Delitto d'altri tempi

My favorite episode so far with a sweet Sergeant Miller, a neat manicured Columbo with a garish haircut and an extended knowledge of ancient artefacts.

Old-Fashioned Murder is not one of my favourite Columbos of all time, but I do consider it one of the sadly under-appreciated episodes. It is filmed beautifully, and the music adds much to the period and the mood. Old-Fashioned Murder is well-written with some amusing dialogue, with the scene with the hairdresser one of the funniest moments of the entire series, and the story while not as efficiently paced as other entries is still diverting. Peter Falk is excellent as always, Joyce Van Patten is wonderfully dry and calculating and of the support cast Celeste Holm is a riot.

All in all, a very good episode if missing out just on the truly great standard. It's a shame it's so under-appreciated, when (although I love Columbo) I can think of at least 6 other Columbos that fare much weaker. 8.5/10 Bethany Cox

This is one of the best Columbos. You can't beat the cast, the storyline, or anything about it. I can't be as erudite as the other poster, so I'll just say I loved it.

The cast is top notch: Joyce van Patten, Jeannie Berlin, Tim O'Connor and Celeste Holm, who is a riot. "I am not without influence, Lieutenant Columbus!" And a line I use myself even today: "I have told you, I cannot leave a room without a man to escort me." That line gets a neat twist at the end of the movie.

Joyce Van Patten, Holm and O'Connor are all family members who own a museum.

It's Van Patten's whole life, but it's a money pit and O'Connor wants to get rid of it. There lies the conflict.

I highly recommend this particular Columbo.

OLD FASHIONED MURDER is a solid TV movie from the COLUMBO stable. It was put on TV in 1976, during season six of the show, so by now the format was familiar and it's left to the scriptwriters to throw spins on it. What follows is a story that's engaging while being entirely middle of the road and rather predictable.

The story involves a family-run museum which is struggling to make ends meet in the modern world. In this show, dodgy finances equal murder, thanks to an elaborate plan involving an alcoholic security guard who's asked to stage a robbery and his own disappearance, only to find himself murdered by his own employer. When another character intervenes, it's up to Columbo to solve a double murder.

Peter Falk is by far the best thing about this show, and that's particularly noticeable when the rest of the cast isn't up to much (Joyce Van Patten is one of the more lacklustre guest stars, steadfastly refusing to get annoyed - even irritated - with the shabby sleuth). What keeps this moving is the solving of individual clues, Falk's natural humour, and some broad comedy thrown into the mid (like the fainting sister). The scene where Columbo goes to get his hair cut is probably the highlight here.

Joyce Van Patten stars as Ruth Lytton, the never-married head of the family-owned museum that has been sadly losing money. Her caring but stern brother Edward(played by Tim O' Connor) has decided to convince their sister(played by Celeste Holm) to close the museum, which is something Ruth cannot allow, so she concocts a surprising(for her) plan to murder him, blaming it on a guard with a shady past, then killing him too. Lt. Columbo(Peter Falk) doesn't believe it was a botched robbery, but how to find proof against the spinsterish Miss Lytton? Oddly flat episode isn't that compelling, but is still innocuous enough to make it passable fare.