Omicidio a Malibù

Good lord, this is atrocious. First the good news. Peter Falk is as terrific as always. Anybody in a scene with him in this movie pales in comparison. He is basically wasted in this thing. His sleuthing, especially toward the end, is solid.

The acting by everybody else is soooo bad, its unreal. Andrew Stevens is just beyond bad. He over acts or he's bland. There is no in between. Geez, is this really the best they could do ? The story is boring. Long winded. I was glad when this movie ended. By the time the end came i did not care. Everybody besides Falk was mediocre to pretty bad. This was painful to watch. I did like some of the ocean and beach scenery. Maybe because nobody was talking. Lol.

Best moment : there isn't one.

This is the lowest score I've ever given to a Columbo episode. Andrew Stevens may be about as bad an actor as exists. If he hadn't been arrested for murder, they should have arrested him for that. The plot is stupid to start with. The guy is handsome, but the drool level all over must have required a cleaning company after women met him. Anyway, he thinks he is being exposed, so he kills his potential fiancee. He has no heart, probably a sociopath. The woman's sister, played by the overrated Brenda Vicarro, is also awful actress. The times it is played for laughs just don't work well. The final scene as they are combing through women's underwear is just stupid.

"Murder in Malubu" is among the worst episodes of "Columbo"...and it's a shame because I like the shows. But the writing was just terrible and the story made little sense.

Theresa Goren is a very successful romance writer. However, despite her many accomplishments, she is a sucker for Wayne (Andrew Stevens)...a compulsive womanizer who really knows how to use and seduce women. When Goren is found murdered, Lt. Columbo is on the case and soon it becomes apparent that the woman was shot twice--and the second time they know that Wayne did it. But she was already dead....so who killed her the first time?

The plot to this one is way too complicated and the murderer's plan just seemed ridiculous. Add to that some characters who really make no sense at all (Brenda Vaccaro's character) and you have an episode that really leaves the viewer cold and disappointed. In addition to being nonsensical, the episode also lacked the usual charm and fun (an odd word for murder mysteries, I know) you'd expect.

Famous authoress Teresa Goren finally wakes up to the truth that her young lover Wayne Jennings is not so much in love with her as he is in love with her money. She tells him the wedding is off and that he'll never get a penny of her assets; this doesn't exactly please Jennings so, before Goren can tell anyone of her decision, he kills her and covers his trail, making it look like a robbery gone wrong in her house. Columbo joins the investigation and notes that the robber was able to cleanly break into the safe but still smashed glass to get through a very basic wooden door. Naturally he suspects Jennings but, with the evidence seemingly clearing him, he turns to him for help.

It may say more about me than anything else but there must be something wrong with a film where the main thing that gets my heart going is the sight of a cherry picker being used without any harnesses being worn and sadly that is the most memorable moment in this film. The plot is pretty much to formula so in theory it should have been OK, which as a fan I suppose it is but the problem is with the delivery of the story. The case is reasonably interesting but it doesn't develop that well and it does involve Columbo knowing an uncomfortable amount about woman's underwear. However the plots have never been the strongest in Columbo and it is usually the formula that carries the film – a formula that we all know but one that involves strong performances from the leads, something that is lacking here.

It isn't Falk's fault because he does his usual stuff pretty well and will please fans with a character that has given him the career that he has. No, the problem is with pretty much everybody else. Stevens is hardly of the standard of suspect that we have come to expect and he doesn't work with Falk at all well. He is bland and dull in a formula that calls for presence, chemistry or at least energy; true to script gave him a soft character but he still has to carry some of the blame. Likewise Vaccaro, Levine, Walters and others all barely do the minimum required of them and nobody really helped Falk do a job that, on this occasion, he couldn't do by himself.

Overall this is an OK Columbo because in essence the formula is in place but really it is done without any great skill or effort. The story is poorly developed and didn't engage me and, with such roundly uninspiring performances, this problem was laid bare and was not one that the film could recover from. Fans might just get something from it but there are many, many better Columbo films out there.

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.