PLOT: Nicholas Frame and Lilian Stanhope are hammy actors who are the leading parts in a stage production of Macbeth in London. Sir Roger Haversham is the promoter of the show. He realises that Lilian's amorous advances to him were in order to manipulate him, so he goes to Lilian's dressing room and tells her and Nicholas that they are finished. He says they won't work in another play again, so Nicholas tries to prevent him leaving. Lilian throws an object at Roger and he is struck down dead. They hide Roger's body in the room and after the play they drive to Roger's house and leave his body at the bottom of the stairs and make the murder look like a suicide. No one had seen Roger while he was at the theatre so Nicholas and Lilian think they have got away with it. However, unfortunately for them, Lieutenant Columbo is on holiday in Britain and assisting Chief Superintendent Durk at Scotland Yard. He begins to suspect foul play and the post mortem confirms the body was moved after death. He begins to suspect Frame and Stanhope. Then they realise that Roger left his umbrella in their dressing room on the night he died and one of the stage cleaners has taken the umbrella and using it as his own. Nicholas manages to get the umbrella off the stage cleaner and calls at Roger's house, where Tanner the butler (Wilfrid Hyde White) tells them that a model of Sir Roger is being exhibited in the London Wax Museum, along with his umbrella. Nicholas and Lilian get into the museum through a convenient open window and switch the umbrellas. On his way to the house Columbo passes a sports car racing past him. He knows Frame owns a sports car and begins to think something fishy is going on. He asks Tanner if anyone had mentioned anything about an umbrella that evening and Tanner lies, saying that he didn't. It becomes clear why Tanner lied the next morning. He is looking for new employment and blackmails Frame into taking him on as a butler. Frame then murders Tanner and makes it look like he hung himself through guilt at murdering Roger. Columbo is unconvinced by this theory. He is due back in Los Angeles later that day, but before he leaves London he heads to the wax museum with Durk and some of his men. Columbo remembered that when he first came to Lilian's dressing room there were beads on the floor from her necklace. Lilian had claimed she and Nicholas had had a fight. However, on inspection of the umbrella a bead rolls out, proving that the umbrella had been in Lilian's dressing room. Then Nicholas pretends to go mad and Lilian panics. Durk suggests to Columbo that the umbrella was a bit of a long shot and Columbo seems to suggest he flicked the bead into the umbrella while they were talking.
VERDICT:
This is a dreadful episode. The characters are not believable. The writers had clearly never spent any time in Britain before they wrote the episode. The awful old fashioned British stereotypes are depicted to such an extreme degree that they appear to almost not be human. Cor blimey stone the crows, it's a fair cop guv', by jove! Anyone who knows London will know that this episode bears no relation to Londoners or Brits in general. Richard Basehart (Frame) and Honor Blackman (Stanhope) are extremely irritating and over the top. This has to go into the Columbo house of horrors.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Nicholas Frame....Richard Basehart
Lilian Stanhope.....Honor Blackman
Tanner..........Wilfrid Hyde-White
Superintendent Durk....Bernard Fox
Sir Roger Haversham..John Williams
Sergeant O'Keefe.......John Fraser
Diver..............Richard Pearson
Joe Fenwick...........Arthur Malet
The Director..........Harvey Jason
Mr Jones...............Ronald Long
