Distributor: Universal
Home Entertainment
Region 4 | NTSC | 12 hours and 5 minutes Extras: No
ANYONE
IN IT WE KNOW?
Peter
Falk, Robert Culp, Ray Milland, Eddie Albert, Suzanne Pleshette, Don
Ameche, Leslie Neilson
WHAT’S
IT ABOUT THEN?
Crumpled
of coat and furrowed of brow
police lieutenant Columbo
investigates a series of murder
cases, the twist being that we
know the identity of the killer
right from the start having fun
as we watch the dogged Columbo
tracking down his killer.
SO
IS IT ANY GOOD?
Having
been created some ten years before (appearing in an episode of the Chevy
Mystery Show with Bert Freed as Columbo) it took show creators Richard
Levinson and William Link quite a while to persuade the NBC network that
a series was a viable option, luckily for us NBC gave the green light,
this five disc set from Universal pulls together the two pilot episodes
(Prescription: Murder from 1967 and Ransom For A Dead Man from 1971) and
the seven episodes that made up the first series. Starting out as part
of NBC’s Sunday Mystery Movie Series the episodes are all feature
length allowing plenty of room for character development, very
entertaining Columbo always attracted a high quality level of guest
stars this first series including the likes of, Ray Milland, Eddie
Albert, Suzanne Pleshette, Don Ameche, Leslie Neilson.
Falk
more than makes the character of Columbo his own, he totally inhabits
him, Columbo without Falk would be unthinkable. Columbo has entered the
TV Hall of Fame as one of TV’s great detective characters and these
earliest episodes show us why.
