Bats to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

 

It sometimes shocks me to find out that a movie I loved when I was younger is not one I have ever reviewed on The Midnite Drive-In. I would have sworn I had covered this movie at some point, and recently, after listening to a movie review  podcast on the film, I went through the archives, expecting to refresh my memory of what I wrote about it.  But, surprise, although I had done one on Batman and Robin, I had never covered the one that started it all.

Batman has some fond memories for me. See the "personal note" at the end of this prologue. 

When it came time to cast the film, as usual, there were a lot of A-list actors who lined up for the role of the Joker. Brad Dourif, who was the voice of Chucky in nearly every Child's Play movie, I think would have made an excellent Joker, but others who attempted auditions included Ray Liotta, John Lithgow(!), Tim Curry(!!) and even Robin Williams(!!!). (I heard somewhere that that was how the studio convinced Jack Nicholson to take the role... as in, "Well, if you don't do it we are gonna go with Robin Williams...")

Kim Basinger landed the role of Vicki Vale rather fortuitously, at least for her.  The original role was going to go to Sean Young (Blade Runner), but she had a horse riding accident that took her out of the picture.  Basinger came at the suggestion of producer Jon Peters, and that was that.  

The casting for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman had several intriguing possibilities, too. Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid, Tom Selleck(!), Harrison Ford(!!) and Charlie Sheen(?) were all interested. The studio tried to get Pierce Brosnan interested but he had no interest in playing a comic book character. Too bad. But can you imagine... if he had, he might not have been available to play James Bond in the late 90's. (Brosnan is my second favorite Bond, behind Roger Moore... and, yes, I know I am in a minority there.) 

But of course, we all know that the final result was the casting of Micheal Keaton in the primo role. 

If you weren't alive in the early 80's you probably have no clue as to what a hubbub the casting of Michael Keaton in the role of Batman caused. Prior to this film, Keaton was mostly known for oddball comedies, many of which his character in the film was a bit unhinged.  Like Night Shift, Johnny Dangeously and, most recently at the time, Beetlejuice. Serious Batman fans who were expecting a drastic reformation of the campy 60's TV (and movie) Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward were, needlessly to say, dismissive of the casting.  Micheal Keaton? "Beetlejuice" is going to be "Batman"? Some 50,000 protest letters were sent to the studio when the casting was revealed.

But, guess what? When it came time to tally up the effect that apparent faux pas had on the viewing public that consternation withered away. Unlike the fears and trepidation that Keaton would just rehash the old campy TV show, Burton and Keaton and company surprised the viewing public with a darker and grittier Batman, much like the then current and popular rehashing in the comic world by Frank Miller. Miller had, in 1986, presented a new look to Batman franchise in the comic world, Batman: The Dark Knight. The new Batman took it's cue from that  series.  

 

 

 

 

Batman (1989): 

The opening involves a family of three exiting a venue and trying to find a cab.  Your first impression will probably be, as was mine, that this is the introduction to the origin of the Batman, since everyone knows that Bruce Wayne's parents were killed when he was a kid.  But if you are observant it will become readily apparent that these three are tourists in Gotham, not young Wayne and his parents, who were rich socialites already established in the city. 

Hoodlums assault the family and make off with their booty, but while divvying up their treasure, discuss the recent sightings of a "giant bat" that had sent one of their buddies off a roof. Even though one of them is dismissive of the legend, the "giant bat" in question, Batman (Michael Keaton) shows up and dispatches, although does not kill, the hoodlums. Instead he tells one of them to tell all his friends about the vigilante.

 

 Hood: "Who ARE you?"

Batman: "I'm Batman"

While the hood is carted off, raving about giant bats, Lt. Eckhardt (William Hootkins) meets up with Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), the second in command of top crime boss of Gotham, Carl Grissom (Jack Palance). Eckhardt doesn't like Napier much and the feeling is mutual. Eckhardt has been taking bribes from Grissom to keep a lid on the investigation into his underworld activities. (Eckhardt is obviously not a very nice character himself.)

