Ransom for a Dead Man (1971 TV Movie) User Reviews

A very strong second pilot

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 19 June 2011]

I'm a fan of Columbo, and Ransom for a Dead Man is a personal favourite. It does drag towards the beginning and Patricia Mattick is rather annoying. However, the usual ingredients are there. While the production values improved a tad in quality as it progressed, the episode is still very striking to look at, and the music score is one of my personal favourites of any Columbo episode. The story once it gets going is compelling, with a well-used pivotal telephone gimmick and a classic Columbo scene at an airport, and the writing is strong throughout having some funny, thoughtful and atmospheric moments. The performances are excellent, Peter Falk is exceptional as usual and Lee Grant as a very beautiful, cold, confident and also arrogant murderess is superb. In conclusion, a great episode. 9/10 Bethany Cox

What?! A lawyer that is evil?! Say it isn't so!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 11 August 2019]

Three years after making "Prescription: Murder", the character Lieutenant Columbo was revived for a second made for TV film. This time, the formula convinced the network to greenlight the show and soon it became a regular on the weekly "Mystery Movie".

Lee Grant plays a very skilled trial lawyer who is used to winning. However, one thing in her life is NOT perfect. She's married to an older man and now that he no longer is useful in forwarding her career, she's bored with him. Instead of divorce, however, you KNOW it will end in murder. After all, it's "Columbo"!

The story is well written, the acting by Grant and the rest is quite nice and it's well worth your time. My only quibble is early in the show, you see the Lieutenant making an illegal search of a locker. With no search warrant or apparent need to search it, he did anyway.

By the way, on IMDB this is listed as the first installment of "Columbo"....but as I mentioned above, it's actually the second.

Columbo's first bowl of chili in the series.

[danrs000008 · 8/10 · 8 January 2021]

1. Peter Falk as Columbo has his hands full trying to prove his case against husband killer Leslie Williams played by the gorgeous Lee Grant. 2. Leslie's step daughter Margaret provides some help to Columbo, but I believe that she was fortunate that Leslie didn't decide to eliminate her step daughter as well! 3. I picked out one small interesting scene to mention. Shortly after Leslie takes her adversary for an airplane ride, he goes into a diner for a bowl of chili. Apparently our favorite detective has eaten there before because the cook knows that chili is Colombo's favorite dish. (In later episodes we see the lieutenant sitting down to enjoy a bowl of chili, but this is the first time we see this happen in the series). 4. In 2011 when the news reports came out that Peter Falk had passed away, I made my way to a greasy spoon diner and had a bowl of chili exactly the way Colombo liked it, with "ketchup and lots of crackers".

"From one old bag to another......."

[Jake Thingray · 13 January 2002]

A distinct improvement on PRESCRIPTION: MURDER, especially in the visual field: this was actually released in cinemas in Britain, in 1973, and it's easy to see why. Despite some gimmicky camera effects, dating the show as the product of the early 70's (but why the hell not), the style of the visuals, particularly the opening murder scene, and the atmospheric music lend the TV production an enjoyable air of assured professionalism more associated with the big screen. (Especially, one might add, with Hitchcock, whom Levinson and Link had previously written for.) Lee Grant is a simply superb adversary, coldly beautiful and never once descending to the "chink-in-the-armour" factor that let down some of the later COLUMBO murderesses. Falk looks no different in this second pilot (in effect a special, anticipating the series' current status) than he would in the series, and has also raised his voice above the near monotone employed in PRESCRIPTION: MURDER, although his loss of temper with Grant's obnoxious stepdaughter is quite unlike the easy-going Lieutenant we all know.

My absolute favorite Columbo episode

[djoeg_62 · 10/10 · 7 May 2008]

I love this Columbo pilot movie...it has a richness of production lacking in most of the regular series episodes. I wish the regular episodes looked and felt like this.

The musical score by Billy Goldenberg is absolutely beautiful...variations on a simple theme, first as a intriguing, gently unfolding tune as the murder is planned and carried out. Then, as the cover-up is under way and we are introduced to a lush dramatic orchestration of the same theme, exciting and beautiful, worthy of a James Bond film. So versatile, this amazing tune, that it is used throughout the movie without ever sounding quite the same. The final iteration is as a jaunty little ditty in the airport coffee shop that sneaks up on you...totally unnoticed until the fun wrap-up and credits. Genius! Billy Goldenberg was only 34 when he did this...a master!

