PLOT: Tommy Brown is an ex-con and singer. His wife Edna has found out some dirt on his past. Their marriage has been unhappy for years so Tommy decides to do away with Edna. He, Edna and one of Edna's religious friends who sings backing vocals in his group are going on a flight that evening. Tommy has prepared a parachute and places it in his map case. He prepares some coffee laced with sleeping pills for the journey. He takes them aboard the plain for their flight to Los Angeles. Edna and the girl drink the coffee and are soon sound asleep. Then Tommy throws the coffee out of the window. He affixes the parachute to himself and jumps out of the plane, leaving the plane to crash some distance ahead. Tommy lands and injures his leg. He folds up the parachute and hides it in a dead treetrunk. He then heads to the fire, where the plane is burning and tumbles down the hill to the edge of the clearing. He has made it look as if the crash was an accident and he was a survivor but his brother in law is convinced it's foul play and calls in homicide to investigate. Columbo immediately spots a few strange things. The map case has no ashes in it, leading him to believe there were no maps in it. It is strange that Tommy survived the crash as the pilot and the passengers didn't. This is unusual. Tommy says the maps blew out of the window of the plane and he doesn't know where the coffee flask went. Columbo is still unconvinced and an autopsy is performed, revealing that both victims were drugged before they died with sleeping pills and their religious beliefs prohibited them from taking sleeping pills. Tommy claims they sometimes took travel sickness pills that had the same affect as sleeping pills. Columbo then digs into Tommy's military past and finds out he was an expert at making parachutes. He goes to the parachute manufacturers and finds 45 foot of fabric is missing. He does a few calculations and discovers that a small parachute could have fitted in the map case. Because of the size of the chute the speed of flight would increase, and it would have meant the user would probably have broken something. Columbo then guesses that Tommy hid the parachute somewhere near the crash site so he sets up a trap. He tells Tommy that the Police are combing the mountain looking for the flask, as he thinks that whoever drugged the coffee may have left his fingerprints on it. Tommy is due to take off on a plane for a tour but Columbo follows him, expecting him to double back from the airport and retrieve the parachute. However, Tommy does take the flight, causing Columbo to be very puzzled. However, he had noticed Tommy had a set of keys. He goes to the hillside and watches as Tommy arrives that night. Tommy retrieves the parachute and Columbo is waiting. He says he guessed that Tommy would take a flight back and retrieve the parachute. Tommy says that Columbo is taking a risk confronting him alone. Columbo says that someone who sings like Tommy does can't be all bad and reckons that Tommy would have confessed anyway sooner or later. This statement is complete rubbish, as Tommy had shown no signs of confessing.
VERDICT:
Legendary singer Johnny Cash puts in a good performance as Tommy Brown, but this episode is not a classic. Columbo does the same old routine of tricking the criminal into retrieving evidence and the final scene is nonsense. Columbo would have to be mad to turn up on the hillside alone. In fact the way Columbo tracks down the parachute clue just isn't believable. This episode would have been better if if the plot had been substantially changed and there were more Columbo verses villain cat and mouse scenes.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Tommy Brown............Johnny Cash
Edna Brown..............Ida Lupino
Roland Pangborn........John Dehner
J J Stringer.........Sorrell Booke
Luke Basket..........Bill McKinney
Mr Grindell............Vito Scotti
Maryann Cobb.......Bonnie Van Dyke
Tina.................Janit Baldwin
The Colonel..........John Randolph
Lady..............Lucille Meredith
