"You Did Kill Claire Daley. Didn’t you, Sir?" | Columbo 

His big mouth worked against himself.

I agree with some other people's takes on this that Ward Fowler no longer has all his marbles, he confuses reality and fantasy, and is suffering from some sort of multiple personality disorder, honestly thinking he is Detective Lucerne for short periods of time.

@@parcivale Truly a portrayal of mental illness. Wish publisher provided more info. Diary of a Mad Housewife was a recent box office hit. Or you could say you see Shatner’s personality surging and ebbing.

@@MedXOR Shatner is a better actor than he's often given credit for. He usually performs his characters as big and scenery-eating because that's the way they're written (Denny Crane) and that's what he's hired to do. But he can be quite layered as he was here. But I think you're thinking of John Cassavetes' "Woman Under The Influence" that starred Falk and Gena Rowlands that came out in 1974-5. But, yeah, I'd never considered how that film might have influenced that Columbo episode.

@@parcivale Way above my pay grade, sir!

I think it’s inferred that he’s mentally ill, so he’s not living totally in reality at this point. The way he thought he was the Lieutenant character and referred to Ward Fowler as if he were another person showed that he had lost it.

Roddy McDowall got a big kick out of being busted. Columbo and William Windom actually seem a little embarrassed by it.

Two things that spring to mind, one we never get to see the person Columbo arrests go to court and have a trial to see if Columbo's evidence against them really adds up. In some episodes like the Johnny Cash one he tells columbo he would have confessed eventually even if he had not been caught because the guilt was weighing on him.

@@johnfinnegan8474 because it's a detective show, not a court show.

🤔🤣👍🇬🇧

Yep. Really meta.

Lowering the guard of the suspect is Columbo's super power.

villain does this in ep 1 too

Close, but not quite. The SCRIPTWRITERS forgot to put in the last question. And since this was back in the days of typewriters, rather than wasting a page and retyping everything, they just added the “One more thing” line

@baronvonnembles when the scriptwriters for the show were typing up the original script, they realized they had forgotten to include a detail in the scene that was present in the original draft. So, rather than throw out the page and retype the entire thing, they added a bit at the end where Columbo goes “Just one more thing”

Shatner's acting is always excellent.

👡 👈👀👉 🤔🤣👍🇬🇧

I always admired the fact that Shatner was willing to admit that he wore lifts and a hair piece in this episode. He has a reputation of being vain and egotistical. Yet, he was willing to reveal these "flaws" (?) for this show.

@@grf15 I think a lot of people hate on Shatner because it's fashionable (and has been) to do so because he was "the star" and, by his own admission, he was a jerk to a lot of fans when Star Trek took off like it did. (Some of his co-stars never went anywhere after Star Trek and some of them are just petty, angry little men overall *cough* George Takei) I believe though that he, like Mr. T. and Adam West, went on to make a living out of enjoying parodying themselves and the way they acted. I agree with you, though, that it was a most excellent shot on his part that he allowed that in this script and played it so well.

@@jasonmichael3676 No. Not always. But when he is on, he is riveting.

Yeah! It's either one or the other (that can get away with murder).

🤔🤣👍🇬🇧

Modern Columbo: Mr Syler just one more question... Quinto:... At least he's not calling me Spock

@Angie H. No, Kirk and Spock's ancestors ;-)

@@gdwnet Ha Ha.

That's Colombo for you. He is a lot smarter than he looks. He only pretends to stupid to catch the murderer out and get them to admit their guilt.

Who was Adrian Carsini? Was that the Wine guy? I think FAye Dunaway also played a sympathtic Murderess who only murdered to protect Her Daughter if Memory servies me right.

I’m surprised Shatner let that one go through… he was always a shortie…..

@@BTX61 Wonderful point . . . I think it's because he knew as an actor how dramatically effective it would be for Columbo to drop that bomb on him in front of other people.

He was cruzen on platform short guys.

lol worse than a swear word

@@edge918 Absolutely. It's literally the worst thing he could possibly say . . . from Fowler's point of view.

Why?

@@cloudybookcase9189 I don't think I understand that either. Is he ashamed of himself and thinks he doesn't deserve to be called sir? Is that it?

@@HC-cb4yp Yes that's it, he was ashamed about being a killer.

@@clhound Or he wants Columbo to drop the facade of being deferential and perpetually confused-he was going for the jugular the whole time.

@@VideoMask93 Yup ^^^^ this ^^^

Wow that’s a great catch lol

Lol awesome!

I saw that- thanks!