I also like the way the titles at the beginning and end look. The way the camera lingers at the last scene, of nothing but an airport window, allowing the credits to play out as the music plays, is so much more satisfying, more "movie-like", than the abrupt ending cut and the harsh yellow titles against stills of prior scenes of the regular series episodes. Some have derided the digital zooms and other editing choices made in this episode, but I couldn't disagree more. One of my favorite images is of the coldly beautiful Leslie, standing at the edge of a cliff, her eyes black as night, then suddenly ablaze like diamonds. They are actually the headlights of the big Lincoln she is driving in the scene. Beautiful imagery not even attempted in the series episodes.

That gets me to my final point as to why this Columbo is a cut above...Lee Grant! I enjoy watching Columbo match wits with female adversaries, and Leslie Williams is one of the best adversaries, if not the best, he has ever had...beautiful, sexy, flirtatious, shrewd, cunning and let's not forget - "greedy". I could watch her all day...I can't get enough of her. She is in control of every frame of film she appears in, every word, movement, every breath. Lee Grant is a great actress - great acting in a really fun part.

This episode is not perfect, but the Billy Goldenberg score, the "movie" look, and especially Lee Grant elevate it to the top for me. Fun to watch anytime.

A classic Columbo

[Dphilly521 · 10/10 · 22 December 2004]

"Ransom For a Dead Man," one of the earliest episodes in the entire "Columbo" series, is also one of the best. Lee Grant is terrific as the arrogant and confident Leslie Williams who is sure that she has succeeded in fooling investigators into thinking that her husband was murdered by kidnappers. Even after Columbo subtly implies that he is on to her plan, she coldly and gloatingly dismisses him in true classic Columbo killer fashion.

Everything comes to a very desirable end with that incomparable seen in the airport. Columbo gives us a wonderful conclusion as he smoothly but surely makes that smile disappear from Leslie Williams' face. Her tribute to him after being nailed serves as very memorable and very uplifting to our hero.

Developing smoothly and brilliantly but too quick and predictable in the end

[Enneos1 · 7/10 · 4 November 2006]

So far I have seen many "Columbos". This one belongs to the better part of them all, however, it has some logical defects, as I believe. A coldblooded lawyer kills her husband and partner-in-business. Her motives can only be guessed in the midst of the film, when the daughter of her killed husband (and her step-daughter) unveils her father's character to Columbo as straightforward and honest "He could never live with a lie." The evil lawyer-woman on the other hand only wants to share in her husband's reputation and wealth - thus the reason for marrying him. According to the daughter's testimony her father finally finds out and threatens with divorce. The man is killed just in the beginning of the film - as usual in a "Columbo" - no arguments and fights are shown, therefore we have no other evidence for the woman's motive to kill him than the daughter's statement. We can also assume that the stepmother does not begrudge some money to the stepdaughter, thus adding to the motive for her crime.

The crime itself is clever carried out and the alibi built up in a sophisticated way that shows the intelligence of the woman.

Columbo works his way through the cobweb of lies and fake facts as we know him playing in this film the role of the gawky cop with special emphasis, which let's us smile many times. The filmmakers even go so far as to point out Columbo's peculiarities, his anecdotes and his "wife" (a silent role, as she is mentioned in nearly every film, but in fact never seen - experienced Columbo fans will know this) to the viewer through the killer's mouth, when she finally sees through Columbo. By then she will have regretted underestimating "bloodhound" Columbo, I am sure. The ending of the film, however, leaves me a bit puzzled behind. It comes too quickly, too predictable and does not fit in with the clever character of the evil woman - to my taste:

S p o i l e r:

In a talk with her stepmother Margaret gives her a hint, that she might shut her mouth and stop trying to track her down, when Leslie gives her a considerable amount of money in cash here and now, promising to leave the country for Europe again. Of course, this is a trap set up with Columbo, because in this way he can get hold of some bills of the "ransom" money, which in turn is the final evidence and the last nail to Leslie's coffin. Even as Columbo tries to explain it in the end (more to the viewer than to Leslie, I presume, because the filmmakers might also have felt the weakness of this ending): "You are an exceptional intelligent woman, but you have no conscience, and therefore believe, that others are alike, so hoping to "buy" Margaret's silence." - I don't swallow that. The woman is much too bright, no matter how low her conscience may be, to believe, she could settle this by paying Margaret out. Especially because it was her beloved father, whom she killed. How dumb must a killer be, to assume, that he could buy forgiveness from the victim' relatives? It also does not need much to know, that the money bills are registered and therefore must not be used, given out or spent after much dust has settled over the issue. As I said, this does not fit to the coldblooded killer-lawyer at all and leaves a good developing film with a stale end.

