This week: The Art of Character Design Edited by: Carol St.Ann  
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I can still hear the voice…
"Oh, I nearly forgot, Dr. Collier, just one more thing."
"What is it now, Columbo?”
Faye Dunaway looks like she is trying to hide or find something. A door opens stage left and the raincoat and cigar appear, along with the man with the tousled hair.
"I'm sorry to bother you this late at night, but I am confused and I thought you might be able to help me."
"I'll certainly try, Lieutenant."
"Oh, thank you. See it's like this......." And on he goes, entrapping her in his net.
The man in the rain coat was everywhere. I used to wonder if there was any time of day or night when Peter Falk’s Columbo wasn’t doing his shtick. Columbo had become the Sherlock Holmes of our time. Everyone knew him, and it would not surprise me if, like Holmes, he received pleas for help from the afflicted. His creators must be proud. They have reached the Everest of achievement, inventing a character who lives on in our minds long after the stories are over, and whose mannerisms can be recognized anywhere.
This is thrilling story telling: Columbo knows what it’s like to take the plunge into a world which can give pain and death, but he heralds his greatest joy, "To smoke, and have coffee--and if you do it together, it's fantastic. To draw, and when your hands are cold you rub them together ... " How well Falk replicates the mood he creates when he announces to the perps that he has pieced together the puzzle, and they are under arrest. He has given the tale that most banal of words, closure.
The Columbo Formula
The thing most interesting about a Columbo mystery is that there is no mystery at all! How can there be a mystery when the killer is revealed as the opening credits roll? Each Columbo episode begins with the viewers witnessing the crime, or rather the prelude to the crime. The felony is always murder; the writers believed in S.S. Van Dine's maxim, (as we discussed in a previous NL) "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice." After the victim falls to the floor, drops his head on the desk, or lays recumbent on the bed, the scene fades to black. It is followed by a standard crime scene; plainclothesmen and uniforms scurrying about, shouting, waving, and waiting for the arrival of the man in tan raincoat, in his noisy Peugeot, firing up a cigar no matter the time of day. Columbo is on the case.
The next forty minutes travel from bumbling to arrest, until, In the final scene, when Columbo is sure to demonstrate to the killer and the audience the key to capture. Before that moment, the perpetrator is positive s/he is has pulled the wool over the slipshod detective's eyes.
The audience is privy to the questioning of the suspect. Each interview begins with Columbo's puzzlement over some point and ends with his humiliating enlightenment at the hands of the evildoer. This technique erases any sympathy the watcher might have for George Hamilton, Jack Cassidy, Robert Culp or Patrick McGoohan. I mention these names because each of these gentlemen committed the deed in more than one episode.
"You see, sir, I was puzzled by the fact that the rug was clean, when we know that the killer trod through the muddy flower bed and left footprints there."
"Perhaps he took off his shoes, Lieutenant?"
"Jeeze, you know I never thought of that. You sure cleared that up."
The killer, looking at his inquisitor bemusedly, tut-tutts, "It would seem rather obvious to me, Columbo."
"Well, I never saw it; boy you sure are smart. Thanks, that ought to enable me to finish my report. I'll be on my way now, sorry to trouble you."
The viewer sees Columbo give that wonderful half shrug, half wave, open the door and exit. The camera shifts back to the killer, who’s shaking his head in bemusement. Scene over, right? Nope, not with Columbo; that gravelly voice is heard again as the door reopens, "Just one more thing…"
Columbo's suspects painstakingly set up alibis, while at the same time try to frame others, always creating a tableaux others would remember. Never do these fool our hero. From the get-go he concentrates on the correct subject. Oh, he'll often disappear for two or three scenes just past the halfway point, while the killer either reinforces the alternatives, or plots with co-conspirators, but Columbo is never fooled.
"You see sir, I couldn't get it out of my mind the fact that in the surveillance camera, the four o'clocks were open but this was supposed to be early in the morning. Mrs. Columbo confirmed this for me; she knows all these cockamamie things about flowers and she says these flowers don't open until afternoon."
