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The case

The killer

José Ferrer as Marshall Cahill

The victim

Lew Ayres as Howard Nicholson

Guest cast

José Ferrer, Robert Walker Jr., Lou Wagner, Lew Ayres, Lee Montgomery, William Christopher

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

Marshall Cahill runs the Cahill Institute, a research organisation with military contracts and a reputation built substantially on ideas that were not his. Howard Nicholson, a researcher, has evidence that a key piece of work was plagiarised from a man who died before he could publish.

Cahill kills him at his home and stages a robbery. The alibi is the interesting part: at the time of the murder he was, on the record, at the institute, where a security system and an automated demonstration were running — technology providing the witness a person could not.

The film's oddest element is his son Steve, a child prodigy who is used, without fully understanding it, as part of the cover. The episode is careful about this: Cahill is a murderer who is also, unmistakably, a proud father, and the two facts sit next to each other without resolving.

The Cahill Institute does defence research, and its reputation rests substantially on work its director did not do. Marshall Cahill has built a career on a colleague's ideas, and the colleague is dead and cannot object.

Howard Nicholson can. He has the evidence of the plagiarism and intends to publish it, which would take the institute, the contracts and the reputation with it.

Cahill kills him at home and stages a robbery. The alibi is technological: at the time of the murder an automated demonstration was running at the institute, with a security system to confirm his presence. Machines vouch for him where a person could not.

How Columbo gets him

Columbo in a robotics laboratory is the comic engine of the episode: he is delighted by everything, asks the machines questions, and treats a remote-controlled robot with more courtesy than he shows most suspects.

The mechanical alibi is also the weakness. Systems log things. If a demonstration ran at a certain time, something recorded it running, and the record can be checked against the man who was supposedly present.

The evidence that closes it is domestic and small. A detail at the murder scene — something disturbed, something moved — is inconsistent with the robbery story and consistent with somebody who knew the house.

Columbo in a robotics laboratory is the comic engine of the film. He talks to the machines, apologises to them, and treats a remote-controlled robot with more courtesy than he shows most suspects.

The mechanical alibi is also its weakness, because systems keep logs. If a demonstration ran at a stated time, something recorded it, and the record can be checked against the man who was supposedly watching.

The father-and-son material is what lifts the episode. Steve Cahill is a genuine prodigy being used, without understanding it, as part of his father's cover — and Cahill is a murderer who is also, unmistakably, proud of him.

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Worth knowing

• Despite the Russian title used by some broadcasters, Steven Spielberg has nothing to do with this episode; he directed Murder by the Book two years earlier.
• José Ferrer, an Oscar winner, plays Cahill with genuine tenderness towards the son who is being used as an alibi.
• Robby the Robot, from Forbidden Planet, makes an appearance in the laboratory scenes.
• Despite the title used by some Russian broadcasters, Steven Spielberg had nothing to do with this film; he directed Murder by the Book two years earlier.
• Robby the Robot, from Forbidden Planet, appears in the laboratory scenes.
• José Ferrer, an Oscar winner, plays Cahill; broadcast February 1974.

Verdict

Dated in its technology and slightly overstuffed, but the father-and-son material gives it more weight than the plot deserves. Ferrer is very good at playing a man whose worst act is protecting the wrong reputation.

The laboratory comedy is also some of Falk's most relaxed work — he plays curiosity as a tactic and as a character trait at the same time.

Dated in its technology and overstuffed with plot, but the relationship at its centre gives it more weight than the mechanics deserve.

It also contains some of Falk's most relaxed comic work — curiosity played simultaneously as a tactic and as a character trait.

Familiar faces

Actors who turn up in the series more than once — sometimes in very different parts.

• Mike Lally as Scientist8 episodesalso in Requiem for a Falling Star, Double Exposure, Swan Song, A Friend in Deed, Troubled Waters and 2 more
• Dianne Turley Travis as Lady Scientist4 episodesalso in Double Exposure, A Friend in Deed, Death Hits the Jackpot
• Charles Macaulay as Farnsworth3 episodesalso in Ransom for a Dead Man, Etude in Black
• Dennis Robertson as Reporter #13 episodesalso in Double Exposure, An Exercise in Fatality
• Ray Ballard as 2nd Reporter3 episodesalso in Suitable for Framing, The Most Dangerous Match
• Darrell Zwerling as Motel Manager2 episodesalso in An Exercise in Fatality
• William Bryant as Fields2 episodesalso in Requiem for a Falling Star
• Jefferson Kibbee as Jeff2 episodesalso in Swan Song
• Deidre Hall as Receptionist2 episodesalso in Columbo Cries Wolf
• Don Diamond as Portland Desk Clerk2 episodesalso in Candidate for Crime

Cast data from TMDB, including uncredited bit parts. All the familiar faces →