Last Salute to the Commodore

An offbeat (literally) episode from the original run, in which Falk and director Patrick McGoohan tried a different angle on the familiar formula. The result is a rather fey, whimsical Lieutenant - all smirks and knowing winks - on a case that twists alarmingly before he can nail the suspect. Guaranteed to either enchant...or send viewers screaming from the room.

I thought I'd already did a review but I hadn't and no there's not much to add to what most everyone else had on here. But seriously what was Peter Falk thinking taking weird cues from his friend McGoohan? Or was he really drunk? If it wasn't for all the bizarre uncharacteristic things Columbo does in this episode this would be a great story and mystery that's why I mark it at 5 instead of 1 etc like some have. Those uncharacteristic things being letting someone else drive his car(and having the roof down), putting his arm around everyone, almost picking up a young hippy and being on the waters and boats without his usual problem with that. Also a pity that this is the episode with Dennis Duggan which is actually the highlight of it. Along with the likes of Wilfred Hyde White.

Basically because of the bad bizarre scenes in this you give up caring halfway through about anything going on.

I pray and hope this isn't the first episode someone who's never seen decides to watch. Nothing more to say except I wish they re did the whole episode again and properly.

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!

I am a huge fan of the Columbo series. He is one of my favourite detectives and Peter Falk is a fantastic actor. And the original formula of Columbo works great and is both funny and interesting at the same time. They tried something different in this episode. And it really did not work out. The usual one more question is missing and the ending and how they figure out who murdered who was really just one big confusing and strange thing. There is still part of this that is good. The whole meditation thing i thought was very Columbo. So this episode has got some good things. But mostly its just one big mess. And it falls way out of what you would normally think of a Columbo episode. So this mighy be one of the few Columbo episodes to avoid.

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.