TV Movie - Ransom For A Dead Man

Ransom For A Dead Man is the 2nd tv-movie-pilot starring Columbo, airing nearly three years after Prescription Murder. I'm not sure what the hold-up was, or what the initial plans for the character were since the last movie was produced.

I do have some inkling that the viewing public thought Columbo was a little mean in the original 'pilot,' openly harassing and practically threatening the suspect's girlfriend into agreeing to his plan to set up the suspect. I mean, that was HARSH. The good doctor in that movie openly sees through Columbo's ruse, and with that Columbo goes after the weakest spot in the doctor's plans, his emotional wreck of a patient/mistress. And,  as I stated in the previous post, you are introduced to the doctor's plight. Through his point of view, Columbo is the antagonist in this film, therefore you might actually not root for Columbo.



Columbo is softer in this film. He's more bumbling, and when we see underneath the exterior, he's considerate and honest while professional. He's an average joe who likes a game of pool with his fellow greasy spoon patrons, and likes a good bowl of chili (it's the crackers that makes the meal, of course). This is a perfect contrast to the suspect, Leslie, who is a powerful attorney married to another (wealthier) attorney.

Leslie is our killer, played by Lee Grant, who (according to the wikipedia) won an Emmy for this performance (one of her challengers? Herself, in another TV role). She was blacklisted in the 50's for not testifying against her husband in one of the many commie witch hunts, but kept busy with the occasional television role before winning an Oscar in the mid 70's. She's a good looking 46 by the time this aired (though my wife insists she's wearing a wig, but only because it's 70's television).

The show opens with Leslie making a ransom note, cutting together a reel to reel audio tape of her much older-husband (in real life, the actor playing the husband was only eight years older, did I mention how young Ms. Grant looks?) to make it seem like he was being kidnapped for a $300,000 ransom. When he comes home, she shoots him in their living room.

This is the first of a few bizarre quick cuts followed by slow motion and weird music that will occur throughout the episode. It is the 70's, of course, and beside terrifying outfits, hair, glasses, and no bras, directors were trying to get artsy fartsy and would zoom in/out on their own grainy film stock if they forgot to do a zoom while filming.

She then wraps up the body, drives it to the beach, and then dumps her dead husband off a cliff. A closeup of her eyes morphs into the bright star-like headlights of her car as she drives home, first dropping off the ransom note in the mail. At home, she's having a drink, and then we get more quick (almost subliminal, but certainly headache-inducing) cuts of a clock, and then we're transported to a courtroom where she's objecting to the examination of a man suing a company for not having adequate railings at their place of business. She manages to multi-task while her associate informs her that they can't find her husband, objecting at the right moment while having this very involved discussion. She's quite the legal eagle.

At her office, she is in a meeting with her underlings and she gets a phone call...one she arranged by having her friend call her back regarding a tennis match, while Leslie pretends that it is the kidnappers.

The police are at her home, preparing the phone to be tapped when the kidnappers call again. Columbo shows up at (roughly) 12 minutes and 30 seconds into the film, having lost his pen on Leslie's front porch. Our homicide detective is there to let the other cops know that they found her husband's car, and then literally sticks his face into his fellow officer's personal spaces as they discuss the ransom notes and plans. He asks for the location to the bathroom, and then upon returning, asks his hostess about the soap, since he feels it's too nice for him to use. She is condescendingly amused by this.

The ransom call is placed; it's by an automated phone at her work place. The police leave, but a deep in thought Columbo wonders aloud why she didn't ask how her husband was being treated by the kidnappers. She overhears this from her upstairs bedroom.

She takes out their savings and puts it in a ransom bag at the airport. Did I mention she's a pilot? The plot (both the kidnapper's, show's) requires her to throw the money from her private propeller powered plane. She provides the ransom bag, and only Columbo seems to notice this. (Frankly, this should have been a red flag for EVERYONE, but...) She then asks to change clothes, because I guess she needs a certain outfit in order to fly (I am not a pilot, so I don't know). Again, the officers seem okay with leaving her alone in a room with several lockers and the ransom money in a bag that she provided herself, and of course in one of those lockers is another (empty) bag identical to the one she provided. She switches the bags.

She makes the drop, the cops follow her in a helicopter, they find the bag on the ground with no money and assume the criminals ran off with the money and left the bag there.

Back at home, Leslie hides her money in a wall safe in her closet, and when she exits the closet, there is her step-daughter, Margaret. Margaret was in a private school in Zurich, and demands to know where "MY FATHER" is. You'll be hearing that phrase a lot, and with that all-caps verbal emphasis, throughout the rest of the episode, in case you can't figure out Margaret's personal connection to the victim. Margaret is immediately suspicious of Leslie.