The second Columbo movie is a bit tie dyed...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 21 October 2023]

... but don't hold that against it.

Esteemed trial lawyer Leslie Williams (Lee Grant) murders her husband at their home, dumps the body in a remote area, and then has the whole thing set up to look like a kidnapping for 300K. That's 2.3 million dollars in 2023. She pays the ransom, but switches the bag holding the money with an empty bag at the last minute and then hides what would have been the ransom, so she has lost no money. When the police find the empty bag and Leslie's husband's body they just figure the kidnapping went bad and the thieves got away with the money. They begin a manhunt for the kidnappers and Leslie seems home free.

Enter stage left Lieutenant Columbo who has been troubled from the start by various aspects of this case. Leslie has been smart - she has no accomplices except a couple of, what were then, high tech devices. But she has an adversary - her stepdaughter who doesn't like Leslie and is aware of certain facts that have her believing that her father was murdered. Complications ensue.

There are three years between the first Columbo movie and this one, and Columbo now has his more familiar disheveled appearance. The film does some things that date itself. For some reason the producers thought fading in and out between scenes in such a way that it seems like somebody is having a bad dream is a good thing. They also have the daughter character talking about the "fuzz" - I guess they are just trying to be "with it" but it just seems funny now. Also note Columbo being fascinated with Leslie's landline attached to a punch card reader and a tape recorder.

What is a little different from this Columbo versus some of the others is that the "why" of the murder unfolds gradually, with the episode. I'd recommend it.

The lesser of the two Columbo pilot movies

[The Welsh Raging Bull · 6/10 · 7 September 2005]

Overall this second pilot for the Columbo series does not have the dramatic impact and sustained tension apparent in the original movie "Prescription: Murder." The movie does however boast a strong performance from Lee Grant as the conniving and arrogant lawyer, Leslie Williams, and an even better performance from Patricia Mattick as her single-minded, spoilt step-daughter.

Peter Falk's characterisation had positively matured since the original and some of his scenes have wonderful dialogue attached to them , which epitomise the complexities of his character.

Nevertheless, the ransom scenes which dominate the first half hour drag a little and in retrospect, one is at pains to understand why Columbo is present as the kidnapping plot develops.

The direction from Richard Irving. who also directed the original, is somewhat flat and he insists on using some intrusive, mind-numbing (and now somewhat dated) visual effects.

It's a decidedly patchily entertaining Columbo adventure, whose rather predictable ending nevertheless conflicts with the murderesses's hitherto smartness. In spite of this, the collective successes of the pilots instigated one of the best series to hit our TV screens.

A very promising pilot

[enochsneed · 9/10 · 3 September 2007]

Three years after the original Columbo pilot "Prescription: Murder", the great man got another chance for immortality in this film. Of course, the rest is history as Columbo went on to become one of the greatest and best-loved TV characters ever.

This pilot sets a high standard (which wasn't always maintained, let's be honest) and has strong writing and characterisation, as well as showing some visual flair with slow fades, jump cuts and other effects.

Columbo here is the Lieutenant we will come to love, absent-minded, rambling, but with pin-sharp instincts and a deep sense of justice ("I couldn't have you convicted on false evidence" he says at one point. He wants to catch the criminal but he will do it fairly and properly). The performances of Peter Falk and Lee Grant are excellent.

Some reviewers have felt the suspect wouldn't be stupid enough to use the ransom money after being so smart in planning the crime and covering her tracks. I think the fact the money was going into a *Swiss* bank probably made her feel it was a risk worth taking - you can't get any information out of those guys, so no-one would know it was the ransom money. Besides, she really doesn't have a conscience.

