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The case

The killer

Jack Cassidy as Stefan Mueller

The victim

Nehemiah Persoff as Jesse Jerome

Guest cast

Jack Cassidy, Cynthia Sikes, Robert Loggia, Bob Dishy, Nehemiah Persoff, George Sperdakos

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.

6:28

The murder

The Great Santini is the headline act at a Los Angeles nightclub. His real name is Stefan Mueller, he served in the SS, and he entered the country illegally — facts that the club's owner, Jesse Jerome, has discovered and is monetising.

Mueller's answer is a magic trick. During his act he performs an escape that removes him from the audience's view for a matter of minutes; he uses those minutes to leave the theatre through a route only he knows, kill Jerome in the office upstairs, and return to the stage in time for the reveal.

The alibi is watertight in the strongest sense available: several hundred people were watching him the entire time, and the show was filmed.

Stefan Mueller's whole life is a false document. He served in the SS, entered the country illegally, and built a career as The Great Santini on the assumption that nobody would ever check.

Jesse Jerome, who owns the club, has checked. The blackmail is not about money but about ownership — Jerome wants a permanent claim on the act, and Mueller understands that the demand will never stop.

The murder is a trick. During the escape illusion the magician is out of the audience's sight for a few minutes; he uses them to leave the stage by a route only he knows, kill Jerome in the office, and return for the reveal. Several hundred people watch him do it without seeing anything.

How Columbo gets him

Cassidy plays Mueller as a performer first and a murderer second, and the episode gets a great deal of pleasure out of Columbo's genuine delight in magic. He wants to know how the tricks work; Mueller, who cannot resist an audience, keeps showing him just a little.

The film of the act is the problem and the solution. It proves Mueller was on stage; it also, examined closely enough, shows the joins — because a trick that hides a man from an audience must also hide him from a camera, and cameras record more than audiences notice.

The lieutenant's route in is the timing of the act itself. Live performance runs to the second, and any deviation is measurable by people who work backstage every night.

Columbo's genuine delight in magic is the way in. He wants to know how the tricks work, and Mueller, who has spent thirty years wanting to be asked, keeps showing him one more thing than he should.

The filmed performance both proves and disproves the alibi. It establishes that the magician was on stage; examined closely, it also shows the joins, because a trick that hides a man from an audience has to hide him from a camera too.

The office is the other half. Live performance runs to the second, and the backstage staff who work the act every night can say precisely how long the illusion takes.

5:20

Worth knowing

• Sergeant Wilson returns from The Greenhouse Jungle, now inexplicably given a different first name, and is once again more enthusiastic than useful.
• Cassidy died the year after this episode aired; it was his last appearance in the series he had helped define.
• The escape illusion at the centre of the plot was designed with a working stage magician as consultant.
• Sergeant Wilson returns from The Greenhouse Jungle, given a different first name for no stated reason — Frederick in one film, John J. in this one.
• Jack Cassidy died the year after broadcast; this was his last of three appearances as a Columbo murderer.
• The escape illusion was designed with a working stage magician as consultant; broadcast May 1976.

Verdict

The strongest of Cassidy's three and one of the best alibis the series ever constructed. A murder committed in front of an audience is a genuinely difficult problem, and the solution is fair.

It is also his warmest performance — Mueller is a monster with a real past, and Cassidy plays the fear under the showmanship.

The best of Cassidy's three and one of the strongest alibis the series ever built. A murder committed in front of a paying audience is a genuinely hard problem, and the solution is fair.

It is also his warmest performance. Mueller has a real past and real fear underneath the showmanship, which none of Cassidy's other Columbo villains were given.

What the people who made it said

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.

• Mike Lally as Michael Lally8 episodesalso in Requiem for a Falling Star, Double Exposure, Mind Over Mayhem, Swan Song, A Friend in Deed and 2 more
• Bob Harks as Waiter4 episodesalso in A Stitch in Crime, Any Old Port in a Storm, A Case of Immunity
• Jack Cassidy as The Great Santini3 episodesalso in Murder by the Book, Publish or Perish
• Victor Izay as Lassiter3 episodesalso in An Exercise in Fatality, Fade in to Murder
• Bob Dishy as John Wilson2 episodesalso in The Greenhouse Jungle
• George Sperdakos as Thackery2 episodesalso in The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case
• Redmond Gleeson as George Thomas2 episodesalso in A Deadly State of Mind
• Robert Gibbons as Rogers2 episodesalso in Blueprint for Murder
• Dorothy Dells as Secretary2 episodesalso in Fade in to Murder

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