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The case

The killer

Johnny Cash as Tommy Brown

The victim

Ida Lupino as Edna Brown and Bonnie Van Dyke as Maryann Cobb

Guest cast

Johnny Cash, John Dehner, Ida Lupino, Janit Baldwin, Sorrell Booke, Bill McKinney

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.

8:59

The murder

Tommy Brown is a country gospel star with a criminal record, a young mistress and a wife, Edna, who owns him. Edna runs the ministry, controls the money, and holds the statutory rape conviction that would end his career the moment she chose to use it.

The murder is spectacular by the standards of the series. Brown, a trained pilot, drugs Edna and her young singer, flies them into the mountains, sets the aircraft on a course into the terrain, and parachutes out. The wreckage burns, the bodies burn with it, and a grieving widower walks out of the hills the next morning.

It is the most physically committed killing in the run — a man who risks his own life to make two deaths look like an accident of weather and bad luck.

Tommy Brown's ministry is a business, and Edna owns it. She controls the money, the bookings and — through a statutory rape conviction she has kept quiet — the man himself. He is a star who cannot leave.

The murder is the most physically committed in the series. Brown, a trained pilot, drugs Edna and her young protégée, flies them into the mountains, sets the aircraft on a course into the terrain and parachutes out.

The wreck burns and takes the evidence with it. A grieving widower walks out of the hills the next morning, and there is nothing left to examine except a hole in a mountainside.

How Columbo gets him

Columbo's problem is that there is almost nothing left. The crash destroyed the aircraft, the bodies and any obvious evidence, and the survivor's story is consistent with everything the wreck can tell them.

So he works the flight instead. Fuel, weight, altitude, the way the aircraft came down and where the pieces ended up — the physics of a crash are unforgiving, and they do not fit an aeroplane that lost control on its own.

The other line is human. Brown is grieving in public and untroubled in private, and the ministry's money starts moving in ways that suggest a man who expected to inherit. Cash plays these scenes with a stillness that makes the charm underneath them genuinely unsettling.

Columbo's problem is that the crash destroyed everything, and the survivor's account fits what remains. So he works the flight instead: fuel, weight, altitude, the angle of impact and the distribution of the wreckage.

The physics do not describe an aircraft that lost control. They describe one that was aimed.

The human line runs parallel. Brown grieves in public and is untroubled in private, and the ministry's money begins moving in ways that suggest a man who expected to inherit.

10:09

Worth knowing

• Johnny Cash performs several songs in the episode, and the gospel sequences were recorded live rather than mimed.
• Cash's own past — the arrests, the reinvention as a religious performer — sits behind the character in a way the script never mentions and never needs to.
• The chili scene, in which Brown serves Columbo a bowl made from squirrel meat, is one of the most-quoted moments of the series.
• Johnny Cash performs several songs in the film, recorded live rather than mimed.
• Cash's own history — the arrests, the reinvention as a religious performer — sits behind the character without the script ever mentioning it.
• The chili scene, in which Brown feeds Columbo a bowl made from squirrel meat, is among the most quoted moments in the run; broadcast March 1974.

Verdict

One of the great third-season episodes and the best musical casting the show ever did. Cash is not acting outside himself, which is exactly why it works: the warmth is real, and so is the hardness under it.

The murder method is also the most audacious in the run — a man who is willing to jump out of an aeroplane to make his alibi hold.

One of the great third-season films and the best musical casting the series ever did. Cash is not acting far outside himself, which is exactly why it works: the warmth is real and so is the hardness under it.

The method is also the most audacious in the run — a man willing to jump out of an aeroplane to make his alibi hold.

Familiar faces

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

• Mike Lally as TV Cameraman8 episodesalso in Requiem for a Falling Star, Double Exposure, Mind Over Mayhem, A Friend in Deed, Troubled Waters and 2 more
• Vito Scotti as Mr. Grindell6 episodesalso in Any Old Port in a Storm, Candidate for Crime, Negative Reaction, Identity Crisis, Murder, A Self Portrait
• John Dehner as Roland Pangborn2 episodesalso in Last Salute to the Commodore
• Ida Lupino as Edna Brown2 episodesalso in Short Fuse
• Sorrell Booke as J.J. Stringer2 episodesalso in The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case
• Lucille Meredith as Lady2 episodesalso in Candidate for Crime
• Jefferson Kibbee as Frank2 episodesalso in Mind Over Mayhem
• Larry Burrell as TV Reporter2 episodesalso in Candidate for Crime
• Joe Pine as Clerk2 episodesalso in A Case of Immunity
• Norman Stevans as Party Guest2 episodesalso in A Case of Immunity

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