The mention of Mrs. Columbo begs me to remind you Columbo, unlike most detectives, does not have a sidekick, or secretary to help him. He solves the cases himself, and while in the process, never bounces his thought process off anyone except the killer. Mrs. Columbo is never seen, even in the episode where she accompanies him on a cruise to Mexico. She must be a fascinating woman. They were high school sweethearts, apparently in New York City where Columbo was raised. She reads a lot, likes the opera, does the house finances but is not much of a cook. She must have a large family; Columbo is always mentioning some brother-in-law, cousin, or the like. She seems to have a saying for all occasions, and provides her husband with a pencil every day, a writing implement he can never find when he tries to pull out his notebook.
This ability to shuffle through his pockets is another endearing quality. His absentmindedness seems to occur every time the preliminary inquiries commence. The suspect is always very busy doing whatever killers do in real life. Life for him is getting back to normal, but just as normalcy becomes the mode, Columbo shuffles into the picture, waving his forearm to the miscreant.
"Do you have a minute?"
"We are rather busy here, Columbo. As you can see, we are making a movie."
"This'll just take a minute, Sir."
"Oh, go ahead, but come over here where we're not in the way. And this better not take long either."
"I'm really sorry to bother you, I know how busy you are."
"Get on with it, Columbo."
"Well, you see, sir, there's this one thing I can't get out of my head. It's keeping me from sleeping, and I need my eight hours of sleep. Mrs. Columbo says I'm not sharp if I don't have my good night of rest."
"Yes, yes, Columbo, now what is it you want?"
"It's like this sir."
After this song and dance, the search through the pockets for something to write on begins, all the while apologies rain down for interrupting for something so unimportant. Ah, but with ten minutes to run in the show, Columbo becomes all business. The killer returns to a dark office, flicks on the light, and there, behind his desk, is the representative of the LAPD, raincoat off. Exasperated, the killer expresses anger for the first time, but Columbo brings him up short by telling him the gig is up and jail beckons.
As for Mrs. Columbo, a network executive decided she should have her own show. It never went over with Columbo fans, and why should it? Each Columbo-phile has a picture of the Mrs. in their own mind, one not to be tampered with.It was a foolish mistake.
What Does A TV Character Have To Do With Good Writing?
It was a pity the powers that were, hadn’t considered the four questions every author should ask when they create a character:
1. Who is this person?
2.How does this person feel about himself or herself, about his or her life to date and the present situation?
3.What led this person into the story?
4.How will this person behave, and why?
I think it relevant that the creators of Columbo knew their man inside and out. His motions, his little tics, his way of talk rarely change and his habits do not alter to suit the story. If it weren't for technology, I would wager most viewers would not be able to date most episodes from the great Sunday night shows that ran from 1971-1978. The casts change, but Columbo remains the same, and I am not just talking about the raincoat, cigar and Peugeot. "Just one more thing" is only one of the expressions he uses again and again. His body movements do not change; he expresses his emotions with a wave of the arm in every episode. This is so unlike most recurring lead characters in television. From Ralph Kramden onward, if a show can be written around its main character getting into trouble by gambling, or looking at another woman, that is what will happen even if the behavior is inexplicable.
Columbo has his set habits, so that if he does something out of the ordinary, it is in connection with the unseen Mrs. Columbo, or a member of her family. Thus the viewers find him in a TV repair shop, imploring the technician to see if he can fix the magic lantern so Mrs. Columbo will not miss a show she likes. And yet, the writers were not total geniuses. In that same scene his dog sat next to him. For some reason, someone decided Columbo needed another foible, and so for several episodes he toted around a beagle. "Tote" is the correct word; the dog didn't seem to walk; he would sit in the car or be carried about by the Lieutenant. It didn’t last but one season. There were other transplants that did not take, or at least aren't as easily remembered. He inexplicably hummed "This Old Man (nick-nack-paddy-whack)" in a few episodes, then never again.
For a man set in his ways, Columbo wasn't afraid to learn new technology. A man who drove a beat-up car obviously was not someone trying to get ahead of the learning curve, and he certainly was not a trend setter, but learning was a necessity. Columbo's villains had amazing ways of incorporating the latest devices into their methodology, whether it be the VCR, the fax or the cell phone. State of the art for the 70s.) In those episodes, at some point Columbo would play "Jimmy" to a techie's "Mr. Wizard" as he learned how the device worked. The finale of these shows was especially delicious because Columbo would throw back his new knowledge at the man who thought he knew so much.
