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I liked this installment better than the first movie from '89 where the snobby villain was rather dull. At least here the villain, although a tad young, had some personality. I liked to watch his building frustration as Columbo tightened the noose. All in all, a better effort all around. I think i am figuring out why the original columbos were just better. Made in the '70s they had a certain style and simplicity thats maybe lacking in the newer films.....the newer versions try to do too much. Everything is a bit cheesier, even the music. Funny but the "newer" episodes seem more dated to me than the older stuff. And i am, so far, missing the big name villains. I am hoping the episode with Faye Dunaway will rectify this. However, as always, i enjoy Peter Falk. He remains as good as ever. Best moment: columbo shows his incredible deduction skills to the viewer and the villain during an early scene where Columbo can tell so much from 2 left over ice cream sodas. It's right up there with vintage Columbo. Secondly, the scene where Columbo literally hangs in the air scanning a movie set. His dislike of heights is known from vintage episodes.

A Steven Spielberg type director murders an old friend who has uncovered the director's murder of a young woman years earlier. Columbo investigates, and we are treated to him walking around a studio and spending time in this young man's opulent dressing room, complete with a soda fountain. Columbo, of course, helps himself to a sundae.

This is one of the better "comeback" Columbos of the '80s and early '90s, with a delightful performance by Fisher Stevens as the director, who, despite a childlike quality is a total jerk. Nan Martin and Molly Hagen also turn in good performances.

There's a rumor that Steven Spielberg ghost-directed this episode. Hard to know, but the director does seem to have been modeled on him - not the murder part, though.

One of the best of the "new" Columbo adventures, which sees him cross swords with a relentlessly cocky and arrogant movie director who murders an old friend who discovers the truth behind his sister's death on a movie set some years before.

Fisher Stevens is undeniably excellent as the cold-heartedly manipulative and scheming Alex Brady whose empire is gradually eroded by the emergence of progressively incriminating circumstantial evidence. His increasingly antagonistic scenes with Falk are the main asset of the story and almost dispel the theory that you can't recapture the style and enjoyment of an original series by re-making it.

As is customary Columbo is "lucky" with some of his evidence (the shoe heel which gives Columbo the location of the murder being a case in point); but one can argue that his unwavering thoroughness entitles him to find the most unlikely things.

Another good thing in this adventure is that Columbo doesn't really have enough concrete evidence until the very end and even then the murderer is dismissive of Columbo's perceptions of proof.

One negative observation is Falk's portrayal of Columbo - it is decidedly more matter-of-fact nowadays, which is probably attributable to his age and the time-lapse between the old series and new series.

One of the better entries in the second Colombo series. As usual Colombo stumbles into an unfamiliar universe in which his adversary condescends to him and underestimates his skills. In this instance, the heavy is Alex Brady (Fisher Stevens), a Spielberg figure, a young, cocky, talented, film director who electrocutes an old friend who's discovered a skeleton in Stevens' closet. Colombo solves the mystery with the help of his brains and a nearly miraculous dose of good luck. (Walking alone on a deserted set at Universal, he happens to step on a heel that turns out to be a crucial clue.)

It provides a good deal of expectable fun. So why isn't it as satisfying as the entries from the 1970s?

One reason is that Falk is 20 years older than when he started out. It's not his fault that he's aged, God knows, yet it's depressing, even though he was never an actor whose appeal rested on youthful good looks. It's a little like looking in the mirror with your 30th birthday somewhere behind you.

Second, Falk approaches the role differently. In the 1970s he was usually distracted. He frowned while concentrating, rarely smiled except with embarrassment. His eyes darted about. His speech may have been full of hesitation but his intuitions were accurate and lightning fast.

But he has changed. It's as one critic wrote of the return of Sherlock Holmes, after Conan Doyle's failed attempt to knock him off and get rid of him, "he was never quite the same man." His movements have slowed, his gestures have become more expansive, his smile has become practically a fixed grin regardless of the situation, and his voice is patronizing and patient, as if he were telling a fairy story to a couple of kids. Whereas before he seemed genuinely bemused, he now seems overly pleasant and phony.