Good early Columbo murder mystery.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 15 January 2008]

The Columbo movies are all great murder mysteries to watch. Difference with most other serials/movies is that in a Columbo movie you always get to see the killing right in the beginning, which also means that you already know who is the killer. So all the Columbo movies show is how Lieutenant Columbo solves the crime, in his own unique way. This is an approach that always works surprising well and the movie also still leaves plenty of surprises, since you never know exactly how the killer came to its deed and what the motive was.

The movie gets of course carried by Peter Falk as the strange and quirky but of course clever and very observing Lieutenant Columbo. Though I liked the 'old man' Columbo better in the later TV movies. He pretends to be more stupid than he in fact of course truly is, in order to harmlessly gain trust from his suspects. It's a great character and basically the foremost reason why this Columbo TV movies are so popular and still great to watch after all those years. The Columbo movies were made in even 5 different decades, all with Peter Falk in the title role, which says something of its popularity and quality of the series, that just never seems to dry out. The series will probably won't ever stop until Peter Falk is no more. Acedemy Award winner and multiple nominee Lee Grant also plays a good role but most of the other actors in this movie seem like C-grade TV series actors. Especially Patricia Mattick was annoyingly bad and all her character ever did was moaning.

This movie is the second of two Columbo pilots. Strangely enough it was made 3 years after the first Columbo pilot "Prescription: Murder", as if the first pilot was not a total success but they still wanted to give it a chance, having faith in its potential.

It has a good story that drags a bit at points and the clues left out for Lieutenant Columbo are at times a bit too obvious but knows to keep your interest throughout. It has some interesting side-plots and developments but it doesn't ever allow things to fully develop in order to make it all fit into the time span of the movie. This also means on the other hand that the movie feels like it wrapped up too fast toward the ending.

The movie features some quirky '70's effects and trick but luckily enough it never really crosses the line. It's also a reason why this movie surely doesn't feel outdated and is actually now just still as good as ever to watch.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

There's just something bothering me........

[andeven · 9/10 · 8 August 2010]

I like almost all the Columbo episodes and this is a good one, with perhaps his sexiest adversary. However there is, for me, one glaring inconsistency - which no other reviewers have pointed out, so I hope I'm not missing something.

Early in the episode Leslie telephones a friend, asking her to ring her at 1215 the following day and simply say the word "tennis" then immediately hang up, her alleged reason for this being that she has been forgetful lately and needs to be reminded of the planned game. When the friend does so, Leslie pretends, to the witnesses she has made sure are there, that the call is the first communication from the kidnapper.

Leaving aside the unlikelihood of the resourceful Leslie relying on such an uncertain device - I wonder how she could be confident that the friend would remember or would not be late or that nothing would occur to prevent her from making the call - I find it a rather stupid thing to do anyway. The call could have been investigated. Indeed in 'telephone call' situations in other episodes, Columbo can be relied upon to check on all relevant calls to see who made them and to whom. Had he done so here, he would quickly have found the originating number and a quick visit to the friend would have exposed Leslie as a liar.

Yet neither he nor the FBI performed this obvious routine task. The only possible reason has to be that, had they done so, the episode would have lasted about twenty minutes but that is hardly a good reason within the plot. It's wrong and for me it impaired the rest of the otherwise well-constructed film.

I was sad to see that Patricia Mattick, who played the spoilt step-daughter Margaret, died aged only 52 in 2003. I think her acting here was, if anything, too good as the character was, as others have mentioned, so obnoxious that I found myself siding with the vicious, selfish and cold-hearted murderess. Surely not the intention!

Middling murder-mystery with Lt. Columbo indeed resorting to a shopworn bag of tricks...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 29 July 2007]

Lee Grant, smirking and narrowing her eyes like a cat about to pounce, plays a hotshot lady lawyer who kills her attorney husband and makes it look like a kidnapping-turned-homicide; Lt. Columbo, curiously on the case from the very beginning (before there is a dead body), matches wits with Grant, eventually using Lee's hostile step-daughter as a tool to uncover the truth. This early "Columbo" teleplay by Dean Hargrove, with an original story conceived by the team of Levinson & Link, gives us some fun background details on Columbo himself (he's nervous in planes, likes root beer and always orders chili at Barney's Beanery in Los Angeles), but skimps a bit on the lieutenant's investigation. Without showing us the homework involved, Columbo seems to be picking details out of the air (always the right details, naturally), and when he talks about the victim's car keys missing, or the car-seat being too close to the wheel, it's unfair to spring these details on us as afterthoughts (there's no suspense involved when Columbo does his puzzle-solving off-camera). Aside from cunning Grant--and Peter Falk doing his usual solid work--the acting here is relatively mediocre, and the cut-and-dried climax seems a little flat.

