The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case

Columbo is pitted against a murderous accountant with an exceptionally high I.Q., but despite, possibly, the best premise in the whole series, the results are average rather than spectacular.

There are three problems here:

Firstly, the script-writer's insistence that the murderer's supreme intelligence must be mirrored in the way the murder is conceived and executed.

Secondly, the increasing lack of strength, smugness and assuredness shown by the murderer after he commits his crime.

Thirdly, the ease with which Columbo solves the case, particularly, the way he details the objects and materials used to create the illusion that the victim was shot whilst the murderer was downstairs with several other people.

Essentially, more subtlety and simplicity was needed to make the whole thing believable, whilst the murderer's characterisation should have been more sinister and hard-edged.

A slight improvement on the other season's episodes "Fade Into Murder" and "Try and Catch Me", but generally, not Columbo at his best.

I suspect that if Peter Falk as Columbo were given an IQ test he would pass it with flying colors, scoring high enough maybe to rate admission to the Sigma (Mensa) society. The premise of this show is always how the bumbling homicide cop always trips up some very smart people. In this story Falk is up against some certified geniuses.

In fact a pair of business partners in an investment brokerage firm are members of the club and one of them Sorrell Booke is accusing the other Theodore Bikel with some creative accounting. So before Booke goes public, Bikel has to murder him, but do it creatively. And he's got a nice plan worked out with the rest of the club members as alibi witnesses. It involves two squibs, a silencer, an umbrella and a record player.

One of the nice things about this show was it gives Falk a chance for a moment of reflection where he says that he realizes he's not as smart as many who came on the force at the same time he did. But that by hard work and study he got to the top of his profession and how much he loves his job. Especially when he takes down smart guys like Bikel.

Although quite frankly the part of the episode where he does trip Bikel up didn't quite ring true for me. I don't think it would have been that easy.

I won't bother commenting on the murder method, other than to say I thought it was pretty clever, if a bit, how do the English say, Heath Robinson.

But Columbo is about character interactions more than the brilliance of the murder plot. If you watch Columbo for brilliant air tight murder alibis, you are watching the wrong show by the way - after all, if they were air tight, Columbo would not 'get his man'. Some are more believable than others, but this is escapist stuff, not gritty crime drama.

What I like about this, is all the characters. If you think about it too hard, they won't seem like geniuses, because Hollywood, especially back then, usually had no clue about how geniuses look or act. They are caricatures I guess, but interesting ones.

I found the younger woman amusing as a support character. Wish they had developed her a bit more.

But the main interaction is the killer and Columbo. I enjoyed how, over time, rather than being more and more annoyed by Columbo, he developed a respect for him. I also like how, over time, his character weaknesses were exposed. Isn't that true for a lot of us? We often have weaknesses we try to hide, like gilt paint over base metal.

I think most fans should enjoy this one a lot if they like a few interesting support characters, and the usual byplay between a murderer who thinks they are unassailable and Columbo who hangs onto any discrepancy like a bulldog.

This is my favorite Columbo episode.

Columbo is investigating a murder surrounded by geniuses with there own theories.

Pay close attention to the ending in which the climax is as well orchestrated as the musical score it is surrounded in.

To top it off Mr. Bikel utters one of the best anti-climactic lines in film. After his much younger wife calls him immediately after his confession feeling needy for her oft rejected husband she tells him to come home "I need you." To which he replies "Alas my dear. I won't be needing you." Great acting, great direction, great fun!

I've always been a Theodore Bikel fan and enjoyed this outing. I especially liked his relationship with the little girl. But I got sidetracked by the business about the male secretaries. Some kind of Women's Lib, Columbia wonders. No, the receptionist tells him. The firm only hires young men as secretaries because they are junior accountants who are getting more training in preparation for promotion. Evidently women were not considered qualified to become accountants, so they were not eligible to be secretaries to the firm's owners.

It took me back to real life circa 1977, when a friend who worked at a savings and loan used to train young men for higher positions. She would have liked to be promoted a higher position herself and she was obviously qualified for it. One day her boss told her that the reason that she had never been promoted was that she was too valuable to him in her current position and he was "too selfish" to part with her. He probably thought she would be flattered. She sued him for discriminiation instead. And won. Now that is Women's Lib.

Fun to see Jamie Lee Curtis as a waitress with an attitude