Just One More Thing
"Columbo," the television show, might have been another of the nearly forgotten crime shows of the past had it not been for the stars so willing to commit murder, or be killed themselves. When the chemistry between Peter Falk and his co-leads is right, the result is an intellectual games of cut and thrust. There are episodes that sink like a stone, and the reason usually is that the guest does not seem to be joining in the fun. The late Johnny Cash was not a particularly strong presence opposite Falk, but any episode with McGoohan, Robert Culp or most especially, Jack Cassidy commands the attention of the viewer. The parrying in "Now You See Him," where Cassidy is the Great Santini, is in its own way as exciting as Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone dueling up and down the stone staircase in the castle, candlesticks and shadows flying.
Another analogy comes to mind and that is a tennis match. Cassidy et. al. are trying to hold serve, hitting forehands, backhands and throwing in an occasional lob as the situation demands. On the other side of the net is Columbo, like Andre Agassi in his prime, returning everything deep, and preventing his opponent from coming to the net. I can probably spin analogies forever, but point to be made is that the writer must make the reader care not only about the detective, but also the antagonist. The killer must be worth catching; small fry need not apply. The writer can dream up the most ingenious of plots, but to hold the reader's interest, the latter must have a dog in the fight.
The plot of an episode of Columbo is over in the first fifteen minutes. The viewer observes the ingenuity of the malefactor; the body hits the floor, and the rest of the show features that same bad guy throwing red herrings to occupy the detective's time. This is a most unusual method of writing, and yet from somewhere out of my memory comes a game, a quiz, a brain teaser. A photo or drawing is shown, or a situation is described in a paragraph. The solver is asked to explain what has happened. The present is known; it is the past into which he must delve.
Back To The Show
"I'm glad I caught you, David. I've got this thing that's really stumping me. Maybe you can help?"
"What is it, Detective, Detective?"
"Lockwood, from the Lakewood police. You know that's really a great mustache you've got there. My brother-in-law, he's always trying to grow a mustache. Mrs. Lockwood, she's his sister-in-law, he's married to her sister, always says his looks like a caterpillar walking across his lip. My wife cracks me up sometimes; she's always saying these funny things, but anyway, as I was saying I got this puzzling question that keeps going through my mind. You ever get one of those?"
"I can't say that I have, Detective Lockwood. I've got to get to the post office, so could you hurry?"
"Oh sure, now what was it I wanted to ask you, keeps slipping my mind. Maybe I ought to be drinking that ginseng tea or whatever that is they call it. Oh, here it is. The missus always says to write things down; that's why I take all the pens I can when they are offered."
"Yes, well?"
"I'm sorry, sir; it's just that mustache threw my memory off. Don't usually see a mustache that thick. The missus would have a fit if I tried to grow one, not to mention Captain Bidwell. He don't like mustaches."
"I get the picture, Detective. Now you wanted some information?"
"Well, anyway as I said, the missus is thinking of painting her kitchen; actually it's our kitchen and she's not exactly a great cook but with my job I hardly notice."
"She's thinking of repainting the kitchen and?"
"Well, it's the color, you see. Give her a happy color and she might be a better cook. Lord, my cousin Al won't even come to dinner at my house; says she overcooks everything, even the spaghetti which he says is like mush, but you can't please everyone."
"You were saying the color, Lieutenant Lockwood?"
"Yea, that's it, the color. You don't mind me asking this, I hope."
"Go right ahead; the sun is low on the yardarm and the post office is sinking in the west."
"Jeeze, I shouldn't be bothering you with this silly thing, but the missus wants to know. What is the hell is pineapple fizz?
Kudos & Thanks:
Dlsheepdok
Wannabe
Peter Falk
Dostoevsky
William Link
Richard Levinson
Allie Columbo
Palumbo’s Nightclub
•======•=======•
Thank you for reading!
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Mystery: November 30, 2022 Issue [#11683]
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