better warn her against changing publishers!