The plot is interesting enough, up to most Colombo standards, but its execution suggests a sort of desperation to do something novel with the episode. We'll skip over the small implausibilities. (Colombo walks into a sound stage and knows how to operate the equipment.) The ending almost makes one cringe. Colombo has outwitted -- I guess that's the word -- Stevens by surrounding him in public places with police officers in wardrobe and makeup, playing the parts of waitresses, and whatnot, although what that has accomplished is a little slippery to the grasp. The role-playing cops are introduced to Stevens with a spotlight, one by one, dressed for their parts, and they take bows, while the score lapses into fanfares. It's a trick the 70s episodes would not have pulled, nor would they have had to pull it.

Stevens is pretty good as the arrogant young murderer. Steven Hill is there, briefly, as a producer. The best performance is by Nan Martin as the secretary, Rose, although her part too is a small one.

You can never recapture the past, as they say, but this entry in the later series is far ahead of some of the others. Some were unbearable.

As I have said many times I love Columbo and always have done. Murder, Smoke and Shadows(wonderful title) is a good episode, but it is not my definition of a truly great episode. It looks great, and is scored very nicely. The script and story are more than acceptable, but I have seen better in other episodes. The script is clever with some nice wit, but it did feel a little too talky, slowing the pace of the story, a component that has been more diverting and perhaps more original before and since but still interesting and entertaining in the clues, the interaction between Falk and Stevens and Columbo deductions. The ending is great. Peter Falk while not as alert as he was pre-1989 is still terrific in perhaps his most iconic role, and while not my favourites of the series by all means Fisher Stevens still delights as a Steven Spielberg-like director character, who is a complete jerk often. Overall, a good episode, but just falls short of greatness. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This Columbo has everything that you'd expect from a good Columbo: great dialogue, a bright murderer who only makes a few tiny mistakes and a wonderful setting (a movie studio) which adds interesting metaphores and storylines. Columbo is getting older, but not worse, and I enjoyed watching this from the beginning to the end.

The movie is directed by James Frawley. His Columbo movies weren't among the fastest going ones but they always were among the more stylish ones. He directed the movies with lots of class and he is among my favorite Columbo movie directors. Throughout his career he directed a total of 6 Columbo movies, evenly divided between the '80's and '70's. The also always had a certain amount of fun written over it, in a quirky kind of way, this movie included. The humor always has been one of the great things about the Columbo-series and James Frawley was a person who always seemed to got it right. This was an entertaining movie in parts but I just did not have as much fun watching it as I do watching other Columbo movies.

In this case the movie its pace isn't a great thing about the movie. It takes a long while for Lt. Columbo to enter the picture, which normally is an indication that the movie itself also isn't going to be among the best the long running Columbo series has to offer. The movie is a lot of talk but not enough action. Not enough is ever happening in this movie and the movie gets stuck in its pace.

Combined with this gets the fact that this movie doesn't feature the best Columbo 'villain'. Fisher Stevens also isn't exactly the best known or most perfect person imaginable to play the part. The movie really features some bad casting and the movie was lacking a good and well known actor playing opposite Peter Falk. None of the '80's Columbo movies feature any big stars opposite Peter Falk in it. They obviously were trying to head into a new direction with the series, after it had stopped in 1978 and got re-launched in 1989. It's a reason why the 'later' Columbo movies mostly aren't as good as the beginning of the series, during the '60's and '70's.

The story has a good concept though, although it's perhaps not as well written or clever as it could had been. It still has a great ending though. The movie is set entirely at the Universal studios. It wasn't the first Columbo movie that got set at the Universial studios though. Universal was of course also the distributor of the Columbo movies, so they had no hard time getting permission to film on the lot.