The next morning, Leslie finds Margaret in their kitchen watching "Double Indemnity," and this is no coincidence. In court, Leslie is informed that they found her husband's body, and Columbo immediately questions why she didn't ask how her husband was murdered or make any other inquiry (she did faint, however. I mean, come on). The investigator tells Columbo to back off or he'll be reported, to which Columbo drops the Columbo act and tells the officer that "it's a murder now," putting Columbo in charge of the investigation.

At the funeral, Margaret slaps Leslie and storms off into the cemetery. Columbo is hanging out there and tells Margaret that it'll be safe to talk to him if she needs to. Our man of the people is bonding with the relative of the victim.

Columbo goes to Leslie's office and wonders in disbelief that her male 'associate' would work...for a woman! I mean, bajeesus! Am I right, fellas?

He pokes and prods around her office, mentions the empty bag, sees the automated phone, and is generally Columbo-level annoying with Leslie, who gets more and more frustrated with him until he mentions the angle of the bullet entry in her late husband. Why is this important? Well, the killer was sitting down, and that means he probably knew the killer. As he speaks, many zoomed in frames from the first scene are spliced in and maybe a minor headache is experienced by the viewer. She changes the subject...by taking him for a flight in her airplane.

This is one of those things that makes it seem like an episode instead of a movie-level event. Why the flight? Why not just ask Leslie if she knows if her late husband had any enemies? Was it to pad out the episode to 'movie' length? Did they pay for this plane and/or stock footage of the plane flying (I admit I was losing patience** and wasn't paying close enough attention to see if the plane on the ground and the plane in the air were the same one) and wanted to make the most use out of it?

** In my notes while watching, I wrote "dear lord." This is my own personal thought. I apologize if you have a higher opinion of the quality of this scene. It does establish Columbo's fear of heights, as witnessed in "Short Fuse" and a few years later in "Swan Song." Columbo asks that they not talk for a while, and the show is padded out by more scenes of them flying.

When he does start questioning her again about people her husband knew who could have done such a thing, I had a thought that she doesn't really have a motive that we're aware of. We're pretty late in the film and not even through her arguments with Margaret have we really gotten an idea that she and her husband were having any sort of trouble, disagreement, animosity, anything like that (the man is surprised, but not angry, to see his wife before she shoots him). Margaret seems to hate Leslie just because Margaret is the daughter of a wealthy widower and this other woman is between their daddy/daughter happiness, and hasn't hinted at anything beyond what one would observe to be misplaced (well, correctly placed) anger regarding her father's violent death. So beyond the money, what is going on here? She's a lawyer, divorce him and take half. Oh, and they seem LOADED, and yet the $300,000 needed for the ransom was going to clean them out (it was also part of Margaret's trust fund). They have enough money for their own airplane hobby. I know it's 1971 and $300,000 was perhaps way more than I imagine it to be, but I don't see that as a sum to excuse killing off your husband and then going through a somewhat elaborate kidnapping plot.

Originally I wasn't going to mention this: once on land, Columbo starts talking about his Cousin Ralph. Cousin Ralph does very well for himself and Columbo is envious of Ralph's success. Leslie asks what the point is of this story, and Columbo says that the point is that Ralph is a BORE. Leslie is somewhat bothered by this name calling.

Why? Well, I think this is a slight editing problem. And if it's not editing, it's a mistake in the script. In the next scene, our man of the people is at the diner where he gets his chili served by Bert. Chili will be Columbo's diner food of choice from here-on-out, and it will even be ordered at the fanciest of restaurants. (The ones that don't have gourmet ketchup.) Margaret walks in the diner, and starts telling Columbo of a plot similar to that of Double Indemnity: her mother became sick, and when she died, Leslie swooped in and married Margaret's father and became his domineering law partner. Margaret then claims that her father also showed up in Zurich not too long ago to say that Leslie called him (wait for it) a BORE and wanted an open relationship where Leslie would continue to benefit financially from him.

We will see in future Columbo episodes that it is in his style to relay these kinds of words in seemingly unrelated anecdotes he'll use to trip up the murderers or at least clue them in that he's on to them and knows more than they think he does. And so there's my plot point problem. He mentions the "BORE" (or is it Boar? Can one of you upper crust types let me know which is the bigger insult?) BEFORE Margaret relays Leslie's insult. Was the diner scene intended to precede the flight? (You know they film these things out of order, perhaps these scenes were filmed before the one with Columbo in her office, and it was suggested that they add in a line where she invites him to fly, as no other reason for the flight scene had been established during the filming?) I don't know.

