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A Stitch in Crime
Russian title: Звено в преступлении · Russian version
A heart surgeon murders his own research partner in the middle of an operation, using dissolving suture on a man he has just repaired. Leonard Nimoy plays him as pure clinical intelligence, and it is the coldest murder in the series.
Editor’s rating — 9 out of 10.
- Number
- 15 of 69
- Aired
- February 11, 1973
- Running time
- 70 min
- Director
- Hy Averback
- Writer
- Shirl Hendryx
- Music
- Billy Goldenberg
The case
- The killer
- Leonard Nimoy as Barry Mayfield
- The victim
- Anne Francis as Sharon Martin and Jared Martin as Harry Alexander
- Guest cast
- Leonard Nimoy, Aneta Corsaut, Anne Francis, Nita Talbot, Will Geer, Jared Martin
Columbo is an inverted mystery: the murder opens the film and the killer is known from the first minutes. What you are watching for is how he proves it — see how the character works.
The murder
Dr Barry Mayfield and Dr Edmund Hidemann have developed a heart drug together, and the credit — and the money — is about to be published under both names. Hidemann has discovered that Mayfield falsified data, and intends to withdraw the paper and expose him.
Mayfield's answer is the most audacious in the run. Operating on Hidemann himself, he closes an incision using suture designed to dissolve, so that his partner's heart will fail days later, at home, in front of witnesses, with no surgeon anywhere near him. It is a murder committed inside a hospital with a room full of medical staff watching and seeing nothing.
When a nurse notices the wrong material on the tray, he kills her with a tyre iron and stages a mugging. The contrast is the point: the doctor's murder is invisible, and the ordinary one he has to improvise is brutal and clumsy.
Mayfield and Hidemann have developed a heart drug together, and the paper is about to be published under both names. Hidemann has found that Mayfield falsified the data and intends to withdraw it.
The murder is the most audacious in the run. Operating on Hidemann himself, Mayfield closes the incision with suture designed to dissolve, so that his partner's heart will fail days later, at home, with no surgeon anywhere near him.
When a nurse notices the wrong material on the tray, he kills her with a tyre iron and stages a mugging. The contrast is the point: the doctor's murder is invisible, and the ordinary one he has to improvise is brutal.
How Columbo gets him
Mayfield never once pretends to respect Columbo, and the film is better for it. Where most murderers perform charm, he performs impatience — the surgeon's certainty that anyone outside medicine is functionally a child. His answers are technically true and designed to end conversations.
The lieutenant's advantage is that he does not need to understand cardiology; he needs to understand people. He notices that the nurse's death is too convenient, that Mayfield's account of the operation is complete in a way that accounts of operations are not, and that a man who is furious about being questioned is a man who expects to be questioned.
The tension in the last act is unusual for the series: Hidemann is still alive, in a hospital bed, dying on a schedule his partner set. Columbo is not just proving a murder, he is trying to stop one that is still in progress.
Mayfield never pretends to respect Columbo, and the film is better for it. Where most murderers perform charm, he performs impatience — the surgeon's certainty that anyone outside medicine is a child.
The lieutenant does not need to understand cardiology, only people. The nurse's death is too convenient, Mayfield's account of the operation is complete in a way real accounts are not, and a man furious about being questioned is a man expecting it.
The last act is unusual for the series: Hidemann is alive, in a hospital bed, dying on a schedule his partner set. Columbo is not only proving a murder, he is trying to stop one in progress.
Worth knowing
- Leonard Nimoy filmed this between Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, and later called Mayfield one of the least sympathetic characters he ever played.
- The medical procedure was staged with consultants, and Nimoy learned the movements well enough that the surgical scenes hold up.
- Anne Francis plays the nurse whose attention to detail kills her — a small role that the episode treats with unusual seriousness.
- Leonard Nimoy filmed this between Star Trek and Mission: Impossible and later called Mayfield one of the least sympathetic characters he ever played.
- The surgical scenes were staged with medical consultants and hold up on rewatching.
- Anne Francis plays the nurse whose attention to detail kills her; broadcast February 1973.
Verdict
The best episode of the second season and one of the top handful overall. The murder method is the cleverest the series devised, and Nimoy gives the show its most genuinely chilling villain: a man who kills the way he operates, without emotion and without hesitation.
It is also the rare Columbo where the stakes are live. Most films begin after everything has already happened; this one has a clock running through it.
The best episode of the second season and one of the top handful overall. The method is the cleverest the series devised, and Nimoy gives the show its most genuinely chilling villain.
It is also the rare Columbo where the stakes are live. Most films begin after everything has happened; this one has a clock running through it.
What the people who made it said
Nimoy was under contract to Universal without a series of his own and was wary of being stuck in guest villain parts. Columbo, though, he did not turn down.
“I told Sid Sheinberg that I didn't mind doing a Columbo, but I didn't want to come out of the studio as the killer of the year. I had a great time working with Peter Falk. I found him a challenging and delicious actor to work with.”
Quotes are in the speaker’s own words — from a transcript of the recording, or from the printed source. Players open at the right minute. Everything is shortened; the full version is in the source.
Familiar faces
Actors who turn up in the series more than once — sometimes in very different parts.
- Bob Harks as Policeman 4 episodes also in Any Old Port in a Storm, A Case of Immunity, Now You See Him
- Anne Francis as Sharon Martin 2 episodes also in Short Fuse
Cast data from TMDB, including uncredited bit parts. All the familiar faces →