A slightly below average Columbo movie entry.

6/10

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Fisher Stevens gives a tour-de-force performance as a Spielberg-like director with delusions of omnipotence. Columbo gives him enough rope to hang himself and Stevens uses it spectacularly. There is never a dull moment as Stevens, for the first time, meets another chess player smarter than he, and unwilling to bend, Stevens ultimately breaks -- in unforgettable fashion. An "A+" Columbo episode.

MURDER, SMOKE AND SHADOWS is one of the 1989 instalments of the long-running TV series and quite a bit of fun it is too. Instead of featuring a middle-aged villain (played by some Hollywood great), the murderer in this one is pretty much a kid who's up to scratch with all the latest technology, so the lieutenant has his work cut out for him.

Alex Bradey is a popular Hollywood director who has a dark secret from his past: a girl was accidentally killed while making one of his home movies years before. He covered up the incident, but a blackmailer from the past shows up to expose everything, so he has to be done away with. Cue the intervention of the typically bumbling detective who strives to get to the bottom of things.

One of the most amusing things about MURDER, SMOKE AND SHADOWS is how obviously the murderer is modelled on Spielberg - they even wear the same glasses! Fisher Stevens was a once popular actor from the 1980s (appearing in the likes of THE BURNING and SHORT CIRCUIT) and his youth makes him a neat counterpoint to the usual villains. Peter Falk is on top form, of course, and I particularly enjoyed the scenes where a vindictive Stevens indulges in some childish fun with the ageing detective (taking him on that high seat, and exposing him to some special effects). The story is a little slow in paces, but the ending is a good one, so it's worth sticking with.

Fisher Stevens stars as a successful young Hollywood director of blockbuster films named Alex Bradey who feels compelled to kill an old friend by electric shock who threatened to reveal an old dark secret from his past where he covered up his negligence in the death of an actress in one of his home movies. Lt. Columbo(Peter Falk) investigates the death that leads right to Bradey, but of course the egotistical yet overconfident director(obviously an amalgam of Steven Spielberg and John Landis) underestimates the good Lt. to his peril... Entertaining episode will appeal especially to film buffs, though the climax does seem a bit too theatrical.

Maybe it is my love for films that makes me favorize this episode. But the mix of good old Columbo with an obsessive murderer who cares about nothing but the magic of movies gives also some cineastic touch to this episode.

A clever story and a terrific Fisher Stevens do their job as well to make this to my very favourite Columbo

After a considerable hiatus, Columbo returned to TV in 1989, and all 5 episodes from that year are very uneven. It's mostly because of the writing, but it is also because of the casting. None of these episodes has any of the fun "big" names that the Columbo character was associated with before. No Shatner. No Mickey Spillane. No Ruth Gordon. This particular episode typifies that problem. Fisher Stevens, who is so obviously supposed to be Spielberg that it hurts to watch him, just is not in the league with the type of guests starts Columbo was known for previously. He seems like he's 12 years old and gives no depth to his character. He tries to be quirky but he just can't pull it off. Peter Falk attempts to save the episode but he is saddled with a script that puts him in embarrassing situations that are uncomfortable to watch. One example is when he tells Stevens his friend is dead then asks if he can make himself an ice cream soda. I know Columbo is supposed to be disingenuous but here he seems just rude and/or dumb. Falk does his best with the rest of the teleplay but Stevens is just not strong enough an actor to make the interplay between detective and murderer either intriguing or entertaining. After a while, it is all rather tiresome and fails to satisfy as the best of the old Columbo series did.

Alex Bradey is a successful young director having gone from young auteur to studio daringly in a few short pictures. He has retained his sense of fun and childlike pleasure in cinema but all this seems threatened by the reappearance of old friend Leonard Fisher. Fisher has uncovered film that shows that Leonard's sister died during a stunt gone wrong for Alex and not on an accident on the way to the set as Alex had claimed. He plans to expose Alex but the director cannot allow this to happen and kills his friend – dumping the body on the beach with the face and fingerprints removed. A book on Bradey's films dropped near the scene leads Columbo to his door though, looking to solve the strange connections that are bugging him.