 

Side Note: William Hootkins is probably one of the greatest character actors in the late 70's and 80's. One of his first roles was as Porkins (also known as Red Six) in Star Wars, and due to that role he became well remembered, at least with the Star Wars geeks.  But one of my favorite has to be his brief role as Munson in Flash Gordon.  You would also remember him in the early part of Raiders of the Lost Ark as one of the Army men who visit Indiana Jones to lure him into the search for the lost ark.

In the normal world things are going along as would be expected. Top investigative reporter for the Gotham newspaper, Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) is investigating these mysterious sightings of a giant bat wreaking havoc in the criminal underworld, but Mayor Borg (Lee Wallace), District Attorney Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) and Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) are refusing to cooperate.  Knox doesn't have many friends on his side taking him seriously until he meets a photographer, Vicki Vale (Kim Bassinger), who is interested in pairing up with him to investigate the vigilante.

 

(l to r): Dent, Mayor and Gordon

 

(l to r): Knox and Vicki

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Grissom discusses with Napier how to deal with the threat from the police. He sets Napier up to be arrested during a sabotage operation on one of his "legal" holdings, Axis Chemicals. The reason he is setting up his second in command is that Napier has been making time with Grissom's woman, Alicia (Jerry Hall). 

 

At the plant, while Napier is carrying out the sabotage, the police arrive and so does Batman. In a battle between the forces of good and evil, Batman apparently tries to apprehend Napier, but loses his grip and Napier falls to his (apparent) death. Gordon is furious and wants Batman arrested, but he escapes.

 

Of course, somehow Napier escapes with his life, but he is disfigured, with a hideous grin, white face and an even more vindictive personality. Transformed now as The Joker, his first act is to get revenge on Grissom for setting him up. The next act is to take over Grissom's operation, including eliminating any and all crime bosses in the city who pose a threat to his position as top criminal.

 

The Joker is increasing incensed that this Batman character is getting all the attention in the press and develops various ways to get back into the bad graces of the city. "This town needs an enema!" he shouts as he destroys yet another TV in his lair.  (TV's were still high price things in the late 80's so Joker must be making good money in his business...)

Back at the mansion, Bruce Wayne, alias Batman, is developing  a relationship with Vicki, as well as is Batman, who has rescued her on a couple of occasions. 

 

Wayne's butler, Alfred (Michael Gough), alternately tries to get Wayne to back off his vigilante quest, as well as tries to encourage Wayne to let Vicki in on the truth. 

 

The Joker is also trying to horn in on Vicki's romantic escapades. He variously tries to romance Vicki, although not entirely in a Casanova fashion. When he shows up at Vicki's apartment he encounters Wayne and shoots him in a jealous rage, but not before saying to him "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?". Wayne, of course, survives, but now he realizes that the Joker is the same hoodlum that shot his parents. (Note: In the history of the original comic book story, the actual murderer was a guy named "Joe Chill", and not actually The Joker, but this being Hollywood, you gotta have all these loose ends tie up conveniently, so...)

 

The ultimate showdown involves The Joker presenting a parade for the city of Gotham, complete with parade, balloons and huge drops of cash on the citizens.  But The Joker's plan does not really involve charity. He intends to blanket the city in a gas that will kill every one who breathes it in. Batman flies in, literally, to the rescue and thwarts the Joker's plans, leading to an ultimate battle atop the city cathedral.

 

The story itself is secondary to the production of the film.  Much of the story comes off as a little cheesy these days, but Tim Burton and company made the city of Gotham come to life.  The dark feeling of a city on the verge of financial ruin due to the rampant crime in the city is visually impressive. There were a few plot holes that stuck out for me, however.

Primarily the one that hit hardest for me is early in the movie. Vicki Vale and Alexander Knox show up at a charity event in order to try to corner the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon for an interview on the sightings of Batman. Both meet up with Bruce Wayne, but neither of them initially know who he is. These are established news people, and neither of them has ever even seen a picture of Gotham's most famous resident??? I don't believe it.

 

The second one is that entire parade scene.  Have you ever tried to throw a parade, impromptu, in a city, especially one the size of Gotham? Barring the red tape need to create such an event, such as clearing the streets and police protection, just the idea that anyone, including a bigwig crime boss, could pull it off at the drop of a hat is unbelievable. But then, if the Joker had had to go through the proper channels, the whole thing would have been dead in the water at the outset, and then how would we get to that final confrontation?

