Day 239: Columbo, Old Fashioned Murder

Show: Columbo

Episode Particulars: S6EP2, “Old Fashioned Murder”, original airdate November 28^th, 1976.

 Summary: Ruth Lytton (Joyce Van Patten) is the curator of the Lytton Museum, a museum that’s been in the red for a long time. Her brother Edward (Tim O’Connor) is planning on closing down the museum and selling the pieces off, which Ruth clearly disapproves of. Then things get a little murky; she talks to the security guard, Milton Schaffer (Peter S. Feibleman), who has a gambling problem, and offers him $100,000 and a passport if he’ll rob certain items from the museum, ostensibly for insurance purposes. When he complies, she follows him to the museum and kills him, then shoots her brother when he comes down to investigate. As Columbo looks into the murder, he also winds up having to sift through the personal lives of Lytton, her fainting-prone sister Phyllis Brandt (Celeste Holm), and her niece Janie (Jeannie Berlin). And that’s where things take a weird turn.

Standalone Thoughts: I’m not entirely sure what this episode was going for. It seems pretty clear that the writers wanted Lytton to be sympathetic, given the way she’s introduced and the way Columbo treats her, but other than that, I have no idea what they were thinking. That’s because a lot of the plot revolves around melodrama that feels like the worst soap opera clichés, with weird family dynamics, secret love affairs and infidelities, and even what seems to be a heavily implied hidden pregnancy. Even worse, some of these things don’t seem to serve much of a purpose. The fact that Janie is having an affair with Schaffer’s brother (Jess Osuna) is initially important but then basically disappears from the narrative once it’s no longer necessary. And while I suspect Lytton’s relationship to her family was meant to be the motive behind what she did, it’s never fully explained, and therefore leaves me trying to figure out what was going on. It initially looks like she arranged the double murder because she wanted to protect the museum, since the opening scenes kept going on and on about the museum’s financial problems, but after the murder, all the focus shifts to the Lytton/Brandt families and money’s barely brought up again. So why is Lytton doing what she’s doing? There’s no satisfactory answer, and I’m left more baffled by the episode than anything.

That all being said, I don’t hate this episode. The dialogue and Van Patten’s acting successfully make Lytton just sympathetic enough that it breaks through my confusion, and while the pace is sometimes a little too slow (which does befit the atmosphere in a museum but can lead to your audience losing interest), it also gives a sense of melancholy with works with the aforementioned acting. It’s not one I’d suggest you seek out, but I also wouldn’t recommend skipping it, either. I think this is an episode that really depends on personal tastes; melodrama fans will probably enjoy it, while others need to be in the right mood. So keep that in mind if you ever decide to check this one out.

Number of “Columbo-isms”: 2/6 for sure, and two that sort of qualify. There’s definitely several mentions of Mrs. Columbo and a semi-big scene with the car, but Columbo only does one piece of fumbling (and it’s less rooting through his pockets and more just trying to pull something out of one particular pocket) and only has one moment that comes close to a “Just one more thing”. So those two I’ll leave up to everybody’s individual judgment.

Other: *Maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve got WWII buffs in my family, but I can’t help but feel like the outfit Schaffer wears as a security guard looks a little…S.S. like;

 (Source: https://www.wehrmacht.es/en/ss-uniforms/1341-feldbluse-m36-for-generals-of-waffen-ss-tricot.html)

That probably wasn’t the costumer’s intent, but it does make me wonder if an old Nazi costume was repurposed for this outfit. It’s a way to save money, I guess…

*In classic Columbo fashion, we get a scene where someone clucks over his appearance and tries to fix it, in this case by giving him a haircut. We get two scenes where Columbo’s hair is smooth and flat (and changes his appearance totally; it took me a second to realize we were looking at Peter Falk when I first saw it), and then he’s back to his old style shortly thereafter. My only question is, how did he get it back to normal so fast? Did he ruffle his hair or just sleep on it (literally)? It’s not something worth dwelling on, but I’d really like to know.

*I’m a little disappointed that no one commented on the fact that neither Schaffer or Edward Lytton had powder burns on their hands/gloves, since that should have been a dead giveaway that something was amiss and has been used in Columbo episodes before. But then I guess that would have made things too easy, so it was conveniently ignored this time.

*Apparently bandana-style patterns were in in the 1970’s. First there was that outfit in “Dead Weight”, and now this;

I can maybe see that pattern on a blanket or throw rug, but I don’t think it makes great wallpaper. But maybe that’s just my 2017 sensibilities coming into play.

*Speaking of 1970’s sensibilities, somehow I feel like women’s prisons wouldn’t be issuing outfits like this regardless of the era…

It just seems very unlikely that a female prison outfit is a skirt that’s knee-length or less. She honestly looks like she’s posing for a catalogue. Is this Hollywood sensibilities coming into play again?

Would This Hold Up in Court?: Possibly. Columbo’s got some recorded evidence, although it’s a bit of a stretch, and that’s all he’s got to go on. It depends on the jury and what Lytton is willing to say in court. She seemed willing to confess at the end of the episode, but you never know if she’ll change her mind or not. Certainly the episode doesn’t make it easy to tell.