Kinda sexist to be honest. Hey it is! Excellent direction. Lee Grant was great. Motive very weak.

[reb-warrior · 5/10 · 25 April 2021]

It was kinda sexist, for example, Columbo says to Leslie Williams' male employee, that he didn't know how he could work for a woman. Or Margaret saying that Leslie was playing "lady lawyer" and constantly referring to her like that. And then there's the plot itself, a successful female lawyer killing her husband because he bored her. Margaret said, Leslie made her father leave the federal court and make her his partner in his firm, and that recently Leslie told her father he was a bore and wanted him to quit the firm handing it all over to her, inferring that Leslie is a career digger, I guess, akin to a gold digger.

I mean from what I saw the woman was a top-notched lawyer with a solidified reputation as an excellent lawyer. Why did she even need her husband's law firm? She could have struck out on her own. There's a thing called divorce. The motivation was so weak. And yeah I know Columbo says she has no conscience, another word, a psychopath, but she didn't strike me as stupid, but they were going with the big bad career woman scenario, so....

How did Leslie move her husband's body? She managed to get him outside to the car, lift him into the trunk, lift him out of the trunk, get him to the edge of the cliff to roll him off. All by herself. Damn, Leslie, you coulda been a weight lifter. Lol.

The thing that saves this pilot episode other than the usual great performance by Peter Falk, is the performance by Lee Grant. She was really good in the role, charismatic, and interesting. Grant and Falk's interactions were good in their cat and mouse game. Loved the airplane ride scene. The direction was also really good with the film noir style.

As much as I love the series and Peter Falk in the role, I found the story weak, with weak motivation for the murderer, and didn't care for the sexist stuff. 5/10.

very good, but kinda long

[stones78 · 29 October 2010]

If I recall correctly, Lee Grant won or was nominated for an award for her great performance of Leslie Williams, a cold blooded killer and confident lawyer who is both arrogant and greedy. She exhibits no remorse whatsoever during the entire episode, as we get to see her coldly murder her influential husband. She manipulates the detective in charge, but when the husband's body finally surfaces, Columbo is in charge and he sees right through Leslie, even when she falls apart at the bad news in front of several people. Without describing in detail the rest of the episode, there are some memorable scenes which has Columbo attempting to fly Leslie's plane, and how Leslie's step daughter Margaret constantly hounds her, because she feels that Leslie murdered her father. I thought perhaps there was a bit too much Margaret, as her tirades towards her step mother go on and on for much of the latter half of the segment. Anyhow, you'll have to sit through close to 2 hours before we finally get to the underwhelming finale when Columbo finally arrests Leslie, which seems slightly convenient rather than grand.

This is a solid season 1 episode, and watch for the fine portrayal by Lee Grant, who makes this Columbo a memorable one. Peter Falk also does a fine job as he's on the hunt after the killer.

Fascinating

[lucyrfisher · 9/10 · 14 November 2022]

Probably for the wrong reasons. I loved the over-the-top mansion full of objets d'art, and Lee Grants wardrobe of russet costumes, her orange lipstick, her "coffee shimmer" nail polish. She played her part really well, too.

The other thing that struck me - the showdown takes place in an airport which is obviously the epitome of glamour. Passengers are dressed to the nines, and the cocktail bar has tinkly music and brown plastic seats. Loved the way the muzak faded up and played behind the credits. I should have paid more attention!

I've never been that much of a Columbo fan but on this showing I need to catch up with some more episodes.

Update: Caught up. So this was a second pilot? Note the way Lee Grant's character lists Columbo's tricks and fails to be fooled by them! As usual, though, blood vapourises and small women manhandle large bodies.

Sure-Footed.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 5 January 2015]

This is the second episode in the series and Columbo's character has changed. It resembles the fumbling detective that was to become so famous, whereas the first episode, "Prescription for Murder", presented him as neat, determined, and only a bit distracted.