As with many TV film series (such as Perry Mason), if you like one or two of them then you'll pretty much like them all. This entry in the Columbo series pretty much follows the usual formula – we know the killer and the "perfect" plan but then watch Columbo follow his hunch and gradually starts to pick holes in the story he is told before eventually finding enough to prove his suspicions. Knowing this ahead of time won't ruin anything for you; it is simply what happens in all the films. With this strict adherence to formula it is usually down to several factors whether or not the Columbo film stands out or if it is just average. Having had my fingers burnt with my first "new" Columbo, I wasn't sure if I should bother going back or should just rewatch the original series from the seventies, but I thought that the formula can't be that hard to pull off and figured that it was worth another pass. With this film I was pleased to find that it went back to basics by having a simple cat/mouse game with Columbo learning stuff in a new world. The connection to Alex is a bit of a stretch at first but the film copes with it well and manages to smoothly move into the formula.

The mystery is not that impressive but the delivery is good nonetheless. The characters are pretty good and the lead two work well together. Falk isn't as good as he was in the 1970's but he is better here than the other new episodes I have seen recently. He doesn't do the comedy as well as he can but he plays well enough with the mystery to make it work. Stevens is nowhere near the class of the 1970's guests but he is pretty enjoyable in a reasonable reference to Spielberg. He isn't that strong but he works well with Falk. The support cast are OK but nothing more than that, so the film wisely leaves them mostly in the background and focuses on the lead two.

Not a great Columbo film then and certainly not up to the standard of the original series' but it is one of the better "new" films. The focus on formula plays to the strength of the series and limits the amount of misjudged clutter that it has. Fans will like it – new viewers should skip back about 15 years to find out what all the fuss was about.

Star director Alex Bradey (Fisher Stevens) is a young master of special effects. While working in his studio office, he is interrupted by old friend Lenny Fisher who brings footage of his failed stunt which killed Lenny's sister. He insists that it's fake. He later kills Lenny and dumps the body. Ruth Jernigan (Molly Hagan) is his on-again, off-again love interest. Columbo (Peter Falk) is on the case.

The analog special effects are rather old school. They don't have any graphics computers and the only computer seems to be one with the old secretary. Granted, it's the late 80's and TV is not necessarily going digital. I do like the crane scene. The giant projector looks old, but it is very giant. I did not like the fence talk which feels too artsy. I don't mind bringing it back, but I still don't like it.

The episode really picks up at the lunch with Rose Walker. I love that scene. That and the crane scene are the best. When the movie reveals at the end, they really should splice in scenes from the Rose Walker lunch. That would really sell the whole reveal.

It's "Columbo!" It's the irresistible Falk! And it's freaking cheeky about Mr. Spielberg. Look, I'm old as dirt, and was more of a 'Rockford' girl as a kid. But this is adorable. I'm not saying that this revival is beyond criticism: but it's a joy to see Mr. Falk plying his trade splendidly. If you think about it, the lifespan of this series is 35 years: roughly the span of Marx Bros. 'Duck Soup' (1933) to 1968 (first episode of Columbo-ish?). The world changed extravagantly in that timespan. But 'Columbo' was still working it in 1989. Just saying :))

What makes Columbo work in my opinion is that despite the seriousness of the crime which is always murder that there is light-heartedness. Fisher Stevens is the star of his own movie. The cast is excellent besides Stevens and Peter Falk as the dashing Columbo. You have Molly Hagen who is underused in the industry and has appeared in another Columbo as Fisher's girlfriend. They also have Nan Martin who is wonderful as the woman who helps and hurts the lead character. Anyway, the filmmaker played by Fisher Stevens does learns the hard way by trying to fool Columbo. You can't fool or mess with him around or you'll get caught. He always catches his man or woman. This episode could have been better but it's not bad.