Because Columbo informs Margaret that her father's car keys are missing, Margaret tries to frame Leslie. Columbo sees through it, Margaret throws a fit and tries to slap Columbo, and he quickly catches her and, in the professional Columbo voice, tells her to never raise her hand at a police officer. He apologizes to Leslie in the best way that he can: "I can't have you accused of murder on the wrong evidence."

Anyway, at just under 1 hour and 21 minutes, Leslie lets Columbo know that she sees through his facade, but it's too late for her to blow up at him and throw him out of her office, he's been taken off the case as he can't prove anything and has another case to work on. They say their goodbyes. Vindicated, Leslie goes home, only to get shot at (with blanks) in the same manner she shot her husband. Margaret threatens that one of the bullets in the gun might be real, and leads Leslie on a weird chase with more stills from previous scenes, weird close ups, music, you name it, but it's not like they're going to stop doing it. Leslie is tortured by this, and gives in: she offers another trust fund to get Margaret to leave her alone, and when Margaret refuses as she wants her inheritance that Leslie supposedly gave away to the kidnappers, Leslie agrees.

And so in the dumbest move the criminal can make, she grabs the marked ransom money and gives it to Margaret at the airport so Margaret can leave America and leave Leslie alone. And then she sees Columbo hanging around. She does NOT put two and two together, and offers to buy Columbo a drink at the airport bar. There, an officer brings the suitcase back, with the money, and Columbo explains his plan: that he knew that Leslie had no conscience, and thus would assume that the victim's daughter, who had been yelling emphatically at Leslie that she demanded justice for "MY FATHER" since her first scene, would take the money and forget that Leslie killed him.

That's not REALLY a plan, but they have the evidence, the ransom money. Perhaps Leslie the lawyer shark can weasel her way out of it as a form of entrapment, or that it was Margaret who had kidnapped her own father and was trying to frame Leslie at the airport, I don't know.

The scene ends with a moment of Columbo comedy: he is presented the bill at the airport bar for their two drinks, totaling under $2, but has no money on him other than the ransom money. Since it is evidence, he has to have them bill the police department. COMEDY!

This is my own opinion: Despite the weird editing during the murder and her flashbacks to the murder, it's kind of a boring clunker. Was Columbo's appearance in Prescription Murder that much of a bully, and thus they toned him down? Was this the creators' original intention of the character, or did the powers that and/or Falk himself suggest a more blue collar approach that matched his shabby appearance, while allowing the character to be more bumbling beyond the persona he wishes to disarm his opponents with, to make him more genuine and relatable?

Well, it worked, because that's the Columbo we know, and though I'm grateful it was established here, the pacing of the story (forgive the long synopsis, but I typed to match how long I felt this episode went on for), the overacting of Margaret, and the weird editing doesn't endear this episode to me. I've been spectacularly busy since the last post and haven't had time until recently to pick this project up again....or was it THIS episode, sandwiched between the interesting pilot and Steven Spielberg's amazing episode?

I didn't think it was that interesting the first time I saw it, and was probably not enthused to watch it again. I promise these posts will be produced faster as not only have I met most of my project requirements that keep me from writing such frivolous commentaries on Columbo, but that the episodes in this season alone bury this one to the point of it being almost forgotten.

At least in my opinion. I FOUND IT TO BE A BORE.

Just a few more things:
-First appearance of Bert, played by Timothy Carey. I'm sure you will recognize him from several other shows in the 60's, 70's, and 80's; I recognize him from the Monkees movie HEAD. He will show up serving chili in future episodes.

-Cousin Ralph is the first relative mentioned, beyond Columbo's wife of course.

-I really think they botched it with the whole ransom bag thing. Columbo is the only one suspicious that she provided her own ransom bag? And then was left alone to switch it out? A cop could have held on to it outside the room while she changed. The other things that Columbo is suspicious of would certainly give other investigators red flags, particularly in whether she had "the means," such as recordings of her husband that could be manipulated to sound like he was kidnapped, and "the means" to have this recording played back over the phone, like with her automated phone...oh, you get the idea.

-...plus, a day, or two, maybe even THREE have passed since she shot her husband and his body was found. Even if she threw the body into the ocean, it would be late evening the next day before they got the (fake) ransom call. An autopsy can't show that he had been dead well before that phone call?

-Barbara Stanwyck's MO in Double Indemnity: she was the old guy's wife's nurse, the wife died suddenly and possibly at the hands of Stanwyck, Stanwyck has her old husband killed, the old guy's daughter suspects  Stanwyck. You know, the movie Double Indemnity, which Margaret is watching in the kitchen.

-Only one victim. Leslie was too busy flying Columbo around to plot anything on Margaret.

-Columbo shows up really early. Count on his physical presence, but little involvement, when there is a kidnapping or police protection.