Columbo: Murder in Malibu

Except for Peter Falk, who is as good as ever in his Columbo role, all the other cast members fail to play their role convincingly. It was like watching a bad soap. Maybe the director of this episode, Walter Grauman,is partly to blame for that ?

Weak plot, lots of continuity mistakes, lots of camera shadows on people, stretched-out phone ringing, car following and walking scenes that hampers the flow and reveal a thin scenario. This episode could have lasted at most an hour, instead of stretching it to an hour and a half.

Also, the attempt at moving away from the usual Columbo recipe by not showing how the murder took place is only confusing and not helping the story telling.

All in all, one of the very few very bad Columbo episodes, fortunately.

In Brenda Vaccaro's first scene her face is narrow and she looks slim, basically like she did in Midnight Cowboy. In the rest of her scenes her face is noticeably fuller and her body is heavy set. There must have been a break in the filming of this episode. She looks totally different for all her scenes after the first scene. I like seeing her because she is such a good actress, much better than Andrew Stevens who overacting this whole episode, but Brenda look changed very noticeably after her first scene. Always great to see Janet Margolin in any of her roles. She didn't get enough parts IMHO. Also, where is Columbo's beat up Volvo sedan? They should have had shot of it next to the red Jaguar two seat sports car that Stevens character drove around in.

In the 1990s, the scriptwriters of Columbo started to subtly break with the common episode structures. Humorous and witty episodes like It's All in the Game or Undercover were the result. This 1990 episode was probably one of the first, where the audience was a little bit deceived because they believed to know how Columbo episodes work. Self-irony (`I've never solved a case that quickly!'), a great Brenda Vaccaro and plot twists - not only in connection with the murder! Very good work!

This was a strange Columbo story about a successful romance novelist Janet Margolin who announces on an afternoon talk show host that she's about to marry Andrew Stevens professional tennis player. Part time player and full time gigolo.

But after the show Margolin finds Stevens has been, heaven forfend, unfaithful. She cuts him off and he kills her and in a rather elaborate ruse to first raise and then throw off suspicion on himself. Not something you would think of on the spur of the moment which is the main weakness of the story.

But additionally Stevens is a love 'em and leave 'em type. Margolin is not the first I'm sure to have given him his walking papers. His kind would have gone out and found someone else. Definitely not have killed someone.

Best in the cast is Margolin's overbearing protective sister Brenda Vaccaro who despises Stevens and at the same time lusts after him incredibly. Can't really blame her, she dominates when she's on.

Interesting characters, but the plot makes no real sense.

Jackson Gillis wrote some of the best scripts for the 70's Columbo series and he's on hand here to modify the old Columbo formula in this 1990 production.

The admission by producers with these "new" Columbo adventures is that the detective's well-known and well-received characterisation is no longer singled-handedly able to support an ordinary, Murry mystery script. This TV movie is a case in point - we are never quite sure who the murderer is until the end, something that completely goes against Columbo tradition...

It's too long for what it finally reveals and some of the acting is soap-opera style at best, but the character of Columbo remains charming to this day (something that Peter Falk deserves a lot of credit for). Watchable, but there are better "new" Columbo adventures around and it it still hard to bear largely second-rate stars acting as the murderers when some of the top actors/actresses graced the Columbo series in the 70's.