One other thing that glares, although not necessarily a plot hole, is the scene where Batman, flying the Bat plane, zeroes in on the Joker, blatantly taunting him on the city street. Batman fires machine guns and a couple of missiles at the Joker and misses him completely.  With all the money that Wayne had at his disposal to have that plane built, Batman couldn't have a targeting system better equipped to perform that task?

 

The film made an astounding $250 million in American tickets alone, and $411 million world wide, putting to shame such box office dynamos of the year Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters II. As a Warner Bros. film, it held the rank of the highest grossing film of that studio for 7 years. (Twister, released in 1996, broke that record for WB.) Critics sometimes disparaged the movie as "too dark" but audiences loved it (yours truly included).

It would probably be negligent of me not to mention the phenomenal sales of the soundtrack, featuring a few songs made for the movie by Prince.  However, not only does Danny Elfman's soundtrack surpass anything that Prince contributes, but Prince doesn't even get featured in a scene until nearly an hour into the movie. 

Personal note: At the time this movie was released I was in the D.C. area for a working vacation, working a job during the day and attending Christian leadership conferences at night. My whole group, representing Southwest Texas State University, made a fellowship date one Saturday and saw it. A short time later one of my fellow student attendees bought a Batman logo tee and traded it to me for doing his clothes washing. Kept it for years until a medium tee would no longer fit me.

Well, folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth (which by the way is blue, not green and purple, so don't mistake me for one of the Joker's henchmen...) Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

 

Shakespeare on the Base

 

 

 

"Hamlet's mama, she's the Queen!

Buys it in the final scene!

Drinks a glass of funky wine!

Now she's Satan's Valentine!" 

 

 -Army march chant from Renaissance Man 

 

Penny Marshall, the director of Renaissance Man, is credited with only 7 feature length theatrical releases. While hardly anyone could dispute that Big and A League of Their Own deserve to be in the top slots (and Awakenings is also there, but I've never seen it) the other four movies are probably ranked variably. The four in question here are The Preacher's Wife, Riding in the Car with Boys, Jumpin' Jack Flash and Renaissance Man. (That order is the way they are listed, as the bottom of the list of the seven, on Rotten Tomatoes).

I never really liked the remake of the classic The Bishop's Wife although it was admittedly well done. And Jumpin' Jack Flash was just ridiculous. I can't say much about Riding in Cars with Boys, since that's another movie I haven't seen. But I think that Renaissance Man doesn't get as much love as it deserves. For one thing, there are some standout performances here. The movie features some up and coming actors and actresses in their first (or at least early roles).

Marky Mark Walberg got his first big meaty role here. Stacey Dash, Cher's (Alicia Silverstone) best friend in Clueless,  Kadeem Hardison, a co-star on the Cosby Show spinoff, Lillo Brancato, Jr., who got his start in A Bronx Tale a year earlier, and Richard T. Jones, who most recently has been a member of the cast of the TV series The Rookie are among the stars. 

Also featured in the cast were Gregory Hines as the drill sergeant, Sgt. Cass. Hines was a tap dancer turned actor who made several memorable roles come to life, such as the tap dancer Raymond Greenwood, an ex-patriot tap dancer living in Communist Russia in White Knights. James Remar, whose first prominent role was as Ajax in one of my favorite movies, The Warriors, plays Rago's main Army contact, Capt. Murdoch. Cliff Robertson also makes a brief appearance as Murdoch's superior, Colonel James.

With such talent, it seems a shame this movie never had the impact that it potentially could have had.  Roger Ebert claimed that "the touch that was used so well in director Penny Marshall's previous films Big and A League of Their Own is totally missing in Renaissance Man and it feels like a cross between Dead Poet's Society and Private Benjamin but does not have the warmth or spirit of those films". Other critics found similar faults with the movie.

Renaissance Man (1994):

Bill Rago (Danny DeVito) is a struggling ad man who is trying to get a client interested in his sales pitch. The problem is that Bill is late for the meeting and having to do the sales pitch by cell phone. And why is he late? Because he is stuck in traffic. (A personal note: If MY job was on the line in this situation with a big money account on the line I'd just abandon the car and deal with the tow and fees later, but that's me.)

