Last Salute to the Commodore

The Columbo formula was thrown out the window here. Unfortunately, so was the pacing. The result is one of the most boring entries of the series -- complete with a Columbo who seems to be making fun of himself half of the time. At the end, since Columbo didn't seem to care that much about catching the killer, I lost interest too.

I'm a big fan of Peter Falk and his Columbo series - any showing is a must-see for me even where I have already viewed them a dozen times before since they aren't who-dunnits and Falk always gives a performance worth watching. Sad to say I think this is one of the two or three very disappointing episodes. Falk plays Columbo at half-speed, his two side-kicks are one (most would say two) too many, Vaughan has nothing to do and so ends up doing nothing, but most of all the pace of the first hour of the movie is far too slow.

So what went wrong. I suspect here we have a director trying for a twist on the Columbo formula - which is OK, it made sense to throw an off-speed delivery occasionally - and also experimenting with 'improvisation' by the actors. As we all know that sometimes comes off and sometimes crashes and burns horribly. In this case sadly the latter. The little quirky scenes in Columbo movies are a delight - but here almost the whole movie is made up of such scenes and so the plot gets horribly lost.

It should come as no surprise to fans of the Columbo genre that the director was Patrick McGoohan. A brave experimental director and actor - and here in 1976 given the opportunity to try something out. Sadly it doesn't work. However, given his fine performances in 4 other Columbo movies - and his fine direction in four other than this -I'm still a fan!

This episode was weird. If you've watched any other episodes you can see that Peter Falk is clearly drunk, stoned and sleep deprived in several scenes. This episode stars Robert Vaughn and is directed by Patrick McGoohan, both British drinkers of renown. I can only assume there was a lot of fun on the set and they decided to run some scenes inebriated.

I love the Columbo series, have seen at least 80 percent of the show's episodes, and hope to eventually see them all. So far, this one is by far the worst. What makes it so disappointing is that it has a wonderful supporting cast: John Dehner, Diane Baker, Robert Vaughn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and Dennis Dugan, among others. But what a waste of talent. And what terrible pacing and staging. Patrick McGoohan is a fine actor, and his performances as the murderer in this series are outstanding. But his directing in this episode is simply awful. If you're a Columbo fan, skip this one. If you're not a Columbo fan, all the more reason to skip it as well!

This 1976 episode ignorantly dispenses with the basic Columbo formula in it's thought, style and execution. with a distinct aura of parody smothering it's dialogue and characterisation.

Whether it was felt by the regular members of the Columbo crew that it was time to try something different, or whether things were ad-libbed around a basic storyline I don't know. Suffice to say, that after an interestingly constructed opening with an off-screen murder, the remaining part of the first half of this episode rambles desperately, with characters seemingly unable to keep a straight face, yawn-inducing discussions on boats and parts of boats, and some irritating repetition of secondary characters introducing themselves to each other etc.

It's almost like somebody decided to tighten things up in the second half, with a wonderfully inserted twist relating to the prime murder suspect and a script, which becomes increasingly rich in interesting clues, that facilitate an decent Agatha Christie-like resolution. Despite this significant improvement, the sealing clue is woefully inadequate and thus the glaring mediocrity that haunts so much of the early part of this episode returns at a very crucial time.

Slipshod in overall execution, the script could have been significantly tightened and sharpened to render a Columbo episode that, whilst deviating from the typical approach, would have proved to be a relatively entertaining story.

From a historical point of view, it seems that Peter Falk had intended, prior to the production of this episode, to make this his final outing as Columbo. If this is true, he appears to have changed his mind by the story's finale: his remarks to his colleague about "not quitting" - which in the context of the story, refer to Columbo's smoking habit - may have been a subtle reference to his desire to carry on a little longer.

Sadly, this episode does mark Falk's departure from the portrayal of some of his character's appealingly deceptive traits - the seeming absent-mindedness and dim-wittedness of the Columbo character has been replaced with an unsatisfying and pronounced arrogance. Unfortunately, this would take the gloss of the remaining episodes in the original series, some of which are very good.

Painfully uncertainly paced and padded in places, significant tolerance will need to be shown by most viewers to get them safely through to the second half. Ironically, this addition to the series could provoke more discussion than any other, in light of its very curious approach.