TV guide: Bumbling cop who found the answer; REWIND Proof telly isn't as good as it was Columbo

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), June 21, 2008

W ITH his rumpled mac and bumbling demeanour, Lieutenant Columbo was the master of understated intelligence, and the killer, last-minute question.

Modelled on Porfiry Petrovitch in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, his disorganised persona disguised a brilliantly insightful mind.

The shabby, apparently slow-witted police detective with the overly polite manner seemed an unlikely choice to solve any crime, let alone a complex murder.

But - as the perpetrators always learned in the end - appearances can be deceptive. Columbo actually used his deferential and absent-minded persona to lull them into a false sense of security.

Meanwhile, he solved the case by paying close attention to tiny inconsistencies in the suspect's story and by relentlessly hounding the suspect until he or she ended up confessing to the crime.

The central character was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, who claimed that while Columbo was partially inspired by Petrovich, he also incorporated elements of GK Chesterton's humble clerical detective Father Brown.

Unlike most detective shows, Columbo was never a whodunnit.

At the beginning of each film the viewers saw the murderer carefully execute his plan.

Already knowing who was responsible, they were left to derive their enjoyment from the battle of wits that would follow: Columbo v. killer.

The climax of the duel was always the reveal, which almost always began with the immortal words "just one more thing ..."

Columbo's signature interrogation technique was to politely conclude an interview with a suspect and exit the scene. But he would then stop in the doorway, or even return a moment later from outside, and ask the suspect "just one more thing". The "one more thing" always brought to light the key inconsistency in the suspect's alibi and revealed them as the murderer.

The first pilot's script had suffered from a number of conceptual flaws, and was not picked up for a series.

In particular, Columbo himself did not appear until half-an-hour in. Columbo's character in this first pilot, by contrast, was too cold and hard-bitten.

But the second pilot was an immediate hit and Peter Falk won an Emmy Award for his role in the show's first year, with the character quickly becoming an icon.

Falk hadn't been the first choice for the role. When Bing Crosby turned it down, director Richard Irving convinced them that Falk, who wanted the role, could pull it off even though he was much younger than they had imagined the character.

They quickly realised Falk was a natural; he would often ad-lib Columbo-isms, such as fumbling through his pockets for a piece of evidence and discovering a shopping list, or asking to borrow a pencil at a dramatic point in a conversation with a suspect.

He used it as a way to keep his fellow actors off-balance and make the confused and impatient reactions of their characters to Columbo's antics more genuine.

The lieutenant's wardrobe was provided by Peter Falk himself - they were his own clothes.

Falk had come into acting later in life. He originally trained as a certified public accountant, after being turned down by the CIA.

His unusual gaze is caused by a glass eye. His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of a malignant tumour.

Columbo's first name was never mentioned in the series, and became as celebrated a mystery as his never-seen wife. There are a couple of internet rumours that he's either Phillip or Frank.

When asked, Falk always says it's lieutenant.

When NBC demanded another regular character in the series, the writers refused. They didn't want to spoil the dynamic, but as a token they introduced Dog - a basset hound as a pet for the lieutenant.

Columbo found Dog at the pound, and after a whole episode trying to come up with a name for him, settled on Dog.

There are certain recurring motifs in each episode. First, Columbo's vague comments about his wife and his past.

And puzzlingly, in almost every episode, one piece of music appears - sometimes as incidental background music, but more often than not, the lieutenant is whistling or humming it to himself. The piece is the children's song, This Old Man Came Rolling Home.

After its cancellation by NBC in 1978 Columbo was revived on ABC between 1989 and 2003 in occasional made-for-TV movies, including an awful one with Billy Connolly as the murderer, but it never managed to recapture the glory of those 70s episodes.

Just one more thing, as the man himself would have said...

Last May it was announced that Peter Falk had chosen a script for one last Columbo episode, titled Columbo's Last Case.

ABC, the network which has aired the new Columbo series since 1989, declined the project because of Peter Falk's age - now a ripe old 80.

Still, Columbo remains one of the best detective shows of all time, with its retro charm, suspense-packed plots and loveable central character.