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Negative Reaction
Russian title: Смерть в объективе · Russian version
A celebrated photographer murders his wife, fakes a kidnapping, and frames an ex-convict for both. Dick Van Dyke, cast entirely against type, gives one of the series' best performances as a man whose public warmth is a working tool.
Editor’s rating — 9.5 out of 10.
- Number
- 27 of 69
- Aired
- October 6, 1974
- Running time
- 91 min
- Director
- Alf Kjellin
- Writer
- Peter S. Fischer
- Music
- Bernardo Segall
The case
- The killer
- Dick Van Dyke as Paul Galesko
- The victim
- Antoinette Bower as Frances Galesko and Don Gordon as Alvin Deschler
- Guest cast
- Dick Van Dyke, Larry Storch, Antoinette Bower, Don Gordon, JoAnna Cameron, David Sheiner
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 Galesko is a Pulitzer-winning photojournalist, admired everywhere, and privately married to a woman who humiliates him in front of anyone available. The marriage is unbearable and the money is hers, which rules out the ordinary exit.
His plan is built on his own profession. He stages a kidnapping, has his wife photographed as a hostage in a derelict ranch, then kills her there — and photographs the scene himself, because the photograph is the alibi. He then recruits Alvin Deschler, a parolee desperate for work, to collect the ransom, and shoots him too, arranging it so that Deschler appears to be the kidnapper killed while resisting arrest.
Two bodies, one frame, and a public grieving from a man everybody likes. It is the most complete plan of the fourth season.
Paul Galesko is admired everywhere and humiliated at home. His wife's money built his career and she reminds him of it in front of other people, which the film establishes in two scenes without labouring the point.
The plan uses his own profession twice over. He stages a kidnapping, photographs his wife as a hostage at a derelict ranch, and then kills her there — so that the photograph proving she was alive is the same photograph proving where he was not.
Alvin Deschler is recruited to collect the ransom because he is a parolee who needs work and will not be believed. Galesko kills him too and arranges it as a kidnapper shot during arrest. Two bodies, one frame, and a public grieving from a man everyone likes.
How Columbo gets him
Galesko's charm is the film's engine. He is generous with Columbo, interested in him, endlessly patient — and the more decent he is, the more clearly something is wrong, because nobody whose wife has just been murdered is this available.
The photograph is where it breaks. Galesko took a picture of his wife alive at the ranch, and photographs contain more information than the person taking them intends: light, shadow, position, the state of the room.
Columbo, who does not understand cameras, has the picture explained to him by people who do. The explanation establishes that whoever pressed the shutter was standing in a place the kidnapper could not have been, at a time the photographer says he was elsewhere.
Galesko's charm is the film's engine, and it is what makes Columbo suspicious. Nobody whose wife has just been murdered is this available, this patient or this interested in a policeman's problems.
The photograph is where it breaks. Pictures carry more information than the person taking them intends: light, shadow, position, the state of a room. Columbo, who understands nothing about cameras, has it explained by people who do.
The subplot with Sister Mary — who mistakes the lieutenant for a homeless man at a shelter and cannot be talked out of it — is the funniest sustained sequence in the series and does not slow the case down at all.
Worth knowing
- Dick Van Dyke took the role specifically to play against his comic image, and later called it one of his favourite jobs.
- The film's other pleasure is Sister Mary, the nun who mistakes Columbo for a homeless man at a shelter and cannot be persuaded otherwise.
- Directed by Alf Kjellin, who made five episodes of the series.
- Dick Van Dyke took the part specifically to work against his comic image and later called it a favourite job.
- The episode has the highest joke density of any film in the run, and none of it dilutes the plot.
- Directed by Alf Kjellin; broadcast October 1974.
Verdict
One of the very best. The plot is airtight, the clue is genuinely clever, and Van Dyke's performance is a lesson in how likeability can be a weapon.
It also has the highest joke density of any episode in the run, mostly at Columbo's expense, and none of it dilutes the tension.
One of the very best. Airtight plot, a genuinely clever photographic clue, and a lesson in how likeability can be used as a weapon.
It is also the strongest argument for the fourth season being the show's peak: three of its six films are in any reasonable top ten.
What the people who made it said
Van Dyke was known for musicals and comedy, and a calculating murderer looked like a complete change of register. He thinks that is precisely why they wanted him.
“I can see why they wanted me, because nobody would think I would ever murder anybody.”
The shoot for a serious film turned out to be one long practical joke. Falk, who lost an eye as a child, greeted his co-star at the door in a rather particular state.
“I knocked on the door and he opened it — he had taken his false eye out and stuck a Kleenex in there. He broke me up, and he pulled things like that all day long.”
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.
- Vito Scotti as Thomas Dolan 6 episodes also in Any Old Port in a Storm, Candidate for Crime, Swan Song, Identity Crisis, Murder, A Self Portrait
- Harvey Gold as Harry Lewis 3 episodes also in Forgotten Lady, A Case of Immunity
- Bill Zuckert as Captain Sampson 3 episodes also in A Case of Immunity, Murder in Malibu
- Joyce Van Patten as Sister of Mercy 2 episodes also in Old Fashioned Murder
- Alice Backes as Mrs. Moyland 2 episodes also in A Trace of Murder
Cast data from TMDB, including uncredited bit parts. All the familiar faces →