PLOT: Peter Falk's close friend John Cassavetes guest stars as Alex Benedict, a conductor who murders his mistress. He lives a lavish expensive lifestyle, largely because his mother in law is a wealthy woman who owns the orchestra he conducts in. If she found out that he was having an affair she would sack him from the orchestra and make him penniless. Therefore Benedict devises a scheme to put his bit on the side Jennifer Wells, who works for him, out of the way. He puts his car in the garage for the night (shades of Death lends a hand) and that evening sneaks into the garage (he has left a window open) and drives his car to Jennifer's apartment. Then he clubs her over the head with an ashtray and sets it up to look like suicide. He leaves a suicide note in the typewriter. Then he arrives back at the concert hall just before the concert is about to start and no one is any the wiser. By the time the concert is over the body has been discovered and Columbo is soon on the scene. He begins to suspect Benedict when he pays a visit to the garage and finds that the mileage (which they routinely check when the car comes in) has 9 miles more on it than when it came in. He is also suspicious when the mechanic tells him there didn't appear to be anything wrong with Benedict's car. Columbo does his usual act of turning up pestering the victim but can not find a romantic link between Benedict and Wells. He befriends a little girl who was a good friend of Jennifer's. She tells him that Jennifer was seeing a man, and she saw that man leave his apartment on the day of the murder. Columbo then brings the girl to the concert hall and expects the girl to identify Benedict. However, she points out trumpeter Paul Rifkind instead. Paul admits that he had been madly in love with Wells, but that she had fallen for another man, though he didn't know who the man was. Columbo suspects Benedict but has no proof. He knows the suicide note must have a fraud because the keys didn't align with the paper. Then he sees the tape of the concert while he's at the vets where his dog is having a check-up (this is the first episode in which Dog appears.) They repeated the previous weekend's concert midweek. Then Columbo remembers something he heard about Benedict always wearing a flower when he conducts. He sees that on the night of the murder he wasn't wearing a flower during the concert. Then he remembers that Benedict picked up a flower in Wells' apartment on the night of the murder, claiming that he'd knocked it off his jacket. Columbo realises that it must have fallen off earlier, when Benedict had killed Wells, and the video footage of the concert (without flower) and a news report of him coming out of Wells' house (with flower) proves (in Columbo's eyes) that Benedict was the killer.
VERDICT:
This is a good episode with a fine villain. There are good supporting performances from Blythe Danner as Mrs. Benedict and Myrna Loy as her mother. Although the plot is good in the main, it is annoying that Columbo just happens to be at the vets, who just happened to be a fan of classical music, at the time of both the live broadcast and the midweek showing of the concert. That's stretching credibility too far. Also the flower is not the strongest evidence in the world, though better than some cases Columbo has investigated over the years.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Alex Benedict......John Cassavetes
Janice Benedict......Blythe Danner
Lizzy Fielding...........Myrna Loy
Paul Rifkin............James Olson
Mike Alexander..........Don Knight
Jennifer Welles....Anjanette Comer
Audrey..................Dawn Frame
Billy...............James McEachin
