#Columbo undercover wiki movie#
#Columbo undercover wiki series#
#Columbo undercover wiki tv#

And he was the opposite of that in every way. 'All the detectives were these hardboiled, emotionless, tough guys. 'There was nobody or nothing like Columbo at all before him,' Koenig says. He didn't chase women – his devotion to his never-seen but constantly referenced-to wife Mrs Columbo, and the never-ending (no doubt exaggerated) stories about his extended family, presented a man of morals and virtue. In fact, aside from the occasional flashing of his badge – which showed to eagle-eyed fans that Columbo's never-revealed first name was in fact Frank – you'd barely notice he was a policeman at all: there were no shootouts or high-speed car chases, he was hardly seen in the office or at the police station. He didn't carry a gun, and wasn't violent he was squeamish at the sight of blood.

He wasn't tall or macho he didn't have a sidekick or squadron.

#Columbo undercover wiki tv#

It was clear from the outset that Lieutenant Columbo was the anthesis of a TV cop. 'I'd kill to play that cop,' Falk told them. They had initially wanted Bing Crosby to play Lt Columbo, but after a semi-retired Crosby decided he preferred the golf course to the TV studio, it gave an opening to Falk who, having come across the script, contacted his casual acquaintances Levinson and Link.

#Columbo undercover wiki movie#

Interested in the burgeoning TV movie scene of the late-60s, the pair took Prescription Murder to NBC. Schoolfriends William Link and Richard Levinson, inspired by Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and the books of GK Chesterton, had already used Lt Columbo on stage with Prescription Murder, a play influenced by the 'inverted mystery' format used by Alfred Hitchcock in Dial M for Murder. The history of the character of Lieutenant Columbo actually predates the TV show. It was a drawing-room mystery done backwards with a cop as the lead. 'It flipped everything on its head,' agrees David Koenig, author of a new book, Shooting Columbo: The Lives and Deaths of TV's Rumpled Detective. 'I truly believe that Columbo was a landmark in the entertainment industry,' says Jack Horger, producer on the show between 19. The show was syndicated across 44 countries, resulting in some unusual tributes: there is a statue of Columbo in Budapest in Romania, Columbo was so popular that when the show ended, the government asked Falk to video an address to the nation to confirm that it wasn't the regime's strict import restrictions that were responsible for the lack of new episodes. It made a global star of Falk, who won four Emmys and a Golden Globe. The initial 70s run set a gold standard in event television, attracting grand guest stars to play the murderer (Gene Barry, Jack Cassidy, William Shatner, Anne Baxter) and emerging talent to shape its look and feel (Steven Spielberg and Jonathan Demme both directed episodes writer Steven Bochco went on to create the hugely influential Hill Street Blues).

#Columbo undercover wiki series#

But Columbo made a virtue of formula, and with intelligent, detailed scripts and a stellar performance from Falk, it became an unlikely worldwide phenomenon across eight series from 1971-1978, and then again sporadically from 1989-2003.

On paper, it was a niche concept that even network executives doubted could work. Columbo's methods often involved elaborate set pieces where traps were set for the murderer ( planting a false address of a suspect knowing the killer would try to frame him asking a man to pretend to be his blind brother to break an alibi) that were dramatic, cathartic finales (even if the charges wouldn't always necessarily stand up in a court of law). It left the rest of the show not as a 'whodunnit' in the vein of Agatha Christie, but a 'howcatchem', with the unassuming, amiable yet sharp-witted Columbo working to unpick the killer's 'perfect' alibi one seemingly insignificant clue at a time – shoelaces, caviar, air conditioning – before bringing down their arrogant conceit with a final piece of incriminating evidence in a thrilling 'gotcha!' moment that Falk himself referred to as the 'pop'. Here was a murder mystery where the murder was no mystery: audiences saw the deadly deed at the start of each episode, invariably carried out by one of LA's rich and famous in an attempt to preserve their esteemed reputation. The US series with Peter Falk in the title role – as the ramshackle, eccentric, cigar-chomping, raincoated LAPD homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo – revolutionised what a cop show could be. Even 50 years since its first season began on 15th September 1971, Columbo remains a TV show like no other.