How to Dial a Murder

This Columbo episode is about dogs who kill on command. British actor Nicol Williamson plays a doctor is better known for his role as Hamlet in 1968 production. Another British born actress and better known for her role as Samantha on Sex and the City, the actress Kim Cattrall in an early performance at a very young age is also in a supporting role. Anyway, St. Elsewhere's Ed Begley Jr. has a small role as a police officer. Anyway, the episode is a Columbo favorite because it has film references around. Of course, Peter Falk's Columbo has become like an old family friend with great stories and interest in anything whether psychiatry, dogs, or movies. The ending is also brilliant with a twist and of course, Columbo catches his man in this case.

Nicol Williamson stars as a behavioral psychologist named Eric Mason whose wife recently died in a car crash, and whom he believes was having an affair with his best friend Dr. Charles Hunter, so Mason decides to murder him by cruelly using his specially trained Dobermans to attack him when the phone rings and a certain control word is spoken aloud. The crime is discovered by his young live-in girlfriend(played by Kim Cattrall) whose call for help brings in Lt. Columbo(Peter Falk) who admirers Eric's taste in Cinema, but is appalled by his murder method, so making this arrest will be especially satisfying... Unusually violent episode with Williamson a particularly odious villain who gets his much deserved comeuppance.

Nicol Williamson stars in How to Dial a Murder, a 1978 Columbo episode.

This is one of the more gruesome ones. In the beginning we see dogs attacking a dummy on the phone command "Rosebud."

Williamson portrays Dr. Eric Mason, a behavioral psychologist. We see him giving a lecture and then talking with a colleague, a Dr. Hunter (Joel Fabiani).

Hunter sees Mason looking at a photo of his late wife (who died when her car inexplicably went over a cliff) and asks if he misses her. Mason says she was seeing someone else. He asks Hunter to meet him at his house later for tennis.

Hunter arrives, and, having a key, lets himself in. Mason is at his doctor's. From the doctor's office, Mason dials his home. His Dobermans enter through the doggy door when they hear the ring.

Hunter answers the phone. He and Mason talk, and then Mason asks him to settle a bet. What was the name of Citizen Kane's sled?

When Hunter answers Rosebud, the dogs attack and kill him.

Mason is at film buff so this episode is filled with movie references as we worry for the fate of the two dogs, Laurel and Hardy. It takes some deprogramming by trainer Tricia O'Neill to offset Mason's commands.

He doesn't fool Columbo, even if Mason wasn't home during the murder. It doesn't take him long to figure out ladies' man Hunter was Mrs. Mason's lover. Or just how Mason engineered the killing.

Look for a very young Kim Cattrell as Mason's screwed up quasi-girlfriend who knows too much.

Made in 1978, HOW TO DIAL A MURDER is one of the best of the Columbo series and features one of the most memorable methods of murder that the show had to offer. Guest villain Nicol Williamson plays a psychologist who has trained his dogs to kill on command and figures out a way to get them to take out a rival who he discovered had an affair with Williamson's late wife.

It's a gruesome way to die and HOW TO DIAL A MURDER makes no bones about yet. And yet...when the murder weapon is a pair of lovable Dobermans called Laurel and Hardy, it's difficult to dislike or even be frightened of the dogs. Columbo, who we know has an affinity with man's best friend, is of the same mindset and his interactions with the animals are the best bit of this story.

Williamson also makes for an imposing villain and I particularly liked the way he is depicted as a fan of classic cinema, allowing for some great off-topic talks about W. C. Fields and the like. Kim Cattrall plays in support in one of her early performances while Falk himself is on strong form, acting much like a dog himself in refusing to drop the case or let Williamson rest for a moment.

This was Falk's last but one outing as Columbo in the original series, which sees him pitted against a vengeful psychologist (played by Nicol Williamson) who murders his wife's lover by means of training his two dobermans to kill.

The motive for the murder is not particularly inventive as detective shows go, but this is positively enhanced by the means: two dobermans who respond to a word uttered by the victim in a telephone conversation with the murderer. A stylishly conceived element of the story.

The ingenuity of this premise, however, is not borne out in the rest of the episode: Columbo latches onto the murderer's scheme extremely quickly (even by Columbo standards) and it is not is not helped by the fact that he leaves a whole host of incriminating clues along the way. As Columbo remarks at the end "I must say sir, I found you disappointing....you left enough clues to sink a ship..."

Additionally, Kim Cattrall's characterisation is not particularly important to the overall scheme of things and her scenes drag the episode down a little.

Nicol Williamson's characterisation had the potential of being one of the best and most difficult-to-catch murderers in the entire series, but Williamson's initially energetic portrayal seems to recede as the script gives Columbo the balance of power.

If only the script-writer could have omitted one of two of the clues; nevertheless, for Columbo fans like myself it is still enjoyable viewing.