I see Shatner's face over a V-neck sweater but James T Kirk doesn't have a monopoly on V-neck sweaters, does he? There's no reason to believe that this was meant to be some cute Fourth Wall reference to Star Trek.

@@TallSilentGuy Well yeah, but isn't it fun to think so?

that actually would make a decent alibi if you get the person your with drunk pass out and see the game they are watching still going on and then you tell him. You still too drunk why don't you go to sleep. still you got to hope he remember he woke up at the hour you wanted him .

I checked and that would be $5252 today.

What I love about Columbo, is apart from the plots and acting, which were a bit variable, is that it went on so long, that it's a Sociological study of American technology. In the UK, the episodes tend to turn up in random order. In one he's dealing with a mainframe computer, in the next one he's fascinated by a phone answering machine. The constant of the reasons for murder, remain unchanging, against a ever changing backdrop of different backgrounds. It's like only the world and Columbo change, the killer's motives remain.

@@lewisner It went down to 100 in a decade, but ten years earlier they cost 20,000 and filled a room.

@@Marveryn It would have been a better alibi if HE DIDN'T SHOW IT TO COLUMBO AND EXPLAIN HOW IT WORKS! Ward Fowler subconsciously really wanted to get caught.

You bump into him as you go out to your car, turns out his wife convinced him to get a time share there and he's got a few questions for you, now that he's got the chance to ask you them.

"There should be a 'Captain' in there somewhere."

great writing, these episodes were/are so much fun

Patrick MacGoohan was a very good foil for Peter Falk, though. I am sure there was a very good reason for Patrick MacGoohan being the guest star as many times as he was.

@@richardbell7678 Tea for two ;)

Agree with you

Shatner didn't overact in this episode at all. This is probably one of the best performances of his career.

I don't just love William Shatner because he's Captain Kirk, but because he's an excellent actor. ✨

Agreed, the Ruth Gordon episode was another in the same vein.

I'll be 42 on December 28th. We had great TV growing up in the 80s didn't we.

42, eh kid ? I'm 66 and I agree with you- cheers!

That's 2 facts.

It is the actual Columbo formula. Columbo movies are not really mysteries. They are a modern variation of the classical Greek tragedy, with the important difference that the central character of the drama, the murderer, is not someone that the audience will sympathize with. Columbo does not investigate the crime to find the murderer and arrest him, Columbo shows up and hounds the murderer to their destruction. In some of the films he is crueler than others, but, when Columbo is done, the killer is thankful to be arrested, as it mean that they will never again hear "Just one more thing".

Sometimes it does; there are cases where the killer just admits everything to get it over with. And of course the notorious case of Ed Kemper who actually told the police himself that he was a serial killer despite not being suspected of anything, and he wasn't even believed at first.

Yeah, that's so unrealistic. Today's murderers post their confessions on Facebook. That makes much more sense. Truth is a lot stranger than fiction these days.

@@richardbell7678 😂😂😂😂😂 excellent point there

Interrogaters know that a criminal especially murders are proud and arrogant and if you play them long enough their pride will get them to admit by accident because they perceive themselves as smarter than the average police interrogater. The psychopath of course KNOWS he /she is smarter than everyone else and anyway they didn’t do anything wrong

I agree. The Fielding Chase character was not very good

@Angie H. Oops. 🤣

I always thought that the character of Fielding Chase was meant as a barb applied against the ego of Rush Limbaugh. As an embodiment of what liberals hate about Limbaugh, Fielding Chase is well played.

@Angie H. I know of the edit potential and use it often thank you. But once a typo I'd made past my editing stage and posted and then pointed out by someone like yourself, I figured everybody knows I made an error and that someone else (you in this case) has corrected it. Why should I need to waste time to go back an correct a single letter in this case when you've already plainly pointed out my oops. I have better things to write, sat, search and read than spending time going back and corrected a single word or single letter mistake. If it's a grammatically incorrect sentence or subject matter, then by all means I will go back and edit my original post. You've already corrected it for all those who didn't know it from my post. Done deal.

I had to come back to this one.. I still haven't gone back to the "modern" one. This one is a lot better than I expected. I was expecting the William Shatner Hour.. which is kind of what we got but the chemistry between Falk and Shatner was great.

Little Fact - this house set was simply a redressed set from the house interior and exterior used as Nelson Brenner's home in the 1975 episode "Identity Crisis".

And the black cop over emphasising his lines because he was so excited to have a part in Columbo.

Columbo knew that plastic was very bad for the environment, even back then. He truly was a genius.

"Paper Bag.", punch line to a naughty joke.