 

 

 

Because Bill has been having some personal issues that came prior to this incident, he is canned. And forced to go on unemployment. Rago has a rather abrasive attitude about this predicament, and gets on the wrong side with his case worker at the outset, but eventually she finds work for him. Although maybe not exactly what he is expecting. Or even wants.

It seems that the job given to him is to be a teacher to a batch of Army recruits who are about to wash out of the service because they have trouble comprehending. Just what they are having trouble comprehending is never fully established, and this is one of the few nitpicks I have with the film. It's not exactly like they are mentally deficient like Forrest Gump. Although the rest of the camp refers to them as the "Double D's", which stand for "dumb as dog $^:+". 

 

 

The soldiers in question, Privates Donnie Benitez (Lillo Brancato, Jr.), Billy Davis, Jr. (Peter Simmons), Tommy Lee Haywood (Mark Wahlberg), Roosevelt Hobbs (Khalil Kain), Jackson Leroy (Richard T. Jones), Melvin Melvin (Greg Sporleder), Jamaal Montgomery (Kadeem Hardison), and Miranda Myers (Stacey Dash) are sent to this class because the commanding officer of the base thinks that they are worth saving rather than washing out because they have trouble in the brains department. 

 

 

Bill, initially (as would I, to be honest) , has no idea what he is supposed to be doing.  He got the job because he has a master's degree, although not one in English or any other teaching related fields. But in the tradition of government logic that master's degree he does have must mean he can teach, so...

 

 

The film struggles through it's first 15 minutes or so, after the initial setup of the premise, especially when it comes to how Bill is finding ways to accomplish the goal he has been hired to do. The assignment that he has given them at one point is to read something and tell about what they learned. He doesn't give them anything specific, just to bring something they can read to the class. One of the funnier sequences of the film involves Benitez trying to figure out what is going on in an Archie comic book.

 

 

The students ask Bill what he is reading and he tells them it is a Shakespeare play, "Hamlet". So, OK, maybe these guys aren't all on the ball, but none of them know who Shakespeare is. (Did they all drop out of school before they reached junior high?) When Bill tells them it's about "sex, murder, incest, insanity". Which, needless to say, intrigues these recruits. And thus, Bill has his new agenda, trying to teach them to understand the intricacies of the language of The Bard and what it all means. 

 

 

Meanwhile Bill is becoming increasingly at odds with the recruits' drill sergeant, Sgt. Cass (Gregory Hines). (Cass, by the way, is never given a first name in the film, but Bill keeps calling him "Lou". Whether Bill had a combative relationship with a guy named Lou in his past is not revealed, or why he uses that particular name, but in the interest of this blog I will use that name from here on out).

 

 

Another funny incident occurs when Lou is chewing out Davis for showing up late for drill. Trying to get Lou to go easy on him only causes Lou to become even more hostile to Bill, as this is seen as an affront to his position of authority as a drill instructor. Bill tells Lou to chill out, calling Lou anal.  "Gee, you must've been potty trained at gunpoint!" (And at this point, I'm thinking Lou might just try to do some impromptu potty-training on Bill).

 

 

As the lessons continue, Bill assigns each cadet with a role in the play. When Davis is assigned the role of Queen Gertrude he responds with shock. "Isn't that a girl's part?" To which Bill informs the cadets that in Shakespeare's day ALL parts were played by males. And Myers responds with a comment that "You mean that Romeo and Juliet were a couple of guys?" (Wait a minute, if none of these recruits know who Shakespeare is how does Myers know about "Romeo and Juliet"?)

 

 

Bill makes one rather grievous error during his tenure. He thinks that Pvt. Hobbs may be getting the short end of the shaft, that he may be brighter than anyone thinks, and has the superiors look into his record. Unfortunately this ends up revealing that Hobbs is on the lam from the authorities for having been charged with drug dealing, and ends up with his arrest. Bill is just as devastated by this turn of events as the recruits are, but he has to make some serious amends to regain their trust. Eventually Bill makes headway in his teaching and even takes the recruits on a trip across the border into Canada to see a performance of Henry V. (Another nitpick here. Is it even remotely possible that these recruits could go on a road trip during basic training without being accompanied by an officer? Just wondering.)

