Day 212: Columbo, The Most Crucial Game

Show: Columbo

Episode Particulars: S2EP3, “The Most Crucial Game”, original airdate November 5^th, 1972.

 Summary: Paul Hanlon (Robert Culp, looking very different from the last time he played a murderer in “Death Lends a Hand”) is the manager of the Wagner sports empire, and is apparently tired of having to answer to the dissolute heir to the empire, Eric Wagner (Dean Stockwell). Therefore, he sneaks out of his box during a football game, steals an ice cream truck the stadium uses for concessions, drives to Wagner’s house, and knocks him out with a piece of ice so he’ll drown in his pool. To cover his tracks (literally), he hoses down the pool deck, but because the hose uses fresh water and the pool has chlorine in it, that’s the first sign Columbo has that something’s not right. And when it turns out that both Hanlon and Wagner’s phones were being bugged, things get even more suspicious.

Standalone Thoughts: I think my problem with this episode is that there are a lot of elements that don’t really feel like they fit together. The murder itself is fairly straightforward (although the motive is never openly expressed), but Columbo’s investigation takes some very strange turns, some that kind of come out of nowhere and others that don’t feel relevant until they suddenly are. The fact that Hanlon and Wagner’s phone lines were being tapped is kind of hinted at, but the reason for it and the way it all plays out kind of feels like a sudden twist, and it takes a few minutes to fully figure out how this is relevant. Similarly, the fact that one of the women Columbo talks to (Valerie Harper) has a foreign accent seems to come out of nowhere, and it’s not until the very end of the episode that we understand why this is important. Maybe I was just being particularly unobservant today, but it just didn’t click for me the way most of the episodes have.

However, I know that the whole running gag of Columbo asking people what they paid for their shoes serves no purpose whatsoever. I initially thought his accidentally stepping in the pool and then subsequently asking people what they paid for their shoes was a clue, like more expensive shoes would leave certain marks behind on the pool deck or something, but it just kind of peters out. Columbo gets a new pair of shoes that hurt his feet, and that’s the end of that. Sure, it’s a character moment, but it just didn’t work here, especially since footprints had kind of been relevant to the case.

Overall, I’d say this isn’t a very strong Columbo episode. In addition to the problems I already mentioned, there’s a lot of people talking over each other/the radio, so it’s sometimes hard to follow the conversations, and some of the actors have accents or vocal intonations that can make it hard to understand them. Maybe you’ll enjoy it a little more if you’re a sports (especially football) fan, but other than that, it would probably be ok to skip this one.

Number of “Columbo-isms”: 4/6. A few mentions of his wife, a kind of sideways “Just one more thing”, a little bit of fumbling with some papers, and a few glimpses of his car looking even more dingy than usual. I don’t know what happened to that car, but he really needs to give it a wash.

Other: *The episode once again decides to try to make the murder dramatic by cutting back and forth between Hanlon walking to commit the murder and Wagner swimming in the pool, and then by having the death take place in slow-motion. And as I’ve discussed in previous episodes, this is less dramatic and more amusing or annoying. Unfortunately, I think this is just something I’m going to have to live with.

*I am amused by the fact that Hanlon, after committing the murder and hurrying back to the stadium to establish his alibi, pulls an ice cream out of his “borrowed” ice cream truck and starts eating it. The man has a very strange sense of priorities. Then again, the ice cream looked like a fudgesicle, and those things are delicious, so maybe I kind of get it.

*Columbo is the only person I know who can make what is obviously a threat, but use a very pleasant tone of voice that doesn’t even have a hint of sarcasm or malice to it. He’s just very good at appearing relatively benign and unflappable.

Would This Hold Up in Court?: It depends. Columbo’s got enough combined evidence to make the accusation stick, but the way they present the key piece of evidence, while clever (and subtly foreshadowed), doesn’t necessarily prove anything. All they needed was one more minute that could have given us all the information we needed. However, I’m going to be charitable, assume that evidence was in there, and we just didn’t see it. So let’s call this a tentative yes.