Columbo >>> Tennessee Williams

Has it ever occurred to you that your incessant repetition of this quote is not only pointless but leaves most people wondering what in the nine Hells it has to do with Columbo itself, or the clip we just watched? You made whatever "point" you had a long time ago.

No wonder Williams was such a great writer.

Shatner had excellent chemistry with Falk and I'm glad that Shatner returned to Columbo in Butterfly In Shades Of Grey.

But way shorter than Nimoy….

@@BTX61 Actually Nimoy is quite short in real life too. I met him once in 1984.

@@roylavecchia1436 Really!?

But he may not have actually had recoverable fingerprints on the casings ...

@@eddarby469 I would have made a point to wipe down the bullets as well. Not that I've spent a lot of time thinking about murder or anything...

No he says it in every episode.

@@Mistahhuntah No he doesn't. Only someone who hasn't watched all of them would ever say that.

@@SECRETARIATguy224 yes he absolutely does.

@@Mistahhuntah Ugh, REALLY? Do you REALLY want to go toe-to-toe with me on this and supply you with CHAPTER and VERSE proof, meaning episode names and season numbers?

@@SECRETARIATguy224 only someone who hasn't watched it in 15 years would babble such ignorance. Just one more thing goes back to prescription murder and was used at least once in every episode. I have both The Columbophile and shooting columbo to back me up on that.

Still kicking..

It was more watered down in those days?

No such thing as a good lawyer, just varying degrees of evil.

General conviction rates are around 85%. Given that Columbo usually either finds substantial physical evidence or gets a witnessed confession I’m guessing his rate is probably over 95%. (Around 50% of murders result in an arrest).

@@fredbloggs5902 Conviction rates are at 85% because the vast majority of defendants plead out before going to trial. A paid lawyer will spend nearly 100 hours on your case *Before* trial begins, whereas a public defender spends on average only a single hour looking over a defendant's case file.

Mister Scott would never help a killer, transport denied.

@@oogiev2 Mr. Scott would never disobey an order from Captain Kirk.

@@289cobra9 Mr. Scott would never commit a crime like abetting, so unlawful orders even from Murderer Kirk will not be obeyed.

😁😄😆

@@nildabridgeman8104 Mister Spock finds it illogical that you would post smiling faces on such a serious topic.

Think of the people who were and still are framed...Before the test for human blood, animal blood was often used to frame someone, then it progressed to blood types, helped a little more, and now the DNA. There may even be another level yet to be discovered. There are a lot of people in prison waiting to get the justice system to actually test the DNA that is in evidence, but never tested. You would think that if they had a DNA sample from the scene of the crime, by law they should have to test it before they can put somebody in prison they are proclaiming their innocence. But, they don’t. They will say it’s “too expensive“, or “to time consuming“, other lame excuses. If Putin were in charge, he’d say “fix it” and it would be fixed. Everyone’s DNA evidence would get tested right away. I’ve watched him rip his people on camera for departmental incompetence on many occasions, mistakes that were seriously and negatively affecting the lives of citizens. And some of the mistakes were so embarrassingly stupid, it’s clear that bureaucratic stupidity pisses him off. He doesn’t say it behind closed doors where he can try to retract what he said and pretend he didn’t say it, either. He says it on camera, so everyone can hold him accountable if he doesn’t follow through. We need some of that here. Correct it. Now.

@@misskim2058 100% agree

He wasn't entirely a villain though. She was blackmailing him.

"what did you say your dad did for a living again?"

The channel NoLifeShaq has 3.2 million subscribers. He is quite entertaining.

I noticed it got used quite a bit, too. Even the same throw pillows, not even moved at all, positioned the same, like they didn’t even fall over and get put in place again, even some of the same furniture and so forth.

@@_Meng_Lan I remember an old Mannix episode where Mannix goes to a house party-- the house he goes to is the Brady Bunch house! From the front entryway to the living room...they just set up shop right there. Same set.

That would have been outstanding 😀

Nope

Just tell us please

Are you talking about Forgotten Lady and It's All In The Game?

@@jeprice08 yes!

Agatha Christie (Philo Beddoe's Ma), a harmless old lady, was by no means cuffed. Most of the time Columbo did not carry cuffs. I am not sure I remember anyone actually led away in chains.

Peter and Shera married in 1977, and remained married until Peter's death in 2011.

She really looks fantastic here.

Unfortunately, in Falk’s final days, Shera was keeping him away from his family/daughters from his first marriage. It was kind of a sad story that led to legislation being passed to give family members more power of visitation rights. Interesting story I was reading about one night regarding the wonderful Peter Falk.

A scene made funnier by Columbo's genuine trouble with the door in an earlier part!