Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

You know - Peter Falk goes after whomever's the richest motherfucker on the block with unerring success...?

I'm catching all the earliest eps on YouTube - so great. Falk was a champ in those movies.

He floored me at the end of "Dial M for Murder" also.

It's weird that I feel like a codger at 35. Old stuff just seems better in every way, these days.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

Part 1 of 10; the second Columbo movie / pilot for the series

Wouldn't it rock if I'd been able to embed the video right in the post? Then you could enjoy it as if you were sitting here in my lap.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
Posts: 18926

We used to be able to embed stuff. Those were the good ol' days.

As for Columbo: Cross eyed failtective.

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The pinnacle of Failbot technology.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

That's exactly what he wants you think, you soulless privileged killer.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

Watch the opening. I don't care what you think of me, you murderous élite Beverly Hills fucks! It's SHEER GENIUS. Falk is your master.

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Registered: Jan 2006
Location: here
Posts: 740

you remind me of my primary-schoolfriend's dad, watching Columbo in a kinda homoerotic mesmerised awe, saying "corr, he's so clever the way he works it all out". he looked like a burst bubble when i told him that it was really the scriptwriters who worked it all out. i don't think he knew.

he had a wandering eye for me after that.

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

I enjoy the styles of that era. He gets to smoke wherever he goes, too. If you click the above link you'll get a chance to see - among other highlights - a really incredible female ass hailing from an era when they knew how to construct such a thing. Highly recommended.

The men I've been attracted to in life are more the tiny, scared, vulnerable, immobilized by drugs a/o chains type. Yob accent = +15 ass-points.

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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Cwesting
Posts: 9099

You're not that old. I remember watching Columbo in first run episodes.
Playing dumb to catch the bad guy was pretty smart.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Boston
Posts: 7349

There's a technique in sales named after him. It's simply getting ready to leave, as he always would when questioning someone, and then turning around with that "one last question" - as if you forgot it the whole time.

I also remember the show. My parents used to watch it, and sometimes I'd watch it with them. I think it was on late and therefore I did not get to stay up most of the time to see it.

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16774

Columbo was fucking annoying shite when it was new. Why would I subject myself to that trite crap a second time around?

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Registered: Jan 2006
Location: here
Posts: 740

probly becoz shite trite crap is sooo addictive. they say.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25521

quote:

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Originally posted by SocialParasite
We used to be able to embed stuff. Those were the good ol' days.

As for Columbo: Cross eyed failtective.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25521

quote:

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Originally posted by SimpleSimon
Columbo was fucking annoying shite when it was new. Why would I subject myself to that trite crap a second time around?

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
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quote:

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Originally posted by Trenchant_Troll
You calling something annoying is like Michael Moore calling someone fat.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25521

I see. Well, while I have your attention and if you have a moment I have one more question about you licking that cat's pubic hairs off the palm of your hand.

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16774

quote:

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Originally posted by Trenchant_Troll
I see. Well, while I have your attention and if you have a moment I have one more question about you licking that cat's pubic hairs off the palm of your hand.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
Posts: 10508

I used to watch Columbo with my parents on the Sunday Night (Mystery) Movie, when it alternated with McCloud (which I despised), and McMillan and Wife, among others. Then more recently the drummer and I rented the series. I love Columbo, but I came to feel that he's really rather cruel and manipulative (either that or I'd watched too many and was sick of them). It's true he's dealing with all these narcissistic rage killers (you'd think there were no other kinds) and they think they're so much smarter than he is, and in theory he has to play to their vanity to catch them, but really he's just a giant spider luring them into his web of deceit to suck their murderous blood. He's subtle, devious, and deadly in his own right. At times I started to think yes, Columbo is almost evil.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25521

quote:

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Originally posted by SimpleSimon
You do?

Are you going to ask it?

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25521

quote:

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Originally posted by ignatz mouse
I used to watch Columbo with my parents on the Sunday Night (Mystery) Movie, when it alternated with McCloud (which I despised), and McMillan and Wife, among others. Then more recently the drummer and I rented the series. I love Columbo, but I came to feel that he's really rather cruel and manipulative (either that or I'd watched too many and was sick of them). It's true he's dealing with all these narcissistic rage killers (you'd think there were no other kinds) and they think they're so much smarter than he is, and in theory he has to play to their vanity to catch them, but really he's just a giant spider luring them into his web of deceit to suck their murderous blood. He's subtle, devious, and deadly in his own right. At times I started to think yes, Columbo is almost evil.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

Rockford Files is best.

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Registered: Dec 2005
Location: uk
Posts: 1469

Did Petrocelli ever finish building his house?

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Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Atlanta GA USA
Posts: 1380

It's true that I picked up the Columbo thing in syndication. It predates my existence by a few years.

While it's true that Rockford Files can enjoy a certain place on that stack of "TV shows that didn't suck that also prove people are stupider today than they were yesterday" - still, I'm afraid, RF is to Columbo as beer is to scotch.

It's true that Columbo is evil; he learns to hide it, over time. He's a different kind of killer from his prey; more exacting in his methods and specific in his tastes (as any connoisseur or addict becomes over time).

His voice, in the original teleplay, gives him away. You could look at the outcome of that first tale as a learning experience for him; he actually asks the psychiatrist how to become better as a killer, and the psychiatrist, already obliviously and firmly impaled on Columbo's hook, tells him.

His narcissism manifests as envy of / hatred for / a sense of superiority to the "upper class" - the rich and the 'cultured'. He gifts his audience with this obsession, as well, and uses this twined loathing to force the viewer to identify with him. Any penniless slob can watch Columbo and feel superior to the wealthy and, educated, famous, etc..

Once he assumes power over them, he sets about the process of killing their lives, if not necessarily their bodies (since he operates in CA, a state that's notoriously squeamish to execute even before abandoning the death penalty - part of his criteria?). The death he inflicts is in many ways more agonizing and full of torments than anything his prey has inflicted on their victims (who usually die immediately, with next to no pain).

As the psychiatrist replies in Prescription: Murder when Columbo asks, "...how do you catch such a killer?" - "You don't."

Watching them in too large of a cluster is bad for the robustness of the formula; I think it's acceptable to miss a lot of them (but it, uh, seems that I've seen them all, or mostly all, but that's easier to understand in my case, with the occasional semi-invalid periods and so forth), really, as long as you hit the important points -

- the original teleplay, the Johnny Cash episode, the Mensa-guy episode, the cultured magician, the one where you find out his boss is actually a frightened little moron that lives in a mixture of awe and fear of this venomous little predator that consistently refuses rightful promotion and outperforms all other homicide detectives -

- you get the picture: he's subtly but horrendously evil; he's hungry for rich-person souls, he uses the state's machinery to get them, he cannot be escaped nor defeated - he is a servant of the devil.

I'm thinking a good croaky deathmetal song about him is in order.

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Registered: Jan 2006
Location: here
Posts: 740

you forgot the one about the german angel who can hear people's thoughts and wants to be mortal so he can sex the mortal girl.

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16774

quote:

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Originally posted by Trenchant_Troll
I'll ask the questions here, mister. How exactly did you get the cat's pubic hair onto the palm of your hand? You never did explain that.

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