 

At one point in the film, the recruits, eager to show Bill they are actually getting what he is teaching, improvise a rap performance, in which all but one of the recruits join into the rap. The interesting thing about this scene is... the one guy not actually performing in the rap piece they have created? It's Marky Mark Wahlberg, the only bonafide rap artist in the movie... But Wahlberg was the writer of the rap piece, so his input was instrumental in it's own way.

 

 

 

Lou, who thinks this whole classroom thing is a waste of time, keeps trying to undermine Bill and his class. At one point he asks Melvin to recite some Shakespeare, but Melvin is not able to do it. But when Lou asks Benitez to recite Shakespeare, he quotes almost verbatim the St. Crispin's Day speech  from the play they saw the other day, Henry V.

 

 

Bill has plans to present a final exam for the class, but this runs afoul with the higher ups, because if he fails any recruit they are potentially washed out as soldiers. Bill is determined though, but he presents it to the class that they will not be required to take the test.  Of course, on the day of the test, the recruits do show up. (And how could it be any other way? The film would have been for naught if they all opted out).

 

 

There is some wrap in the transformation of Bill from a rather cynical and combative type to one who becomes more attuned to the feelings of those around him. One of the side stories is how Bill deals with his daughter,  Emily (Alanna Ubach). Emily wants to be an astronomer, which Bill is dismissive of at first, but due to his transformation eventually comes to encourage her ambition.

 

 

Also, being helpful with his recruits ends up with having something good come out of that too, as Pvt, Davis' oft spouted belief that his daddy was a Vietnam War hero is vindicated when the top brass award him the Silver Star that should have been presented to his family 20 years earlier. 

 

 

Renaissance Man was a bomb at the box office. It barely made half of it's production money back ($24 million against a budget of $40 million).  The producers apparently didn't expect much from this movie at the outset.  It was released in the summer (June 3) , for one thing, a time when blockbusters of the year would dominate the the theater. Renaissance Man had to compete with such dynamos of the big screen as Speed, True Lies, The Lion King, Beverly Hills Cop III and Wyatt Earp. And that's just during it's first  two weeks. This is a movie that might have benefited from a later release, like maybe November, where the biggest competition was probably only Star Trek: Generations. 

 

To be fair, the film does have some tendencies towards sentimentality that seems a bit out of place. The relationship between Stacey Dash's Private Myers and Khalil Kain's Private Hobbs is never fully established  during the first half of the film, so her reaction to the arrest of Hobbs in the second half comes off as a bit contrived. And the final scene where Peter Simmons' Private Davis' devotion to his supposed Vietnam War hero dad is vindicated, although emotionally encouraging, seems to be there only for the effect. 

 

I am dedicating this post to my friend, Rachel, of Hamlette's Soliloquy.  Simply because of her love for the original Shakespeare classic play featured here. 

 

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home. 4:30 reveille comes awful early.

 

Quiggy

 

 

 

 

Novel Ways to Commit Murder

 

 

This is my entry in the Classic Television Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Corner

 

Who remembers Columbo? Probably close to 90% of you, I bet...

It was one of four recurring mystery series stories that ran during the 1970's. The show, The NBC Mystery Movie, was what is referred to in the language of the film industry as a "wheel" series. Originally the show would have a different character each week in a rotating fashion. One week it would be Columbo, the next week it would be McCloud (featuring Dennis Weaver as a New Mexico police deputy on loan to the New York City Police Department) and then the next week it would be McMillan and Wife (featuring Rock Hudson and Susan St. James as a husband and wife team solving murders). Additionally, for a brief period, Hec Ramsey (featuring Richard Boone as a lawman in the turn of the century old west) appeared in the mix, but that one never really took off.

The popularity of The NBC Mystery Movie series also spawned several imitations that tried to cash in on the concept. The NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie also featured a rotating group of private eyes/ police detective dramas, some of which did garner some attention. Quincy, M.E., a series featuring Jack Klugman as a medical examiner in Los Angeles, got it's start under that banner, but most of the others are probably only known to those of us who were alive at the time of the series. (I always wished Lanigan's Rabbi, a series based on the mysteries of Harry Kemelman about a Jewish rabbi who constantly found himself in the middle of crime investigation, had made it, but it never took off).

