PLOT: Lieutenant Columbo has won a cruise in a raffle. He is on the cruise with his wife (who is very camera shy!) when the singer on the cruise Rosanna Wells is murdered in her dressing room. All the evidence points to Rosanna's boyfriend and band member Lloyd Harrington. The body is still warm when Columbo arrives. The letter L was scrawled on the mirror where the victim was sitting, supposedly by her indicating who shot her. A pillow was used to muffle the sound. The murder weapon was found in a laundry room near Harrington's apartment and he even has a receipt for a gun. Columbo is feeling queasy after looking at the body so he goes up to the hospital. He notices the door is locked so bangs on the door and the nurse lets him in. Whilst he is sitting waiting for treatment he notices something on the floor. It is a feather. Then he swallows some revolting substance, which seems to work. He asks if anyone is in the hospital bay that evening and the nurse tells him there is one person- Hayden Danziger. Danziger supposedly had a mild heart attack earlier that day. Columbo begins to suspect Danziger. The set up looks too obvious. Why didn't the killer get rid of the gun into the sea? Columbo does his usual routine of asking the killer to help him. Danziger tells him that the killer probably didn't have time to go on deck to ditch the gun, as time was tight. Columbo says that's possible, particularly when Danziger points out to him that you can not open the portholes in the side of the boat! Columbo has not found the surgical gloves that the killer used (Danziger threw them off the ship). There are no finger prints on the gun and he knows there is a set of gloves missing from the cabinet in the hospital. Harrington is a diabetic though, and he often visited the hospital. Columbo finds out the ships stairwell runs from the top floor where the hospital is all the way down to the bottom of the ship. Therefore he knows Danziger could have gone undetected from the hospital. He also knows people in the motor trade, which Danziger is, have a Curtis clipper, a way of duplicating keys. That is how he got back into the hospital. He also is sure it would have to be someone who was a member of the crew or who had taken the cruise before because the killer knew what time Rosanna went to her dressing room during the intermission. Danziger took the cruise earlier that year. He finds out that Rosanna had another love interest, though he doesn't know who it was, and also knows that Danziger's wife is a wealthy woman. Now Columbo has worked out the motive. He asks the ship's doctor about ways of faking a heart attack and finds that amir nitrate capsules would do the trick. He sifts the swimming pool where Danziger had his heart attack and finds two empty capsules in the vent. He still hasn't got enough proof to arrest Danziger so he falls back on his old friend trickery. He says that if he finds the gloves complete with powder stains from the gun, then he will be able to arrest the killer for sure. Danziger takes another pair of gloves from the hospital and fires the gun in a boiler room where it's very noisy and the sound goes undetected. He then hides the gloves. Later that day Columbo informs him that the gloves have been found and he examines them. He tells Danziger that surgical gloves aren't like leather gloves. The person who wears them leaves fingerprint and palm prints inside. He compares the prints to a sample of Harrington's and they don't match. Then he takes Danziger's and hey presto! Columbo then tells him that he was on to him almost immediately when he saw the feather in the hospital. The pillows in the hospital are made of foam rubber in case the patients have allergies, which means that the feather must have been from a pillow in a bedroom in the ship.
VERDICT: Robert Vaughn comes from the classic mould of Columbo villains and gives a good performance as Hayden Danziger. The murder is well conceived, though the receipt for the gun is a little obvious. Columbo is on to that almost immediately. The killer would have to be pretty stupid to keep the receipt. The ship has an English crew led by Captain Gibbon (Patrick MacNee). In fact Gibbon is in overall charge and Columbo is acting on his orders. The setting of a ship is refreshingly different and is an ideal place for a murder. All in all this episode is very good, though not one of the absolute best.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Hayden Danziger......Robert Vaughn
Lloyd Harrington....Dean Stockwell
Captain Gibbon......Patrick MacNee
Rosanna Wells.........Poupee Bocar
Purser Watkins.........Bernard Fox
Dr Frank Pierce.....Robert Douglas
Nurse Melissa........Susan Damante
Sylvia Danziger.........Jane Greer
