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Murder Under Glass
Russian title: Яд от дегустатора · Russian version
A restaurant critic poisons the partner who is about to expose him for extortion, using a bottle of wine and a trick of the glass. The most food-obsessed episode of the series, and the one where Columbo cooks.
Editor’s rating — 8 out of 10.
- Number
- 42 of 69
- Aired
- January 30, 1978
- Running time
- 73 min
- Director
- Jonathan Demme
- Writer
- Robert Van Scoyk
The case
- The killer
- Louis Jourdan as Paul Gerard
- The victim
- Michael V. Gazzo as Vittorio Rossi
- Guest cast
- Louis Jourdan, Richard Dysart, Mako, France Nuyen, Larry D. Mann, Michael V. Gazzo
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
Paul Gerard is the most influential restaurant critic in Los Angeles and has been using that influence as a protection racket: favourable reviews in exchange for a share of the business. Vittorio Rossi, a restaurateur and his partner in a food import venture, has decided to go public.
Gerard poisons him at a private dinner. The mechanism is the elegance of the episode: the poison is in the glass rather than the bottle, so that both men drink from the same wine and only one of them dies. He then pours away the evidence in front of a room full of witnesses, as any host would.
It is a murder committed with the tools of connoisseurship, by a man whose palate is the only thing he genuinely respects.
Paul Gerard's power is entirely reputational. A favourable review fills a restaurant; an unfavourable one empties it. He has been converting that into cash for years, and the restaurateurs who pay him have no way to complain without admitting they paid.
Vittorio Rossi is his partner in a food import business and has decided to stop. He intends to say publicly what everyone in the trade knows privately, and Gerard cannot survive it.
The murder is a piece of connoisseurship. The poison goes into the glass rather than the bottle, so that both men drink the same wine in front of witnesses and only one dies. Then Gerard pours the remains away, as any host would, and the evidence goes down a sink.
How Columbo gets him
Gerard's condescension is culinary. He explains food to Columbo, orders for him, corrects his pronunciation, and treats the lieutenant's evident appetite as further proof of his coarseness. Columbo eats everything and asks for the recipes.
The poison is traced quickly; the delivery is the problem. Everyone saw both men drink the same wine, and the bottle tests clean. Columbo keeps returning to the mechanics of the table — who poured, who handed, which glass went where.
The climax is the series' best use of food: Columbo cooks a meal for Gerard himself, in Rossi's kitchen, and serves it with a bottle he has prepared in exactly the way the critic did.
The condescension is culinary and relentless: Gerard orders for Columbo, corrects his pronunciation, and treats his appetite as proof of a coarse nature. Columbo eats everything and asks for recipes.
The poison is identified quickly and the delivery is the puzzle. Everybody saw both men drink from the same bottle, and the bottle is clean.
The lieutenant works the mechanics of the table — who poured, who handed which glass, who cleared. The answer is that the murderer prepared one glass in advance, and the only way to prove it is to make him confront the same trick.
Worth knowing
- Louis Jourdan plays Gerard with the exact quality of practised European superiority the part needs.
- This is one of the episodes where Columbo speaks Italian, contradicting a later film in which he claims never to have learned it.
- Directed by Jonathan Demme, twelve years before The Silence of the Lambs.
- Louis Jourdan plays Gerard with exactly the practised European superiority the part needs.
- This is one of the episodes in which Columbo speaks Italian, contradicting a later film where he says he never learned it.
- Directed by Jonathan Demme, twelve years before The Silence of the Lambs; broadcast January 1978.
Verdict
Very enjoyable, and one of the best endings in the run: the murderer is defeated not by evidence but by his own refusal to drink something he knows is poisoned.
The class comedy is at its purest here. Gerard's contempt is entirely about taste, and the lieutenant's revenge is to cook better than he expected.
One of the best endings in the series: the murderer is beaten not by evidence but by refusing to drink something he knows is poisoned.
The class comedy is at its purest here too. Gerard's contempt is entirely about taste, and the lieutenant's answer is to cook for him.
Familiar faces
Actors who turn up in the series more than once — sometimes in very different parts.
- Shera Danese as Eve Plummer 6 episodes also in Fade in to Murder, Murder, A Self Portrait, Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star, Undercover, A Trace of Murder
- Todd Martin as Sergeant Burke 2 episodes also in The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case
Cast data from TMDB, including uncredited bit parts. All the familiar faces →