For that matter, the whole project of the additional mystery "wheel" of The Wednesday Mystery Movie never really garnered the audience that NBC hoped for. I can't really say why, because a check of the TV schedule for that night, for the most part, had it up against ABC Movie of the Week, which was just made-for TV movies, and Cannon. Cannon, which starred an overweight William Conrad as a private eye, was pretty good, to be fair, but I thought some of those stories on the NBC wheel had potential.

Although both McCloud and McMillan and Wife both had their share of popularity, neither of them really had the lasting effect that Columbo did. After all, those other two only managed to get one, that's it, one follow up TV movie in the late 80's, at the same time they were resurrecting Columbo. That series, on the other hand, got 13 follow up TV movies in the 80's and 90's. Much of this had to do with how endearing Falk was as the title character to be sure. 

But the unique thing about Columbo as a mystery series was that we, as the audience, already knew who the murderer was and how he committed said murder. The hook was watching how Columbo (Peter Falk) would gradually break it all down and come across the clues that lead him to solve the murder. All the while coming across as a scatterbrain to his potential nemesis (the murderer in question).

 

Additionally, you got to see some pretty big names featured as the "Murderer of the Week".  Over the span of the 7 seasons of the original series as well as the 13 follow up TV movies we got to see Columbo match wits with the likes of Eddie Albert, Gene Barry, Dabney Coleman, Robert Culp, Faye Dunaway, Dick van Dyke, Lee Grant, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh,  Roddy McDowell, Ray Milland,  Ricardo Montalban, Leonard Nimoy, Donald Pleasence, and William Shatner.

One of the more interesting actors playing the villain in these episodes was Jack Cassidy. Although Cassidy never really hit the big time in feature films, he was a recognizable face on TV, making guest appearances on dozens of TV shows in the 60's and 70's, as well as being a face on several celebrity game shows of the era. Whether or not you know the name, you would surely recognize his face if you grew up at that time.

 

Even if you don't know who he is, you would surely be familiar with his two sons, who were also big time faces in the 70's.

 

David (left) and Shaun (right) Cassidy

 

Cassidy played the villain in three episodes of Columbo.  If he hadn't passed away in 1977, I feel sure he could have gotten the casting call to play another villain when the TV movie Columbo fad hit the airwaves back in the 90's.

So, I am going to cover two of his better performances on Columbo. A website I saw when researching this blog entry, one dedicated to the whole series (Columbophile), ranks both of these episodes in his top 5 episodes. And I wholeheartedly agree.

 

Columbo "Murder by the Book" (aired Sept. 15, 1971):

"Murder by the Book" was the 3rd episode of the first season of the series (although officially, it was the first of the actual season run, since the first two were "one off" TV movies airing in winter of 1967-68 and the winter of 1970-71).

The central story is that Ken Franklin (Jack Cassidy) and Jim Farris (Martin Milner) have a successful tour as the writing team who created an amateur sleuth named Mrs. Melville. I say "team" because both their names are on the cover, but it becomes evident early on that Farris has been doing the bulk of the writing and that Franklin has been just the face you see on TV and in public. Franklin, according to Farris' wife, Joanna (Rosemary Forsyth), hasn't written a word of the Mrs. Melville books in years.

 

So Farris and Franklin have decided to terminate the partnership. Or Farris has determined that at least. It turns out that Franklin has a different termination in mind...

In a rather intricate plot, Franklin lures Farris to his cabin in the boondocks south of LA. Farris, although reluctant, agrees.  He even agrees to phone Joanna and claim he is "working late" at the office, so that Joanna thinks he is still in LA. When Franklin gets Farris to the cabin, he shoots his partner, all while Farris is on the phone with his wife, giving her the "ruse" that Franklin gave him to use.

In preparation, just before the pair leave LA, Franklin ransacks Farris office to give the impression that there was something going on in Farris own private life. Franklin has concocted a story that Farris was supposedly working on a new book which was supposed to be an expose of East Coast syndicate (read "Mafia", although that word is never used.)