Lee Grant, looking smashing, is the murderess. She shoots her husband at home, then schlepps his body elsewhere, after staging a kidnapping. The idea is to have her husband killed by non-existent kidnappers so that Grant can steal the ransom money that is otherwise unavailable to her because it's in a trust for a teen age girl.

The introduction of the girl, Patricia Mattick, who hates her stepmother and is hated in return, is a bit of a distraction at first. One wonders why she returned from her fancy boarding school in Switzerland after her father's death. Besides making venomous remarks to Grant, what does she hope to accomplish? However, she is instrumentalized during the unraveling of the crime.

Falk and Grant are both fine. Falk is introduced scratching around the front door, looking for a pen he'd just dropped. (He wouldn't have done that in the first episode.) We also see him scared as a passenger in Grant's light airplane. His fear of flying isn't as amusing as some of his later phobias because the point is made a bit too obviously, but, okay, it's an incunabulum.

A real stand out is Lee Grant. She purrs her way through the story, looking slightly bored when Columbo interrogates her, staring at him out of the corners of her eyes, as if too uninterested to turn her head. She's genuinely effective.

A nice job, overall, and it established the characters and situations we would become more familiar with over the years.

Lawyer Caught By Her Own Lie

[cluckie-12826 · 8/10 · 28 September 2019]

My favorite part of this flick is the gotcha end, because that's when Columbo tells an overconfident lady lawyer killer exactly what she was: just that! Which also set the trap for herself. She's so arrogant to believe money can buy anything. Even the love of her dead victim's daughter, who got the pleasure of saying goodbye to a murderous stepmom one last time before Lt Columbo does likewise in another way that brought a big surprise for his target.

An evil woman

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 5 November 2016]

Lee Grant ever since she came off the blacklist and resumed her film career has made a real specialty in playing very bad women. In this Columbo episode she plays the trophy wife of an older judge who decides she's bored with him, but not his money. She shoots him and then arranges an elaborate charade involving a fake kidnapping with ransom and all. As she's also an attorney she knows the law pretty good.

Take a look at her facial expressions after she dumps the body in a car off an ocean cliff. That expression tells you Grant is capable of anything to get her way. She is truly scary.

But she has everyone fooled except of course Peter Falk. At first he's only an observer as the FBI is in charge of the kidnapping. He and the agent in charge Harold Gould don't get along, Gould finds him annoying and underfoot. I have to say Columbo really comes into his own when the body is discovered and it's a murder case. I love that scene with Falk and Gould.

Grant is really slick and the only other one not fooled by her is her stepdaughter Patricia Mattick.

An old friend of mine had a saying "you're a thief so you think everyone else steals". That is Lee Grant's mentality and it is what Falk and Mattick bring her down with. You have to see how they do it.

And this Columbo episode and its review is dedicated to my late friend Matthew F.X. Smith.

the second Columbo pilot

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 1 January 2016]

This was the second pilot for Columbo, done in 1971. The first one had been a TV movie, and after its success, the network asked for another pilot to see if the character could hold up in an actual series. I assume Falk's schedule accounts for the two or three-year break.

"Ransom for a Dead Man" is an excellent movie, starring Lee Grant as a cold, smart, beautiful attorney, Leslie Williams, who kills her husband and then sets everything up so that it looks like a kidnapping has occurred. Later, the police find his body.

Like so many offenders, Williams writes Columbo off as an idiot, but by the time she realizes it's an act, it's too late. "You're always going for the jugular," she notes. She does her best to off-balance him, at one point taking him flying and handing the controls to him.

If Columbo isn't bad enough, her stepdaughter Margaret comes home from Switzerland unexpectedly and is sure Williams had something to do with her father's murder.

This is a very entertaining, well-acted episode, but it has a few holes. One is the fact that without help, Williams is able to get the body, dead weight, into the trunk of her car. Secondly, and I might be mistaken, it looks like when she pushes him into the ocean, he's covered in brown paper wrapping tied up with string - not sure not only how she did that, but how she then got him down to the cliff's edge. Dealing with dead weight isn't easy.

Someone brought up a second plot hole, which I won't reveal, but I don't agree. It has to do with her stepdaughter. Williams makes an assumption about Margaret which is untrue, and Columbo tells her that her biggest problem is that she "thinks everyone is like" her.

Still, as with most of the Columbos, I liked it.