It's the late 80s and Columbo is still at it, solving murders just one more question at a time. This time, a young movie executive, played by Fisher Stevens (from Early Edition) comes face to face with a person from his past that he thought would stay gone; Jeff Perry (Harvey from Nash Bridges). "Just one more thing, Sir!"

In his own special way and style, Lt. Columbo finds his way through the crime scene and through history as well. Always digging, always prodding with one more question! Columbo literally drives the executive to prove his own guilt in a series of questions and answers, to which the only answer can obviously be what Columbo wants to hear and what he already knows is true.

It was great to see Fisher Stevens and Jeff Perry in earlier roles than 1996, a year in which both Nash Bridges and Early Edition both were released. It would have been interesting if Columbo had shown up on one of their latter shows.

PLOT: A young, talented film director (Fisher Stevens) electrocutes a friend from back home who has evidence that could ruin his lucrative career. Fisher Stevens plays the Spielberg-like filmmaker.

COMMENTARY: Being the 'film director episode,' the locales and themes revolve around moviemaking, which keeps things interesting. Stevens is effective as the arrogant young director who hides behind a genial veneer. Molly Hagan plays his actress maybe-girlfriend who would return as the daughter of William Shatner's character in "Butterfly in Shades of Grey" (1994).

From the very beginning, Lt. Columbo was known for leading his antagonist into an unlikely staged scenario to break him/her one way or another, as witnessed in "Prescription: Murder" (1968) and, later, the aforementioned "Butterfly," as well as "Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo" (1990). Here this is taken to absurdity, but just roll with it. It's only ONE segment and it's a television murder mystery after all. As for the Ringmaster bow, it's not reality and simply reveals that Columbo is the Ringmaster over the L.A. murder circus.

GRADE: B+

I have seen just about all of the Columbo episodes, and I believe Fisher Stevens may very well be the youngest villain Columbo ever had. He was just 25 years old when he played this director. Everything about him exudes one of the "beautiful people". Yes, his personality was ugly, as some of the other reviewers have said, but you couldn't get much more handsome than the way he was made up here. I loved the scene where Columbo got him so angry, that he threw a couple large ice-cream glasses into the sink (still full of ice-cream) and loudly broke them. And in this episode, as in so many, this suspect could not help but enjoy and even like Columbo despite being hounded. At the very least, there was one scene where he was having a lot of fun with him. I also enjoyed the actress who played his much older secretary. I recognized her from a guest spot on The Golden Girls TV show much later, where she played a very mean neighbor, Mrs. Claxton.

As a devoted fan of Columbo - well the 1970s Columbos which were filled with great star names of the day, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Jack Cassidy(thrice!)Anne Baxter, Janet Leigh etc it was with initial dread that I watched the newer versions of the late 80s and 90s, as they had such a hard act to follow.

This film is nowhere near as good as the old ones - Fisher Stevens, who he? - well whoever he is, he is not in the same league as his fellow past guest villains either in acting ability or menace at all.

Peter Falk looks as though he's just going through the motions and delivers every sentence as though he is mocking all the time, sarcastically trying to be funny and unsettling at the same time, neither very convincing.

The story itself isn't too bad - not too good either, but at least it tries to recapture some of the magic of old.

Mr. Hill only makes two short appearances. But the second one in the limo? Great acting. He is one of the few people in acting who could smile with his whole face behind it except for the eyes, which are projecting revenge and death. A very scary moment. His acting in Law and Order is the same. Sam Waterson as McCoy could get all excited, jumping and gesturing all over the place. Steven Hill could sit back and just GLANCE at him and totally dominate the scene and the episode. One glance and he is communicating REAMS of dialog without saying a word. Great acting is not just about dialog. Hill was an expert on all of it. His scene in the limo is priceless.