Identity Crisis

The very murder this episode of Colombo is about makes it impossible for the Lt. to have been summoned to investigate. The murder takes place underneath the Santa Monica Pier which is in the City of Santa Monica, so since Colombo is L.A.P.D, he would not been called for this case.

Never the less, I enjoyed seeing the pier as it was in the 70s when I used to hang out there. The Santa Monica Pier is the home of the old-fashioned wooden merry-go-round, carousel that is seen as the home of Paul Newman in The Sting, it is still in use. I also enjoyed the scenes of the Long Beach Pike, (amusement park), which no longer exists as the site of the Pike is now the shopping and dining village adjacent to the Long Beach Convention Center. This area was also used in the filming of the conclusion of the chase in it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World, which was also shot in the state park near the Santa Monica Pier where the Big W was set up and you can see the taxis driving up n down the road from PCH to the park.

Jon Jax 71

Peter Falk enters the world of espionage with this case as CIA man Leslie Nielsen is found dead on a beach after leaving a restaurant. He was having dinner with Patrick McGoohan who then murdered him. Nielsen was getting way too close to finding out that McGoohan had a secret identity as a double agent named Steinmetz.

Again Falk is facing a perpetrator who is pretty smart and resourceful and in his case can call down the very forces of the government he's betraying to halt the investigation. In fact he does have Columbo followed and then even has David White who is playing his superior come down and confer with Columbo. All that does is convince Falk that he's definitely got the right guy.

This one is a cleverly written story and how does McGoohan get tripped up. Something as simple as the time of the day. Check this out.

PLOT: A VIP CIA operative and double agent (Patrick McGoohan) finds it necessary to murder a colleague (Leslie Nielsen) and make it look like a random night mugging at a pier. Otis Young, David White and Vito Scotti appear in peripheral roles.

COMMENTARY: This was McGoohan's second of four appearances on Columbo as the antagonist. It was also the first of five episodes he directed. He and Falk were friends in real life and thus McGoohan's presence usually ensures a quality segment.

This is a longer Columbo outing at 1 hour, 37 minutes. It has the usual dialogue-driven cat-and-mouse and features the disheveled sleuth's penchant for details in his detective work, like meticulously going through random photos at an amusement park. Speaking of which, I like the location shooting at the park and pier, as well as the Middle Eastern-styled nightclub. As is typical, the murderer is arrogant and underestimates Columbo. On the downside, his motive is decidedly ambiguous.

The film scores pretty well on the female front with statuesque redhead Barbara Rhoades as a photographer at the amusement park and Angela May as the antagonist's secretary in a brief role, not to mention the winsome blonde girl at the carnival, played by Alicia Chambers.

GRADE: B

In 1975 I saw this episode on the first run.

Roughly fifteen years later I saw this episode on late night television and they cut the clue scene short five seconds before the clue.

This week I saw this episode on Bravo and they cut out the scene with the clue entirely.

I won't spoil it for you, but it would be a much better episode if they showed the full scene of the perp driving his car in the early morning light, listening to the car radio, the morning after the murder.

(Is it okay to say that there was a murder?)

Nelson Brenner (Patrick McGoohan), a top CIA operative, is really a double agent who finds it necessary to rid himself of a fellow spy (Leslie Nielsen) and make it look like a mugging. Brenner inadvertently leaves tiny clues in a photo shop at a carnival, on Brenner's corpse at the beach, in a tape recording he makes while in his Agency-approved identity as a speechwriting consultant—the kind of clues that no one would ever pick up on. No one, that is, except our rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk). The indefatigable detective will find himself followed by mysterious agents, visited by the top man himself and entertained with a recording of "Madame Butterfly" in Brenner's own mansion before solving this difficult case.

Well, Columbo has already battled his own top boss ("A Friend in Deed"), a scientific genius ("Mind Over Mayhem") and a foreign secretary with diplomatic immunity ("A Case of Immunity"). Why not give him a really impossible job: battling a master spy?

It's strange to see standard spy stuff in a "Columbo" episode. We get the cryptic dialogue ("Colorado is a river" "Geronimo is an Indian"), a broken poker chip to prove identity, latex disguises, exploding cars—if I had wanted to see this crap I would have watched "Mission: Impossible."

No, I'm joking. This is an enjoyable episode, with McGoohan delivering two excellent performances: as director and guest villain. He films William Driskell's script at a leisurely, but not lugubrious, pace. The scene where Columbo fumbles for change at a gas station is the only one that seems overlong. McGoohan's splendid Nelson Brenner is fascinated by Columbo—the way a small rodent is fascinated by a snake.

I mean that analogy. Sometimes even we, the "Columbo" fans, underestimate our hero and see him as a simple guy with a gift for detection. But there is a moment or two in every episode where he seems menacing—almost frightening. In this episode, it's the scene where he walks backwards out of Brenner's office, smiling—yet with a penetrating glare. You'd need a master spy's nerves not to be undone by that.

The scene in Brenner's mansion is among the best in the series and make up for whatever deficiencies we might find in the plot and in the ending. Fans of McGoohan's spy series, "Danger Man" and "The Prisoner," will find as much to enjoy as "Columbo" buffs.