 

Columbo is on the scene at the office, although as a homicide detective he is only there on his own initiative, since there is no indication that a homicide has been committed as yet. Franklin, having been called at his cabin by Joanna, commits his first mistake, in Columbo's thinking, by driving back to LA instead of flying.

The plot thickens when Franklin dumps the body on his front lawn, and tells Columbo that it is apparently a warning from the Mob, even though, as he admits, he, Franklin, had nothing to do with Farris new book idea. Columbo is slightly confused, since when Franklin called the police about the body, he was at the same time opening his mail. Why would anyone bother with opening their mail when there was a dead body on his front lawn, Columbo wonders.

In the meantime Franklin has to deal with Lily La Sanka (Barbara Colby), a woman who owns a store near Franklin's cabin.  Lily has an unrequited infatuation with Franklin, but she also saw Franklin with Farris just before Farris was murdered. So she knows that Farris was not in his office, but at the cabin. Instead of going to the police with her information, she tries to blackmail Franklin, offering to keep her knowledge to herself in exchange for $15,000.

 

Knowing that this is a loose end he must clean up, Franklin ends up luring Lily to a rendezvous where he kills her. Now he has two murders on his hands.  He tries to convince Columbo that he barely knew Lily, but Columbo finds an autographed copy of the new Mrs. Melville book with an inscription that reads "to my darling Lily" which  indicates to Columbo that their relationship was not so nearly as distant as Franklin intimated.

Little things like that keep Columbo hot on the scent of Franklin as the guilty party. What with the fact that Joanna has already told Columbo that Franklin's input into most of the Mrs. Melville books was negligible, and the fact that Farris had the habit of writing down brief ideas on scraps of paper and matchbooks, Columbo finds a piece of paper that pretty much encapsulates what Franklin did in reality. And Columbo presses Franklin with the evidence.

It turns out, in the denouement, that the idea that was on the paper was actually the "only good idea" that Franklin had ever posited during their partnership. 

The series just barely getting started there are a few things that became a regular part of the series that are missing from this episode.  For one thing, the classic "oh, just one more thing" line that would often be a part of the series never happens in this episode. But even without some of those quirks that would later endear the character to the audience, the episode clicks.  And of course, one of those things is an excellent villain. Cassidy is definitely one of the more believable and more sinister villains of the series.

A couple of other things: This was an early effort by Steven Spielberg as a director. Spielberg was still basically an unknown in Hollywood, still several years away from Jaws, but he had done some directing in TV by this time, in particular a segment of the first episode of Rod Serling's follow up to The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery. Also this was an early effort by scriptwriter Steven Bochco, who would later come to fame as a writer and creator for such shows as Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law.

 

 

Columbo "Publish or Perish" (aired Jan. 18, 1974):

Riley Greenleaf (Jack Cassidy) has a problem. Greenleaf is a publisher and his cash cow, the very talented Alan Mallory (Mickey Spillane) is about to jump ship and sign with another publisher. 

 

Greenleaf is so adamant about not having his prize writer go to a competitor that he is willing to kill off the man.  As such he has hired a would-be assassin, Eddie Kane (John Chandler), to break in to Mallory's apartment and shoot him.

 

But Greenleaf isn't going to do this without setting himself up with an alibi, because, after all, being that he has shown some reluctance to let bygones be bygones, obviously he would be the first candidate to be investigated should anything happen to Mallory. So he makes damn sure that his assassin knows that he should kill Mallory at a specific time, thus making an alibi that Greenleaf sets up for himself eliminate him as a suspect.

But Greenleaf has an even more devious mind than just that. He has Kane use a gun that will prove to only have Greenleaf's fingerprints on it. And to leave the gun and the key (which only Greenleaf supposedly has the second copy) on the floor of Mallory's apartment.

Meanwhile Greenleaf sets himself up with his alibi.  He is (supposedly) getting drunk in a town far away from the murder scene. And not only that, but just to put the final candle on the cake, he intentionally runs into another car in the parking lot as he is leaving the bar, one which has a husband and wife in it, thus establishing that he was nowhere near Mallory's place when he was shot.