Just follow the money

[kapelusznik18 · 7/10 · 12 June 2015]

***SPOILERS*** Lady defense attorney Leslie Williams, Lee Grant, cooks up this elaborate plan to do in her husband Paul, Harlan Wade, who's law firm she a partner in as well as screw her 18 year old step daughter Margaret, Patricia Mattick, out of her $300,000.00 inheritance as well. Leslie starts by knocking off Paul after coming home from his working vacation, in a case he's handling there,in Phoenix Arizona. Paul gets a bullet between the eyes by Leslie as he walked through the front door who ends up dumping his body in the Pacific Ocean. Leslie then using letters from newspaper headlines makes out a phony random note demanding $300,000.00 for his release from his kidnapper: Real smart isn't she! But as she soon found out not as smart as the bumbling and absent minded like policeman in charge of finding Paul Let. Columbo, Peter Falk, of the LAPD.

Smelling that something isn't all that kosher in Paul's kidnapping Columbo goes along with his grieving wife Leslie's plan to pay off his kidnappers only to realize that it's all a hoax on her part in how the money was used to pay them off: By dropping it in a plastic bag at night from a plane in the middle of the California Desert! It's later when Paul's body washed up on the beach that Columbo's suspicions of Leslie's involvement in his murder became crystal clear. The keys to Paul's car were never found and the car seat was lowered to accommodate a much smaller person, Leslie, making it very obvious that he was very probably already dead in him being shot before he was dumped into the ocean!

***SPOILERS*** Putting on his usual, that worked for him so well over the years, klutzy act in order to get Leslie's guard down Columbo together with Margaret cook up a plan to get her to expose herself as her husband Paul's murder. With Margaret, who knew her all too well, putting the squeeze on Leslie to pay her off in order to keep her mouth shut about what a gold digger, not faithful wife, she was it's decided to have her paid off with some not all of the fake and not recovered $300,000.00 in ransom money. As it soon turned out it was that money, all counted and serial numbers registered by the FBI, that was all that was needed to convict her!

"Ransom for a Dead Man" (1971)

[Wuchakk · 8/10 · 18 January 2019]

PLOT: A striking, brilliant tort attorney (Lee Grant) murders her highly respected, but dull husband and stages it to be a kidnapping. Patricia Mattick plays her vengeful stepdaughter, who's just as attractive as Grant in her own younger way (some people find her character annoyingly melodramatic, but she's a teenager who KNOWS her icy stepmother murdered her father!).

COMMENTARY: This was the second pilot, released three years after the first pilot "Prescription: Murder" (1968). It's pretty much on par, switching from a debonair psychiatrist murderer to a stunning redhead lawyer, who's also a small aircraft pilot. Both antagonists accurately psychoanalyze the slightly bedraggled detective in the last act. Of the two, I prefer the first one, but they're both quality Columbo flicks.

There's a great encounter at the airport after Leslie Williams (Grant) takes Columbo for a flight. The Lieutenant brings up an old friend named Ralph and Leslie curtly asks what the point was, to which the gumshoe responds: "...when you were talking about your husband in the plane, I guess that reminded me of Ralph. You see, because Ralph, he was a bore. I mean he was so perfect, there were times I felt like killing him."

GRADE: B+/A-

Those digital zooms!

[billy-168 · 7/10 · 15 September 2007]

The murderess was brilliantly acted, but for a victim to be so honest and principled as he was described, why would such a clean living man want to marry a woman of pure deceit? I thought the step-daughter was bad tempered and obnoxious because her father had been killed, as well of her dislike of her step-mother.

Production wise, the editing showed us some rather sloppy cutting. The scene where Columbo picks the locker is bad, and the scene where the plane with Columbo and the murderer lands, suddenly has a huge building right behind it. Obviously, re-shooting these small things is a buck too far.

But a good episode, a better pilot in my view, which got its worst marks for the large amount of digital zooms, put there by the director, which I started to look out for.

Slow start, average episode.

[Apalerwuss · 5/10 · 30 March 2021]

Took way too long to get going, and this didn't need to be 90 minutes. Some terrible stylistic moments too, particularly around scene transitions. Somewhat predictable ending, but some funny shtick between Columbo and the waitress at the end just about made the whole thing worthwhile. Not one of the best Columbos all in all though.