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Lovely But Lethal
Russian title: Жертва красоты · Russian version
A cosmetics tycoon kills the chemist who developed her wrinkle cream and threatened to sell it elsewhere. Vera Miles plays a woman whose business is selling youth to other women while running out of it herself.
Editor’s rating — 6.5 out of 10.
- Number
- 18 of 69
- Aired
- September 23, 1973
- Running time
- 70 min
- Director
- Jeannot Szwarc
- Writer
- Myrna Bercovici / Jackson Gillis
- Music
- Dick DeBenedictis
The case
- The killer
- Vera Miles as Viveca Scott
- The victim
- Martin Sheen as Karl Lessing and Sian Barbara Allen as Shirley Blaine
- Guest cast
- Vera Miles, Martin Sheen, Vincent Price, Sian Barbara Allen, Bruce Kirby, Gino Conforti
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
Viveca Scott built her cosmetics empire on presentation, and the empire is now in trouble: her rival is winning, and the only thing that can save her is a genuine breakthrough. Her chemist, Karl Lessing, has one — a cream that actually works — and has decided to sell it to the competition.
The confrontation at his laboratory turns physical, and she kills him with a microscope. It is not planned, and the mess reflects that. She takes the formula, cleans what she can, and leaves.
The second death is the calculated one. Shirley Blaine, an employee who works out what happened, tries blackmail and is killed with a poisoned face cream — a murder committed with the company's own product, which is either irony or advertising.
Viveca Scott's company sells the promise of youth, and she is losing the ability to embody it. Her rival is winning, her sales are falling, and the only thing that can turn it around is a product that genuinely works.
Karl Lessing has developed one, and he has decided to sell it to the competition. The confrontation in his laboratory is not planned and not controlled: she kills him with a microscope, takes the notes, and leaves in a state that shows in every subsequent scene.
The second murder is the calculated one. Shirley Blaine works out what happened and asks for money, and Viveca kills her with a poisoned jar of the company's own cream — a product designed to be trusted, used as a weapon.
How Columbo gets him
Columbo spends much of the episode in the world of cosmetics counters and product launches, which the script uses for comedy and for something sharper: everyone Viveca employs is selling a promise nobody believes, including her.
The physical evidence starts with poison ivy. The killer picked up a rash at the laboratory, and Viveca has been scratching her hand throughout, explaining it away as an allergy to her own products.
The lieutenant's questions circle the missing formula rather than the missing man, because the formula is the only thing in this world with real value. Once he establishes that the notes left the laboratory, the list of people who would know what they were worth is very short.
The cosmetics world gives the film its satire, and the satire is sharper than the mystery: launches, counters, promises nobody believes, and a founder who has stopped believing them first.
Columbo notices the hand before anything else. Viveca has been scratching a rash she blames on her own products, and poison ivy grows where Lessing worked.
The formula does the rest. Notes that valuable leave a trail, and the list of people who understood what they were worth is very short.
Worth knowing
- Martin Sheen appears in an early role as the chemist's assistant.
- Vera Miles had worked extensively with Hitchcock, and the episode's interest in the gap between a woman's public image and private state is very much in that tradition.
- One of the few episodes with two murders where the second is more coldly executed than the first.
- Martin Sheen appears in an early role as the chemist's assistant.
- Vera Miles had worked repeatedly with Hitchcock, and the episode's interest in the gap between a woman's public image and her private state sits squarely in that tradition.
- Broadcast in January 1973.
Verdict
Middling as a puzzle, better as a portrait. The industry satire is sharper than the mystery, and Miles plays exhaustion rather than villainy.
The poison ivy is a good clue precisely because it is undignified: the woman who sells flawless skin is undone by a rash she cannot hide.
Middling as a puzzle and rather good as a portrait. Miles plays exhaustion rather than villainy, and the industry material is the most cynical the series ever got about advertising.
The poison ivy is a fine clue precisely because it is undignified: the woman who sells flawless skin is caught by a rash she cannot cover.
Familiar faces
Actors who turn up in the series more than once — sometimes in very different parts.
- John Finnegan as Sergeant 12 episodes also in Blueprint for Murder, The Most Dangerous Match, A Friend in Deed, Last Salute to the Commodore, Fade in to Murder and 6 more
- Bruce Kirby as Sergeant Kramer 8 episodes also in By Dawn’s Early Light, A Deadly State of Mind, Identity Crisis, Last Salute to the Commodore, Make Me a Perfect Murder and 2 more
- Bruce Kirby as Lab Attendant 8 episodes also in By Dawn’s Early Light, A Deadly State of Mind, Identity Crisis, Last Salute to the Commodore, Make Me a Perfect Murder and 2 more
- Fred Draper as Murcheson 4 episodes also in A Deadly State of Mind, Last Salute to the Commodore, Fade in to Murder
- Richard Stahl as Burton (as Dick Stahl) 3 episodes also in The Most Crucial Game, Double Exposure
Cast data from TMDB, including uncredited bit parts. All the familiar faces →