 

So when Columbo arrives on the scene, he finds the key and also the gun. Open and shut case, thinks Columbo. Not only that, but initially Greenleaf says he can't remember where he was last night.  He woke up in the drunk tank at the jail is all he can remember. He has to admit that the evidence seems to prove that he actually did kill Mallory, probably in a drunken rage.    

 But fortunately for Greenleaf a call comes in from his insurance agent. He was in an accident in a parking lot of a bar across town. Relieved, Greenleaf says it's a good thing those people came forward. Except, Greenleaf makes his first stumble, because no one had said the accident involved more than one person... So how would he know there was more people than one in the car.

 

These things never get by Columbo. He points it out to Greenleaf, but of course Greenleaf manages to worm his way out of the faux pas... so he thinks.  But in addition there is the problem of the key.  How did the killer get the key?  Conveniently Greenleaf says he was in the habit of keeping it in his glove compartment in his car and it appears that both were stolen at some point.

But the key found in the apartment doesn't open the lock on the door.  Mallory had changed the locks a few weeks before. Greenleaf thinks he's in trouble, but he manages to get a new key for the door.  And he goes to see Eddie.  He poisons Eddie, who was a loose end anyway, plants the key on him. He thin types up a rough draft of the script that Mallory was working on, thus making it seem that Eddie had the original idea and killed Mallory and framed Greenleaf in the mix. And blows up the apartment, making it seem that Eddie, who was a demolitions expert, accidentally blew himself up.

 

The problem with the outline was that Greenleaf, who had been getting updates on Mallory's story because he was bribing a messenger for the typing service that was typing up the story from Mallory's vocal tapes, was going by the current story line. So, even though the incriminating plot outline that he left in Eddie's office seems to indicate that Mallory and Greenleaf had stolen Eddie's idea, there is no way that Eddie's "original" idea was really his, because Mallory had changed the ending only a few days ago.

The reason Mallory had changed the ending was that there was an interest in filming the story for a movie, starring Rock Hudson, but the original idea had the main character die, and Hollywood demanded the change. Because "for $100,000 you don't kill Rock Hudson". Mallory had edited his original outline to leave the central character of the novel alive at the end, not dead as he had originally envisioned it. So, in essence, Eddie could not have come up with the idea 9 months before after all.

Not only do you get Falk in his usual scatterbrained manner discerning the clues, and Jack Cassidy who probably is one of the better actors to play a villain on Columbo, but you get the added bonus of John Chandler's absolutely unhinged ex-Vietnam vet. Chandler's screen time is fairly brief, since he is after all just a secondary character, but I really believed he could have pulled off the things he does.  

One of the reasons that Eddie is willing to do this deed is that Greenleaf has promised to publish Eddie's own book, one on how to make bombs the right way.  This is one of the plot points that I found slightly unbelievable, because what publisher in his right mind would publish such a book? 

(Of course, a guy named William Powell had written a book in 1971, The Anarchist's Cookbook, which detailed how to do such things, but that book was published underground, not by a reputable publisher. BTW, according to a note on Amazon, the author himself has tried to take that book out of circulation as he claims he no longer agrees with what he wrote. Given the time of the show, 1974,  it would still have been relevant to some sects of society, since the ultimate goal of such groups, the end of the Vietnam War, was still a year or so way.)

 

There are a lot of details that become relevant at later points in the story, so this is one you have to be on your toes to watch.  In some of the episodes you could doze off for a few minutes and not miss much, but this one requires that you keep your full attention on it lest you miss some intricate clue. I will say that I agree with the rankings of the writer of the aforementioned blog, Columbophile, on these two episodes taken only for their position in his ranking. "Publish or Perish" is a better episode than "Murder by the Book", and it is more satisfying in the long run, although the way that Cassidy's character concedes defeat at the end is little to quick.  It seems to me that there is still some wriggle room for Greenleaf to get out of it even with the evidence that Columbo has stacked up against him.

Either way, these two episodes are a great introduction (or re-introduction, as the case may be) to the character of Columbo. If you are not blessed with access to a compilation of the series you can still access some of the episodes online.  The Columbophile blog has some of them here, including these two.

Well, that's it for now.  

Quiggy